The 2024 year was full of great success for AdvantageHOPE who successfully renewed and obtained funding again for the Municipal Revenue Destination Tax (MRDT).
“I am just so impressed with the amount that (Richard Halbe) and the staff have accomplished in (2024),” said Tannis Hendriks, the Board Chair of AdvantageHOPE. “We brought Richard in on Jan. 4 and immediately tasked him with securing our MRDT funding. He went and reached out to all the motel years and hoteliers, and managed to secure 71 per cent support (from them). And this is the highest percentage of support we’ve ever had in the history of our MRDT.”
Back in October 2024, AdvantageHOPE announced that it had renewed its MRDT and had managed to secure 20 per cent more support from local accommodations when compared to five years ago. According to AdvantageHOPE the increase displayed its “growing confidence in its efforts to drive tourism and economic development in the Hope Cascades & Canyons region.”
Created by the provincial government in 1987, the MRDT provides funding for local tourism marketing, programs, and projects to help them grow.
According to Destination BC on its website “the MRDT is an up-to three percent tax applied to sales of short-term accommodation provided in participating areas of British Columbia on behalf of municipalities, regional districts and eligible entities.” And it is “jointly administered by Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, and Destination BC.”
Richard Halbe, who is AdvantageHOPE’s and the Visitor Centre’s executive director, said that one of the bigger challenges that the organization faced was promoting how big the Hope region is.
“One of the biggest challenges was to promote the whole region and all that the region has to offer,” Halbe said. “Yes, the Rambo: First Blood movies does represent 20 per cent of our traffic here per year. But the other 80 per cent we were, and are, pushing hard as well. Which includes hiking, biking, fishing, canoeing, lakes, rivers, skiing, snowshoeing, and snowboarding. Also the parks and most of the Fraser Canyon (and we show this on our website).
“We launched the website in August and it was a huge project and achievement for us. And that has been bringing in more traffic and reaching different demographics.”
Additionally, last year AdvantageHOPE also: launched the hopebc.ca and tourismhcc.ca websites; attended key events such as the Vancouver Franchise show, Vancouver Outdoors and Adventure Show, and Manning Park BC Parks Day; started deaccessing the Hope Museum artifacts.
The organization is hoping to replicate this success with its upcoming projects for 2025.
“We’re really excited about the opening of the First Blood Downhill Trail, which should be opening this summer,” Hendriks said. “We’re really excited about that, and plan to market that like crazy during our key events like the 2025 Hope Worldclass Chainsaw Carving Event and the 2025 Fog Fest.”
“We’re just really looking forward to growing those events and making them better and better, and then from an economic development point of view, our priorities is still supporting local businesses.”
According to Halbe, AdvangeHOPE will be organizing and hosting a number of workshops for local businesses and shareholders throughout 2025. To learn more readers can email him at marketing@hopebc.ca or call him at 604-860-5062.
