The final draft of a destination development strategy for the Highway 3 corridor is ready to go public.
The “Highway 3 Corridor 10-year Destination Development Strategy” will be presented to the public at two meetings in March.
The first will be on Monday, Mar. 19 from 1:30 to 3 p.m. in Creston at the Creston Hotel (1418 Canyon St.) and the second will be on Wednesday, Mar. 21 from 1:30 to 3 p.m. in Osoyoos at the Watermark Beach Resort (15 Park Pl.).
The strategy came about after Destination BC found out that the Highway 3 Mayors’ and Chairs’ Coalition was starting work on a tourism strategy and decided to make the Highway 3 corridor a destination development region, according to Rossland Mayor Kathy Moore, who is chair of the coalition’s tourism subcommittee.
“So that really helped because then they had the resources and the facilitators and that to get these meetings together for everybody all along the highway and get the Mayors’ and Chairs’ group involved, but also all the local stakeholders,” said Moore.
Destination B.C. engaged stakeholders along the corridor, from Hope to the Alberta border, in a destination development planning process and held in-community sessions.
Moore attended a couple of those sessions and said they were quite well attended.
“You’d get economic development people, you’d get tourism providers, you’d get people from the ski association, you’d get chambers of commerce and all different people showed up at these meetings,” she said.
Moore says the 10-year destination development strategy “looks at strengths and weaknesses of the route, what kind of things we could do to improve it.”
She will be attending both the Creston and Osoyoos meetings in March, where the public will be able to learn the outcomes of the planning process and learn about the next steps.
To RSVP for the Creston launch meeting, visit eventbrite.com/e/highway-3-destination-development-launch-event-creston-tickets-42873023367.
To RSVP for the Osoyoos launch meeting, visit eventbrite.com/e/highway-3-destination-development-launch-event-osoyoos-tickets-42872646239.
