More tourists were seen in the Town of Smithers in the month of June.
During the July 14 council meeting, Councillor Lorne Benson said 171 visitors were seen in the Visitor Information Centre compared to June 2019 which had over 1,000 visitors.
Most of the visitors were either local or BC residents for the month of June.
According to Deputy Mayor Gladys Atrill, there have been more stays and the downtown core has been busier.
Atrill said she is hopeful to see increased traffic even without major events happening like the Bulkley Valley Exhibition.
“Our businesses really do require it [tourism] and because it’s part of the summer and autumn culture in our community that we host visitors from other parts of the world generally but this year it will be people from British Columbia, from our region and perhaps other parts of Canada as we encourage non-essential travel,” she said.
Atrill added travel is still limited and said Tourism Smithers will not see the big numbers like it has in previous years.
So far in 2020, Smithers has seen 350 tourists in the Visitor Information Centre compared to 2019, where there were 6,299.
Atrill said she hasn’t heard concerns from residents of things starting to reopen and people are happy things are starting to reopen.
“I think the people of the Bulkley Valley are ready for having visitors certainly from within British Columbia and our region specifically. I think our businesses have opened up well, those that were closed because many were open throughout and I think the community is ready,” she said.
Northern Health has seen an increase in cases since July 17 after going without a case for over one month.
Atrill added a recent survey found residents are open to tourists coming into the region from other parts of the province but when talking about other provinces or International travel the percentage starts to drop. .
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