Lake Cowichan town council voted last Tuesday (August 11) to move a letter in support of Tourism Vancouver Island’s Trails Strategy, which aims to stimulate economic growth and tourism in the area by enhancing the Island’s many hiking trails.
Now entering the second phase of the three-phase project, Tourism Vancouver Island is currently developing strategies on how to physically improve the selected trails by adding signage, improving mapping, marketing them to tourists and attracting investors to fund future trail improvements, management and promotion.
“Our trails are an important aspect of tourism,” Mayor Ross Forrest said at the meeting.
The first phase of the project, conducted in February, saw 235 trails across the Island, including some in the Cowichan Lake area, catalogued into the organization’s “trail inventory.”
In a release, Tourism Vancouver Island president Dave Petryk said that the organization hopes the proposed trail network system will provide a benefit for not only tourism, but to local residents by improving the outdoor recreational activities already available.
It was also noted that the Trails Strategy is being designed in a way that could be replicated on a provincial or national level.
