Osoyoos putting out attractive new 'Welcome Mat'

With its new brand unveiled earlier this year, Osoyoos is now getting ready to put out a welcome-mat that suits the town’s new image as Canada’s Warmest Welcome. Make that four welcome-mats.

Later this fall, the four existing Osoyoos gateway signs that mark the entrance to town along the east and west approaches on Highway 3 and the north and south approaches on Highway 97 will be replaced. The new signs will state “Welcome to Osoyoos, Canada’s Warmest Welcome” and will note that the town is a B.C. Resort Community.

Destination Osoyoos Chief Executive Officer Glenn Mandziuk says the signs, which are now being constructed by Derrald Ulry and his team at Osoyoos Signs Ltd., will feature the colours and logo of the town’s new brand, and will present a high-quality entrance to visitors that gives a sense of arrival and helps to convince travelers to stop into Osoyoos.

Mandziuk says it’s all part of the recently completed Tourism Market Development Plan which is promoting Osoyoos as a prominent four-season destination and aims to increase the value of tourism to the community, with more benefits for local businesses and residents.

“Maybe we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but we all do – and these entryways give people their first hint about the character and quality of the people and businesses in Osoyoos,” Mandziuk says. “We want visitors’ first impression to be that Osoyoos is a high-quality community, where they say to themselves, ‘This looks like a great place to stop’.

Osoyoos Town Council approved the design for the new signs. Cost of the project totals $37,540 – with $31,740 coming from the Community Tourism Program of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities and $5,800 coming from the Town of Osoyoos.

TV series 'Stargate Atlantis' films in Osoyoos Area

If you happened to see an alien or a starship commander wandering around Osoyoos in the past few days, you weren’t seeing things – a number of them dropped into town earlier this month for some intergalactic filming.

Cast and crew from the award-winning sci-fi TV series Stargate Atlantis took advantage of the South Okanagan’s desert landscape to shoot scenes in two locations. The filming is for the second-last episode of this fifth – and reportedly last – season. The episode, entitled ‘Vegas’, is scheduled to air early in 2009.

Okanagan Film Commissioner Jon Summerland says he was contacted by staff of the Vancouver-based TV show when they sought desert locations that could pass for the countryside around Las Vegas. He showed them a number of locations and they chose two: one along Nighthawk Road just west of Osoyoos near the U.S. border, and one on the Osoyoos Indian Band reserve just east of Oliver. They filmed for two days in each spot, from Sept. 8-11, with scenes including a car chase, a shootout, and a major explosion blasting a campsite trailer apart.

Summerland says 90 Stargate cast and crew came to the area, and the production spent an estimated $500,000 – about $125,000 for each of the four days. Many of the personnel stayed in Osoyoos hotels. The film commissioner adds that a number of productions have filmed in the South Okanagan lately, including an episode of the ‘Mantracker’ TV series and major work for a series of TourismBC promotional commercials.

Summerland says the Okanagan Valley is poised to attract a lot more film work since the recent opening of the Okanagan Film Commission’s new 10,500-sq-ft studio in Westbank. He says with this new interior-shooting and post-production capability, it will become increasingly attractive for film, TV and commercial producers to do more work in the Okanagan – instead of just shooting outdoor scenes. This is especially true since most of Vancouver’s production space is now booked up by major companies, Summerland says.

Destination Osoyoos CEO Glenn Mandziuk is a member of the Okanagan Film Commission’s Board of Directors. He visited the Stargate Atlantis filming near Oliver with Summerland on Sept. 10 and said DO supports the growing use of the South Okanagan as a site for movies, TV shows, commercials, and corporate videos – and he notes the region has an increasing number of film crew and professionals available for this production work.

Branded Osoyoos Water now available

What do visitors to the beautiful, hot, dry Osoyoos desert need most, besides the friendly faces they meet at local businesses and attractions? Nice cool, clear water! And the best kind of water would be pure natural spring water with an ‘Osoyoos’ label on it!

The BC Visitor Centre @ Osoyoos recently began distribution and retail sales of 500-ml bottles containing some of the purest spring water in the world – from nearby Miller Springs Ltd. – with Osoyoos’ new brand logo and tagline on them: Osoyoos, Canada’s Warmest Welcome.

Cases of the water bottles have already been distributed to some local businesses and sold to tourists at the Visitor Centre, and the bottles have been handed out at some major Osoyoos functions. Businesses and groups can purchase quantities of the water bottles by contacting Destination Osoyoos.

Miller Springs natural spring water is bottled at the source on owner Dan Miller’s land near Bridesville, just west of Osoyoos. It originates from a mountain spring high on a mountain plateau, and extensive research shows it to be among the purest in the world. The water travels to the area through underground rock formations, providing natural filtration – and it undergoes three stages of additional filtration: sand, carbon, and one-micron. Then it is also treated by ultra violet lights and ozone.

Visitor Centre offers direct reservation service

One of the benefits of Osoyoos now having its own full-fledged BC Visitor Centre is the direct reservations-booking service that staff at the Centre can provide for hotels, motels, B&Bs, RV parks and campgrounds.

