Tourism appears to be taking another hit as a result of widespread publicity over this season's forest fires. Solicitor General Rich Coleman has responded with a news release titled "Solicitor General Says B.C. is Safe for Travel". According to the release, "…the wildfires currently burning at Lonesome Lake and other areas of the province impact less than 0.1 per cent of British Columbia's land base, and at the present time most fires are burning away from communities and major travel corridors." Nevertheless, the wildfire story leads the evening news night after night.

According to Coleman's news release, Tourism BC will distribute a letter from John Les, Minister of Small Business and Economic Development and minister responsible for tourism, to Canadian consulates around the world and to key tourism industry representatives so as to provide travelers with accurate information. The weak response from the minister responsible for tourism is unlikely to be noticed by international travelers. The release provides a link to a website that tracks wildfires, but no link to any site that promotes tourism in BC. Hint to the Public Affairs Bureau: You are promoting the wildfires rather than promoting tourism.

If you look hard enough, you can find a link to "Discover BC this Summer" on the top level government website - scroll down slightly and look to the right. Clicking on the link give a pathetic site that does little to encourage anyone to explore further. The website for the Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development contains a link to tourism, again one must scroll down and look to the right, but it reads like an ad for investment rather than a promotion of BC as a destination for tourists. Compare those feeble efforts, or even the Hello BC site, to the official website for Washington State tourism. It might be a good idea for the wizards in the Campbell government to at least promote the hard to find Hello BC website, identified as the official site of Tourism British Columbia, as much as it promotes sites dedicated to the wildfires.

Since May 2001 when the last election was held, British Columbia has lost 2,851 paid employees in "accommodation and food services", a key component of the tourism industry. The Campbell government has done little or nothing to promote tourism. In fact it required Tourism Vancouver to take money from tourism promotion and contribute it as its share of the costs for building the Convention Centre. In his report on the 2010 Olympic bid ( http://www.bcauditor.com/PUBS/2002-03/Report6/OlympicGames.pdf), BC's Auditor General warned that "the economic impact scenarios with the biggest payoffs will require an exemplary tourism marketing program both before and after the Games for the whole of British Columbia (in addition to the Games marketing planned for by the Bid Corporation)." The Campbell gang don't seem to get it; it's time to put some serious effort into marketing tourism in BC, a lot more than a letter from the minister to Canadian consulates around the world.