Every year, sunseekers flock to the Okanagan to head out on the lakes or bake on the beaches.
But this year, something is conspicuously missing from the Okanagan summer: the heat.
“We’re kind of averaging around one nice day a week,” Claire Cipelletti with Kelowna Wibit Waterpark said.
The lack of sun is causing a slowdown in some summer tourism businesses.
“On a really sunny day it gets really busy,” Sam Bell at Moo-Lix Ice Cream said. “When it’s rainy, I mean obviously, there’s no one in here.”
Tourists in downtown Kelowna admit they were expecting warmer weather.
“We paid for it,” one couple from Quebec said. “It’s a pretty place but it will be better with a shiny sky.”
It’s not that the tourists aren’t in Kelowna; hotels say they’re as busy as other years, but for now visitors have to find other fun things to do.
‘I thought I could go shopping or something,” one visitor from Saskatoon said.
And that couple from Quebec has also devised a plan.
“Wine. We go look for wineries,” they said.