A recent disagreement has the City of Merritt looking at leaving the Nicola Valley Tourism Association (NVTA) and possibly starting their own.

“We wanted to work with them,” said Merritt Mayor Susan Roline. “Back in January, council made a resolution with Nicola Valley Tourism to develop a best practices DMO (Destination Marketing Organization). We had been working with TOTA (Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association), which is a provincial body that was created from Tourism BC. There are six regional tourism organizations throughout the province and they all fall under the provincial tourism ministry which has been re-established. Under those regions, they have all the municipalities.”

Each regional group establishes a best practice DMO with guidelines and templates with how each organization should look.

“We were working with them to help Nicola Valley Tourism to establish a best practice model but they’ve chosen now not to do that and to operate on their own. What that means is they’re not recognized by TOTA, so they don’t qualify for the funding through TOTA which is about $9,200 a year.”

Roline says the NVTA receives two per cent from each participating hotel to help operating expenses.

“Right now, we’re working with TOTA to create a community tourism plan,” said Roline. “From that, we’ll see where it goes. We’re a pilot project for TOTA. We’re one of the first in their region to be doing this. We had our first workshop in February. We had 32 people participating and they represented some of our tourism attractions. They represented different communities around us. Logan Lake was present; Ashcroft was present; Spences Bridge was present. There was good representation from stakeholders there. It was a full day workshop and it went very well.”

Roline said she, along with the city’s economic development manager James Umpherson, and representatives from TOTA and Gold Country tourism, met with representatives from NVTA over the best practices DMO on Feb. 18.

“We left that meeting thinking we were going to be able to work together,” she said. “On March 8 we received a letter (from NVTA) stating that they want to go on their own and not work on the best practices DMO.”

Roline said she expects to see the community tourism plan come out in the next few weeks.

Representatives from NVTA did not wish to speak to the Herald on the issue when contacted Friday, but did say they would issue a press release this week.

Coun. Harry Kroeker told the Herald that council was not informed of the city’s decision to pull away from NVTA.

“The letter she sent (to NVTA) is totally contrary to what council desires,” he said. “I heard a little bit of her on the radio. What she was saying, from what I heard, was completely contrary to council’s wishes.”

Kroeker said that council would prefer to work with the NVTA.

“We want to work with them,” he said. “She’s saying we don’t want to have anything to do with them (NVTA), we’ll have our own.”

Kroeker says Roline went behind council’s back with the decision to stop working with NVTA.

“This letter she wrote to the Nicola Valley Tourism Association was not sanctioned by council,” he said. “It was strictly hers, and maybe someone in administration. It did not come from council. Council members are very, very upset that these statements are being made in council, contrary to council’s wishes.”

Kroeker said Roline will have to answer to why she is doing things contrary to council’s wishes.

“We received a letter from the Nicola Valley people advising us of their meeting and wanting a liaison,” said Kroeker. “That’s what she responded to by saying, ‘No, we’re not going to work with you. We’re going to do our own thing.’ The sad part is Nicola Valley tourism has $70,000 roughly to use for tourism. Why wouldn’t we want to be part of it.