The Tourism Committee of the Columbia Valley Chamber of Commerce organized a group of local businesses to promote tourism in the Columbia Valley at the Red Deer Home Show March 8 & 9.

The tradeshow, held at Westerner Park in Red Deer, saw over 10,000 visitors over the course of two days.

Representatives from Bighorn Meadows, True Key Hotels & Resorts, Fairmont Creek Property Management and the Invermere-Panorama DMO all shared a common booth space at the tradeshow and distributed brochures from a variety of other valley businesses. The group provided visitors with information about visiting the Columbia Valley and collected contact information for approximately 500 people.

“The people we met at this tradeshow were folks who hadn’t visited the Columbia Valley for a number of years, or were unfamiliar with our region and all the benefits of visiting” said Steven Page of Fairmont Creek Property Management. “We certainly know that visitors to our region come for the sights, activities and experiences, so that was a big part of what we focused our conversations on.”

The Red Deer Home Show excursion builds on a previous event held in December 2012 in the Plus 15 hallway at Banker’s Hall in downtown Calgary where there were more than 20 Columbia Valley businesses in attendance or participated by the donation of prizes. The group came away from the Calgary event having spoken to approximately 600 people and estimates that over 3,000 white collar workers and holiday shoppers saw the event. A future event at Banker’s Hall is planned for this coming May and will be followed by a ‘media weekend’ that intends to invite media from Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Cranbrook, Golden and Revelstoke for a showcase of all that the Columbia Valley has to offer.

Tourism is a major source of employment in the Columbia Valley, according to the Tourism Association of Canada the Kootenay-Columbia (federal riding) has 8,110 jobs and 887 businesses supported by tourism. Encouraging more tourism to the Columbia Valley is the driving force behind the Tourism Marketing Committee, the group behind both of the events mentioned here. By increasing tourism to the Columbia Valley region it is the goal of this Committee to see our community, businesses and residents alike benefit from the economic spinoff which might include an increase in spending dollars available to our local governments, students in our schools, healthcare in our community and the stability in our local economy.

The purpose of this committee is to undertake activities that will further promote tourism to the Columbia Valley region for the benefit of all community groups, organizations, businesses and individuals.

The committee welcomes new committee members at the weekly Wednesday meetings at 8:30 a.m. in the Columbia Valley Chamber boardroom. Committee members are required to be members with the Columbia Valley Chamber; however, all businesses are welcome to participate in the committee’s events.

Upcoming Events: April 25 – 15th Annual Business Excellence Awards – CLICK TO NOMINATE .

Columbia Valley Chamber of Commerce

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