Mountain biking and hiking took centre stage March 28 as an enthusiastic group talked with experts about enhancing Cowichan Lake’s tourist potential.
This is the community engagement end of a project announced last fall by Community Futures, which aims to find ways to enhance tourism for the Cowichan Lake area.
The meeting area at Lake Cowichan’s public library was packed for the three-hour session, which will be followed up in another month.
According to Calum Matthews of Tourism Vancouver Island and planner Jennifer Houiellebecq, there are good reasons for starting with cycling and hiking tourism.
“Both sectors are experiencing significant growth, trails to promote this kind of tourism will increase the liveability of the area” and “will increase the value of tourism and lengthen the tourist season,” she said.
Both are low-impact sectors and can be developed sustainably and there are opportunities for new businesses as well.
Some of the strengths of the Cowichan Lake area are the lake and river, which are clean, largely undeveloped with significant potential for outdoor recreation; that it has the feeling of being remote while readily accessible; is a welcoming community; has a significant story and history to share; is located on the Pacific Marine Circle Route; has many sites of significance like waterfalls, viewpoints, and swimming areas that could be accessed by trails; and has the potential for cross-country, and enduro biking.
However, there are areas of concern that pose challenges for developing tourism in a way that would draw cyclists and hikers. These include: lack of product and visitor experiences (aside from river and lake); weak shoulder season demand; beneficial to have larger resident population but limited housing available; quality and quantity of tourist accommodation; need more youth involvement; no significant cycling culture in the community, virtually no mountain biking trails; numerous hiking trails but in various stages of disrepair, no strategy for maintenance; surrounded by private land, consent of landowners is required to develop new destination trails; requires local knowledge to find trailheads, no up-to-date trail map, lack of waymarking.
Houiellebecq told the group that Cumberland is an excellent example of what a small community on Vancouver Island can do to increase hiking and biking tourism, and urged everyone to take a closer look at that town to see what is going on there in that sector.
There are investment requirements, infrastructure requirements, and opportunities for businesses, but it will take work, she said.
Interestingly, 75 per cent of the people on the trail in Cumberland are local users, which showcases the way trails can increase the liveabililty of an area, she said. After that, there are people from the rest of the Island, then from the rest of B.C., and then outside the country.
The type of person using the biking trails in particular may come as a surprise, according to Houiellebecq.
“They have a good level of education, they have above average income, and are equally male and female. So, any idea that it’s predominantly males using the trails, especially for mountain biking, is not the case,” she said, adding that once they arrive, these tourists are spending money on accommodation, restaurants, night clubs, and other amenities in the community, along with tourist activities.
The group then sat down around tables to suggest ideas for further discussion. These have since led to a new Facebook page called Lake Community Trail crew where volunteers are actively exploring and talking up trails.
Community Futures, also heavily involved in the Cowichan Lake tourism push, has organized a survey, which should take about five minutes to complete and responses are anonymous: www.surveymonkey.com/r/ cowichanlaketourismsurvey
