Penticton welcomes more international visitors

Penticton’s tourism industry usually relies on visitors coming from the Lower Mainland and Alberta, but more recently, it’s also welcoming more foreign visitors.

Kelly Hopkins with Tourism Penticton said the number of international visitors have grown by 15 per cent in the last year.

“Generally, millennials and young families are coming in during the summer months. During the off season, September and October, we typically have a 55+ traveler,” she said.

Hopkins said many American visitors are taking advantage of the low loonie and hitting local cycling trails.

The information centre has been seeing more Americans from southern California and Florida, in addition to the usual Washington visitors.

Hopkins added there’s a jump in European visitors.

On Friday, a small group from Estonia dropped by the Penticton & Wine Country Visitor Centre.

“We came here for the wine tours,” said Anneli Kompus. “We’re going to stay for the night, maybe hike somewhere and camp somewhere.”

The rest of B.C. also saw an increase in international visitors in May over the same month last year.

Visitors from Mexico to the province soared by 29 per cent while the number of tourists from India and China went up by more than 10 per cent.

Jennifer Carter, a tasting room manager at JoieFarm Winery, said unseasonably cool weather brought people away from beaches and into wineries.

She said the staff are well prepared to greet the influx of foreign visitors.

“One our servers speaks French, Swedish and German. There’s another girl who’s been doing half of her tasting in French for people,” Carter said.

Nearly five million international tourists visited  B.C. last year.

If the trend continues, more of those visitors can be expected to discover the Okanagan.