While new flights from Asia to British Columbia increase optimism around tourism, there are still challenges, according to Rick Antonson, president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver.
Antonson was speaking at the Business Council of British Columbia?s Septmber 23 conference British Columbia?s Gateway: Realizing Canada?s Asia Pacific Opportunity. (For more on the conference, see page 26.)
?It?s a luck of geography that we have the great good fortune to be on the Pacific Rim,? Antonson said, ?but we have not done enough with that.?
Antonson noted that while Canada?s approved destination status is welcomed, it was the 134th country to receive that honour ?because we dallied around politically.? Of the nine million visitors to Vancouver every year, only one million come from Asia, he added.
?Super competition? from the U.S., other Canadian cities and emerging Asian nations present a challenge to Vancouver and British Columbia in attracting Chinese tourists, he said.
?We have no master plan for tourism in Vancouver, nor for British Columbia,? he said, adding that Tourism Vancouver?s annual $12 million budget is about a third of what is being spent by parallel groups in Toronto and Montreal, both of which are going hard after Asian tourists. ?
