The Nicola Valley is rich in natural beauty. Its landscapes promote various outdoor activities, particularly during the winter season. Unfortunately, as a tourism destination, the valley is not widely popular. This is why several tourism organizations are hard at work to promote the land as a premiere winter destination for outdoor activities.
Tourism Nicola Valley, Experience Nicola Valley, Experience Merritt and EH Canada Marketing Group have been collaborating on various initiatives including a photo contest they are hosting from January 2 to Mar 30, 2023. People are invited to submit photos of them enjoying the many wonderful winter activities the Nicola Valley has to offer.
“It’s been proven over and over again in various media, including ourselves, that the Nicola Valley has one of the top winter destinations in B.C.,” Eh Canada Vice President Girard stated.
“We’re ranked as a top snowmobile destination, we have probably the best ice fishing location in B.C. with all our lakes here, and we also have a good cross country ski area.”
Girard explained that this contest is just one of the steps of a larger plan to market the Nicola Valley as a go-to winter destination. The various tourism organizations are collaborating in order to achieve this goal.
“We really believe that this market share is one that we can grab,” he said. “We have the tools to do it. We’ve been blogging about our winter tourism, this annual photo contest is going strong, and other initiatives that are just waiting for approval.”
This year’s photo contest is an expanded version of the last year’s ice fishing photo contest to include other winter activities.
“It kind of came about because we have a wonderful winter tourism season here in the Nicola Valley, but unfortunately, not enough people know about it,” said Girard. “We want to show the locals enjoying our wonderful back country, enjoying some skiing, snowmobiling, and lots more. We are using this next three months to promote our winter tourism in the best way we believe we can.”
The contest is funded by the Tourism Nicola Valley initiative. A $1000 prize will be given to the best photo while four prizes of $250 will be given for the best photo for each category in the contest (cross country skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, and ice fishing).
“We’ve been having a phenomenal response from the people so far,” Girard noted. “We’re already approaching 100 submissions. We’re hoping that it can reach as much as 200 submissions, given that the contest spans over three months.”
All submissions will be presented to the Tourism Nicola Valley board of directors who will use their first meeting in April to judge all the photos.
“We’re asking anyone that goes out and enjoy our winter areas to snap a photo and submit it because you just might win.”
To learn more about the contest rules and how to submit your photos, please visit www.experiencenicolavalley.com.
