Brian Lee
For years I’ve accepted that Pender Harbour and Egmont are not priorities for the destination marketing organization called Sunshine Coast Tourism. It shouldn’t surprise, really, considering it has yet to align with the times to accept that the Sunshine Coast moniker no longer includes the Powell River area (it was renamed the "Arbutus Coast" in 2012). But that’s another editorial.
Sunshine Coast Tourism was recently approved to collect a 2-per-cent hotel tax from overnight travellers, estimated to provide an additional $250,000 per year to their marketing budget. With over a dozen accommodation providers collecting this tax in Pender Harbour and Egmont, you might think our area would be provided equal exposure in their reinvigorated marketing campaign.
Nope. You have to dig deep on SCT’s website to learn about Pender Harbour and Egmont’s tourism attractions. Trip planners using the site will likely have already decided to follow the Ale Trail to Powell River before they find Princess Louisa Inlet under "Hidden Gems."
I accept that I’m biased in this regard, but it seems to me that our area should be a prominent focus for any marketing effort intended to draw visitors to the Sunshine and Arbutus Coasts. To Sunshine Coast Tourism, I submit the following:
Princess Louisa Inlet, Jervis Inlet, Hotham Sound/Freil Falls, the Skookumchuck, Klein Lake, Ruby and Sakinaw Lakes, Iris Griffith Centre, P. H. Golf Course, Garden Bay’s many lakes, Suncoaster Trail, MacNeill Lake trails, Mt. Daniel, Pender Hill, Francis Point Marina Park, Mt. Hallowell, Thormanby Island, Roberts Beach/Nelson Island, Baker Beach and the many excellent galleries, restaurants, resorts and pubs in between.
Marketers should be ecstatic to find such a wealth of natural ammunition at their disposal but, in the advertising I have seen, Pender Harbour and Egmont are all but passed over. But, finally, I understand why — they don’t know where we are.
See the map on the next page.
It’s taken from a full page ad purchased by SCT in the 2017 edition of BC Ferries’ Onboard magazine. Apparently, the champion we rely on to tout our photogenic abundance believes Sakinaw Lake is Pender Harbour. And for some reason, the Pender Harbour typeface is much smaller than Sechelt, home of the gravel pit, or Lund (pop. 243).
But squint closely at Egmont. Though it’s the Skookumchuck, the departure point for Princess Louisa Inlet and has more fine dining and accomodation choices per capita than anywhere else on the Coast, its typeface is even smaller.
And the "five ways" the ad suggests to explore the Sunshine Coast?
1. Visit Lund.
2. Take the Purple Banner tour.
3. Year-round biking.
4. Get on the water.
5. Sunshine Coast Ale Trail.
Some of these general activities include our area, but if a visitor followed the accompanying map, or the SCT website, they would likely miss us.
What a shame.
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