BC Resort Municipalities Symposium

This week I was asked to deliver a keynote at the BC Resort Municipalities Symposium in Osoyoos, BC. This is a small but productive gathering of administrators from the 13 designated resort municipalities in BC to share their plans, initiatives and lessons learned on an annual basis. It was a pleasure to be asked to share some thoughts with them and to meet this elite group.

I always find keynotes to be a bit challenging and nerve wrecking. A good keynote can set the tone for a conference, pose questions, get people chewing on new ideas and offer suggestions. A poor one can put folks to sleep with someone at the podium for an extended period of time. I seek to do the former of these two. So, I spent some time discussing ideas with Jim Newman, of Osoyoos to make sure I could pitch something of value to the group.

In the end, I ended up making a few points (I think). I tried to start at the 30,000 foot level to have folks recognize that they are part of something much much larger than running operations at the community level. They are part of a larger international and national movement in rural development - of which I have written about more on this blog - amenity based rural development. The BC Resort Municipalities were created as a strategic provincial policy to provide supports for amenity rich locations in the province. Initially, this came with financial supports such as a share of the Hotel tax which could be reinvested back into communities for infrastructure and marketing (items which cause issues for many rural communities in tourism). Over the years, one of the most positive things that this group has done has been to create links with one another to exchange ideas. Knowledge is power when shared and the creation of a collective with experience in resort community development can act as a resource pool for the communities but also for the province.

I tried to reinforce in the talk how bold policy moves such as the creation of the BC Resort Municipalities needs to be followed up with ongoing support. New structures like this need time to evolve, to learn and to provide feedback on what is working and what is not. It may be the researcher in me, but I tend to think of this as an experiment in policy supports for rural tourism development - and as such, they need to be evaluated on an ongoing basis with adjustments made when they are supported by evidence. I'd be happy to provide this sort of research for the group as they continue on their evolutionary path and to the province as it finds ways to provide appropriate support.

For more information on this group and the Acts that created it, see:
BC Resort Municipality update
BC Resort Municipality Initiative