Tourism industry insiders believe the BC Liberals have scored huge successes and made huge mistakes in marketing the province to the world.
The biggest win, many believe, was hosting the successful 2010 Winter Olympics.
But critics point out that the province's budget for hosting the Games ballooned from an initial estimate of approximately $165 million to a final operating budget of $1.7 billion.
Other big wins include expanding Vancouver's convention centre and improving transportation infrastructure such as the Sea to Sky Highway and contributing to build the Canada Line to Vancouver International Airport.
Critics, however, tend to agree that the government's most glaring error was former premier Gordon Campbell's 2009 decision to disband Tourism BC and make the tourism marketing organization part of the government's bureaucracy.
Recognizing that mistake, Premier Christy Clark stressed during her leadership campaign that she would reverse the move and reconstitute an industry-led destination marketing organization.
How the new body, Destination BC, will work has yet to be revealed and critics fear that it will be substantially different from what was widely seen as the successful and efficient Tourism BC.
The number of overnight visitors to Vancouver has changed little since 2002, when 8,321,683 people came to the region.
Visitor counts rose to a peak of 8,912,525 in 2007 before sinking below 2002's level in 2009 and 2011 only to rise to 8,379,261 overnight visitors in 2012.
Vancouver's hotel inventory has dropped to 24,425 rooms in 2012 from 24,790 in 2002.
Vancouver's cruise industry has shrunk far more. The city welcomed 666,240 cruise passengers in 2012 or about 59% of the 1,125,252 passengers that visited the city in 2002.
"Competition from Seattle significantly impacted the cruise market, but it is rebounding with a healthy increase in passengers expected this year," said Walt Judas, vice-president of marketing, communications and member services at Tourism Vancouver.
