Tourism is not just luring in the RV off of the Coquihalla or attracting County Music fans. It also includes the less obvious tourists: the business traveler, the day visitor who comes into town for medical or professional services, or even folks from Logan Lake who may come into Merritt for no other reason than for a break from daily routine.
A vibrant community tourism program will be aimed at serving all our visitors, be they from Lower Nicola, the Lower Mainland or the Lower 48. You can be a tourist even if you see yourself as a part of our wider community. Any visitor from outside our city boundaries is a tourist, even if we have known them by name for 20 years.
Tourism thus includes visitors for local events, regular shopping trips or even hospital visits but also business visitors who make deliveries or sales to other businesses, or extended-stay labourers or managers working on a local site project, and governmental visitors who may visit the community periodically.
Tourism is not a static and an easily defined sector of the economy. It is for this reason that whatever we do in a community, those that we meet from outside of our community should be welcomed as visitors. More than this, though, if we can all make anyone from outside of our community feel as if they are members of our City, we have achieved success in tourism delivery.
