Event funding and the need for new campsites in the Cowichan region were raised as issues after a presentation by Tourism Cowichan at a recent Cowichan Valley Regional District meeting.
At the CVRD’s committee of the whole meeting on Nov. 13, North Cowichan director Chris Istace pointed out that the annual Cowichan Craft Beer and Food Festival is no longer eligible to attain grant funding from Tourism Cowichan to help market the event, and asked Kenzie Knight, a tourist development specialist for Tourism Cowichan, why that is.
The popular festival, a one-day event usually held in Chemainus that showcases the region’s vibrant culinary and craft-beer scene, was recently told that it is no longer eligible for funding from the $100,000 fund Tourism Cowichan sets aside each year for marketing grants for events.
Istace said the Chemainus Business Improvement Area recently sent a letter to Tourism Cowichan that also asks why the festival is no longer eligible for grant funding.
“This year’s festival, which saw 1,000 people attend, was sold out in a week and now there won’t be any [marketing funding from Tourism Cowichan] to help bring those people, who are primarily from Nanaimo and Victoria, to the Cowichan region for the next festival,” Istace said.
Knight said one of the main goals of the grant program is to increase off-season visitors to the region.
She said Tourism Cowichan found that many of the events it was funding from its grant program were happening in the summer months, and among the factors the organization has to consider in deciding who gets grants for their events is the capacity of local hotels to handle the demand.
“There’s not always additional hotel capacity to welcome visitors during the summer months, so it doesn’t make sense to market these events if there’s nowhere for folks to stay within the region," Knight said.
“So the program is intended to increase capacity in the [off] season when there is additional capacity to welcome guests.”
Additionally, Knight said, Tourism Cowichan refined the grant program this year to put more of a focus on new events in Cowichan, or events that are offering enhancements.
“The goal of the funding program isn’t to support more well-established, mature events that have a consistent audience base and have proven themselves to be successful,” she said.
“The program is really to support events and experiences that are in an infancy stage so they can grow and establish themselves to be available long term, so the grants aren’t meant to be a funding source that events become reliant on, they are meant to foster new events in their early years.”
Ian Morrison, director for Cowichan Lake South/Skutz Falls, said Tourism Cowichan maintains that it promotes unique and diverse accommodation options in the region, but it appears to him that the most affordable option, which is the development of more campsites, is being overlooked by the organization.
He said that, other than what Laketown Ranch has developed for the specific events it hosts, he doesn’t believe there’s been any new camping sites created in the the western section of the CVRD in decades.
“I live in a community where, on long weekends starting on Thursday evenings, we start to see the RVs, campers and the tourists driving around the lake looking for places to camp,” Morrison said.
“Is there work that’s going to be done, or a focus on that? I realize that it requires a fair bit of land and it’s not the most profitable form of accommodation available, but, as you’ve pointed out, we have an accommodation crunch.”
Knight said she thinks camping is a critical piece of accommodation, and Tourism Cowichan will continue to work to ensure camping opportunities do exist in Cowichan.
She said she would definitely be interested in looking at how Tourism Cowichan can attract additional campground investment into the region.
“The high cost of travel and the economic uncertainty does create a challenge for encouraging visitors to come to the region, especially because of B.C. Ferries and the higher cost of plane travel nowadays,” Knight said.
“Visitor spending will be decreasing and we’ve seen that this year as well, so [having more camping opportunities in Cowichan] is an area of interest.”
