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The latest figures from the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association reveal the region has fared better than B.C. as a whole as pandemic restrictions continue to wreak havoc with the tourism industry.
Thompson-Okanagan domestic overnight visitor numbers have trended above the provincial average for all but one week this year.
Visitations peaked the first week of April, when they reached 250 per cent of last year, during the first wave of COVID-19, which itself was down considerably from 2019.
They started the year flat and continued below last year from the end of January through mid-March. Then, visitor numbers picked up dramatically before falling again in mid-April as stricter pandemic measures were brought in and travel restrictions put in place.
As of May 2, numbers are down by 15.5 per cent in the Thompson-Okanagan. Provincially, they have fallen by 33.6 per cent.
Spring break and Easter coincided with the first three weeks of lockdown in 2020, "therefore we saw much higher movement in comparison with last year," TOTA explained.
The bi-weekly stats provide an ongoing snapshot of how the tourism industry is being impacted as a result of COVID-19 "and an overview of how things are changing as we continue moving through the stages of recovery."
TOTA complies the data with help from Environics Analytics and additional research from Destination BC, the BC Hotel Association, and others.
The latest batch of figures include national survey responses on agreement with vaccine passports.
In B.C., 60 per cent agreed with the idea, compared to 61 per cent nationally and 51 per cent in neighbouring Alberta.
Tourism employment rebounded somewhat in April across B.C. compared to last year.
The Cariboo Chilcotin Coast, Kootenay Rockies, Vancouver Island and Vancouver, Coast and Mountains saw an increase in visitation when comparing Week 65 (April 26-May 2) to Week 66 (May 3-9), TOTA research notes. The Thompson-Okanagan and Northern B.C. saw a decrease.
However, the Thompson-Okanagan saw seven per cent more visitation when compared to British Columbia as a whole during Week 66.
Visitation to the region decreased by 11 per cent and British Columbia by 0.4 per cent when comparing Week 65 to Week 66.
