The B.C. government announced yesterday that it will create Destination BC – a new industry-led Crown corporation to market tourism.
The move comes several years after the government scrapped Tourism BC, which was a Crown corporation with a similar mandate.
In 2009, the Liberals, then led by former Premier Gordon Campbell, folded Tourism BC into the province's tourism ministry so it would be overseen by bureaucrats rather than the industry.
Premier Christy Clark advocated creating an industry-led tourism marketing Crown corporation when she ran for the Liberal leadership.
She told the press November 5 that the new organization was created because the tourism industry wanted it.
"What's most exciting about this new organization is that it was designed by tourism operators who know first-hand how a tourism marketing organization should be structured to help them grow their industry and create jobs," she said.
Destination BC will officially take over in April from the current organization within the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training.
Its aim will be to boost annual tourism revenue to $18 billion annually by 2016, compared with $13.4 billion in 2010.
