BC Tourism

District of Vanderhoof

Municipal Office

Weekdays 8:30 am to 4:30 pm

(Closed Statutory Holidays)

P.O. Box 900,
160 Connaught Street
Vanderhoof, British Columbia
V0J 3A0
250-567-4711 Phone
250-567-9169 Fax

Welcome To The Tourism BC

Community Tourism Foundations® Program

Information For Vanderhoof and Area

Vanderhoof has been accepted to participate in a Community Tourism Foundations® Program one day pre-qualification workshop.

Program Process:

A professional facilitator works with community stakeholders to understand the challenges and opportunities the community is facing for tourism development. This session covers key areas for planning including a Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) exercise, visioning and goal setting for tourism planning.

Participants from the workshop are encouraged to work with the local economic development office to review the draft report and be ambassadors for the tourism planning process. Ideally a Tourism Advisory Committee (TAC) will be formed to ensure a cross-section of the tourism industry is well represented.

At the conclusion of the process a Tourism Assessment Report will be produced which will summarize the key findings from the workshop and existing planning done to date.

Activities to Date:

On November 19, 2008 a Tourism Planning Workshop was held in Vanderhoof with a broad cross-section of tourism stakeholders.

At the regular meeting of council December 17, 2008 the District of Vanderhoof passed a resolution for the District of Vanderhoof to recognize that the development of the tourism industry in Vanderhoof will help increase economic diversification which will assist in the long-term sustainability of the local economy.

Recently the Upper Nechako Wilderness Council (UNWC) has received $136,000 from Western Economic Diversification to develop a marketing strategy for their twelve member lodges in the area south of Highway 16 near Vanderhoof. For the first stage, UNWC has hired Concept Design Ltd of Prince George to develop a group marketing program. This is intended to include branding, signage and a website, and is expected to be complete by May 2009. Further stages of the strategy are intended to see the marketing program implemented over the following months.

Attendees of the workshop and other interested stakeholders have been asked to form a Tourism Advisory Committee.

Next Steps

The Tourism BC Facilitator is currently working with the District of Vanderhoof Economic Development Officer, Kathy LaForge to produce the Tourism Assessment Report.

The report will be posted on this web page and Northern BC Tourism will work closely with the District of Vanderhoof to recommend Tourism BC programs that will best address the community’s needs. The community may submit an Expression of Interest to Tourism BC for the full Community Tourism Foundations program. Alternatively the District of Vanderhoof may undertake a tourism plan process independently as well.

Program Information

Community Tourism Foundations® Program. http://www.tourismbc.com/business_development.asp?id=4566

Workshop

Workshop Announcement November 2008 (PDF)

Workshop Agenda November 2008 (PDF)

Report

Tourism BC Vanderhoof and Area Tourism Assessment Final Report

Community Development Matrix

Research

Additional Research can be found at: http://www.tourismbc.com/template.asp?id=2 and www.canadatourism.com/

NRAHTA Alaska Highway Visitor Research Study, 2005 (PDF)

TAMS Canadian Visitors to BC, Campers and RVers, 2007 (PDF)