Camino Bound

Only 6 days to go before heading off on the Camino.

I'm practicing my blog updating....Here's some info about our winter:

Whitegold Adventures Adds Value to Wells Winter Economy. 

I've always said...."Wells Guarantees Winter!" and more and more, that's becoming a focal point for people from warmer climes.  Whitegold Adventures has benefited from our developed relationship with the Cariboo Coast Chilcotin Tourism Association and Tourism BC for our unique Bowron Ski Tour, and the payback is benefiting lots of businesses in the community.  The CCCTA in particular, has really taken the lead in helping to put our town on the map, and they were pretty happy to sell our 4 day Bowron Ski Trip to the media crowd, and feed the information on to Tourism BC.  Tourism BC in turn has distributed this concept to as many media outlets as were interested.  The results have started to pour in.

Cheryl and I have been working hard over the years trying to build each of our businesses to its full potential, and although Outdoor Adventure sounds like the most glamourous part of the job, it's actually the most difficult.  It requires endless hours of planning, contacting, promoting, advertising, giving away, meeting, creating, spending, designing, package building, phoning, emailing, mixed with what seem like very occasional forays into the wilderness!  Many of the leads we lay down on paper and the web simply never materialize.  8 years ago I applied for the first permit under the new Bowron Management Plan to run commercial trips on the Bowron Lakes.   We're still the only permittee with a winter license, although we have not had the traffic to even run ski tours, except with friends, on some of the years. 

The Olympics must be good for something though, and the spin-off is that Tourism BC is promoting winter activities in rural BC with a vengence!  As a result, we've been written about in a variety of magazines and webzines, newspapers and other sources.  The crowning achievement for us was when we were featured in the Winter issue of Explore Magazine(Canadian Outdoor Adventure Magazine) as one of "Canada's 25 Coolest Adventures"

In addition, Wells is prominently featured in a 2010 Olympic website devoted to telling people and especially media, what else they can cover while they're in BC next winter.  It includes hotlinks to a variety of local businesses and a direct mention of the Bowron Ski Tour. http://www.destination2010.ca/content/finishedarticles/cariboo-chilcotin-winter

 Now all this doesn't mean much to the Bowron....The lakes in Winter demand a special kind of treatment, and, frankly, there's not a lot of room for trips on the calendar, and not a lot of people-room per trip.  My maximum group size is 6 with two additional guides, and although we did only two commercial trips this year, we can probably only fit a couple more in, to take the best advantage of snow, light and temperature.  However more people are independently visiting the Bowron too, so all this interest is also generating lots of inquiries to us about gear, timing, and other things, which we're happy to provide.  Because some of my guests stayed longer than one night at each end of their trip this season, and because some people came unguided by me, I know of at least 16 visitors who spent over 49 person nights(!) in the local hotels, motels, shops and restaurants, before and after their ski trips. Those stays are directly attribute-able to the coverage we(WG, CCCTA, and TBC) have been able to generate. That's a great feeling for such a small item!

Given the state of the economy, sometimes it feels like a miracle that anyone spends money on recreation, but this winter we got a great feeling, enormous positive feedback, and are excited about grabbing the Olympic Year and making it the best for Wells that we can!  In conclusion, this is also a thank-you/thumbs up to all the people who help directly and without even knowing it, by making the stay for these guests wonderful.  I received an email, from an Oregon client recently that re-iterated his thorough enjoyment of both our trip, and everyone they met while in Wells.  No higher compliment can be made for a positive attitude and a self-supporting town!

Cheryl Macarthy/Dave Jorgenson
The Bear's Paw Cafe/Frog on the Bog Gifts
Box 206, Wells, BC, V0K 2R0
Toll Free: 1-866-994-2345
http://www.thebearspaw.ca/
http://www.frogonthebog.ca/

---

I am using the Free version of SPAMfighter.
We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
SPAMfighter has removed 13734 of my spam emails to date.
The Professional version does not have this message.