Jo Knight , Osoyoos’ Director of Tourism & Visitor Experience, says staff can now book tourists’ reservations on-the-spot for any facility that is an Approved Accommodation in TourismBC’s system and that has also registered to participate in TourismBC’s Reservations Program.

Knight says the Visitor Centre’s reservations work is growing. She says since this past April, her Osoyoos staff have booked more than 180 reservations – many of them for multiple-night stays – helping to match visitors with their accommodations instead of leaving them to drive around town trying to find a hotel or motel with a vacancy. “It’s of real benefit not only to the visitors, but also to our local accommodation businesses, since we do these reservations for them,” Knight adds.

She notes that while there are 35 Osoyoos accommodation businesses listed in the BC Approved Accommodation Guide, a majority have not yet registered for the Reservations Program, and she encourages them to do so. Some of the local businesses that are already participants in the Reservations Program include the Best Western, Holiday Inn, Econo Lodge, Walnut Beach Resort, and Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort & Spa.

Knight says local accommodations get many benefits from being involved in the Accommodation Guide, the Reservations Program, and the other TourismBC services such as the ‘HelloBC’ telephone and online reservations systems.

First of all, the annual BC Approved Accommodation Guide is the most-trusted national and international sourcebook for travel planning information about the province. After meeting a standardized set of requirements, a local accommodation can become an Approved Accommodation, making it eligible to be listed in the Guide and also to participate in the Reservations Program and the HelloBC listings.

Knight says with Osoyoos now an official ‘resort community’, and with many local businesses taking SuperHost training aimed at making Osoyoos a certified SuperHost community, local accommodations can continue to increase their quality of service by joining the Reservations Program. She invites anyone wanting to learn more about the system to call her at the Visitor Centre at (250) 495-5070, extension 202.

Tourism Trends

• From Oct. 27-29, more than 500 industry leaders and others interested in sustainable tourism from across Canada, the U.S. and beyond will meet in Vancouver for the Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference 2008. The event will provide opportunities for business leaders, travel and tourism professionals, and community members to gain knowledge of the latest trends in ecotourism and sustainable tourism, learn practical skills, and participate in valuable networking opportunities. To learn more about the conference and to register, visit www.ecotourismconference.org.

• BC Parks has announced it is launching a program, called ‘Make Your Mark – For a BC Park’, that will make it easy for every British Columbian to leave a legacy in their favourite provincial park during B.C.’s 150th anniversary. Members of the public will be able to sponsor a commemorative bench, picnic table or contribute to a tree-planting project in their local campground. Interested sponsors can access all sponsorship opportunities, costs and other information by going to the BC Parks website (www.bcparks.ca) and clicking on the ‘Make Your Mark – For a BC Park’ link. Bill Bennett, BC Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, says, “This innovative program allows British Columbians to welcome visitors to BC Parks in their own way.”

• Community Futures Okanagan Similkameen will offer a number of business-related workshops in the coming weeks. These workshops are free of charge, but participants must register in advance. All the sessions will be held in the training room at its offices at 102 - 3115 Skaha Lake Rd., Penticton, except as noted below. The workshops include:

-- E-Biz Boot Camp (website planning and online marketing), Sept. 18, 6-9 p.m.
-- Taking the Temperature of Your Business, Oct. 1, 6-9 p.m.
-- Creating Value in Your Business, Oct. 7, 6-9 p.m.
-- E-Biz Boot Camp #2 (search engines, Google and web-based tools), Oct. 9, 6-9 p.m.
-- Canada Revenue Agency’s Small Business Seminar, Oct. 22, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. *To be held at the Penticton Chamber of Commerce, 553 Railway St – 2nd floor.
-- Organizing Your Business for Success & Profit: Session 1 (Drafting the Operating Plan), Oct. 23, 9 a.m.-12 noon.
-- Organizing Your Business for Success & Profit: Session 2 (Implementing the Operating Plan), Oct. 28, 9 a.m.-12 noon.

For more information call Alexis Welsh, Community Business Development Manager, at 250-493-2566 ext. 232, or email her at alexis@cfokanagan.com, or see website www.cfokanagan.com.

•On Sept. 28, thousands of British Columbians will gather for the annual celebration of B.C.’s river heritage. BC Rivers Day is Canada’s largest river appreciation event, and coincides with the UN World Rivers Day, where activities will draw millions of people together in over three dozen countries. The Okanagan River has again been included on the Outdoor Recreation Council’s list of B.C.’s Most Endangered Rivers due to channelization, urban encroachment, water extraction, riparian habitat loss, and the building of dams and weirs. Attend either a local event or join in at Penticton at 9 a.m., Sept. 28 at the Green Mountain Rd. bridge parking lot as the Okanagan Similkameen Conservation Alliance and the En’owkin Center co-host a BC Rivers Day event, including a shoreline cleanup and refreshments.

• Fueled by a 1.8-per-cent increase in spending by American tourists, Canada’s international travel deficit narrowed in the second quarter of 2008. But it was still one of the highest travel-spending deficits on record. Statistics Canada reports that Canadians spent approximately $7.2 billion during travel outside of Canada, while foreigners spent $4.0 billion during travel in Canada.