Vernon Visitor Revenues Spike

Tourism numbers from the start of the summer in Vernon have been better than expected.

The City has received it’s Municipal Regional District Tax revenues (2% tax charged to hotel guests)  for June from BC Finance, and it appears the high water levels and flooding which led to limited lake access, reduced beach space, and no power boats on local lakes – didn’t have a major impact.

“Visitors still came and stayed at Vernon hotels and motels, which produced our highest monthly revenues ($88,915.85) for 2017, which is a 25.7% increase from June 2016,” says Tourism Manager Ange Chew.

“This equates to just over $4.4 million in hotel revenues and a total tourism visitors staying at hotels economic impact of $17.78 million for Vernon in June.”

Chew says Tourism Vernon is tracking 11% ahead of 2016 for the same time frame.

She says hotels and motels are about 80% full for the Labour Day long weekend.

“Our B & B’s are mostly sold out but we expect that the remaining vacancies at our hotels and motels will book up in the days to come with the forecast of sunshine straight through till the end of next week and a number of events like the IPE in Armstrong, Kalamalka Lake Classic and Apple Festival at Davison Orchards drawing visitors to Vernon.”

Current availability in Vernon for hotels include Holiday Inn Express, Prestige Inn & Suites Vernon and Vernon Lodge; Motels – Days Inn, Schell Motel Express and Polson Park Motel, while campsites and RV sites have limited capacity for RVs but more choices for camping.