Results compiled from Tourism Revelstoke's 2024 Residents Talk Tourism survey show that two in three locals value the contribution of tourism to the city.
Taniell Hamilton, destination and sustainability manager for Tourism Revelstoke, presented the results to the city's committee of the whole Thursday, March 13, reflecting input from 571 respondents and comparing them to previous results in 2022.
Conducted every two years, the survey targets Revelstoke residents, whether seasonal or long-term, to take the pulse on how community members feel about local tourism. The latest survey was publicly available online from May 25 to Dec. 31, 2024, via Destination Revelstoke.
Most respondents fell between 25 and 44 years old, and the leading employment category at 119 people was tourism. The next-largest defined employment categories were health care and social assistance, construction, and education, with between 40 and 50 respondents each. However, the "other" category contained 108 respondents and drew curiosity from councillors.
A leading achievement for Revelstoke was reaching an 8.15 out of 10 in the survey for quality of life, up from 7.55 in 2022. Hamilton noted while chuckling that she "expected (it) to go the other direction." While a leading 48 per cent of respondents indicated in 2022 that they felt Revelstoke's quality of life was deteriorating, the most common response in 2024 (40 per cent) was that it was improving.
Hamilton summarized that the general consensus from respondents was a positive impact of tourism on economics and socio-economics in Revelstoke, yet a negative feeling about tourism's impacts on local environment and job market.
"People don't feel that tourism is offering more competitive wages, or career opportunities for growth and improvement," she said. "They don't feel that it is helping to protect our natural ecosystems and environment, or that it's doing better than other industries to reduce its carbon footprint."
Overall, 63 per cent indicated that tourism contributes positively to their quality of life in Revelstoke's community, and 64 per cent indicated that they value the contribution of visitors to the community. In 2024, 69 per cent expressed that they felt good about their encounters with visitors.
"This could definitely change over the coming months and years, especially with everything that's going on geopolitically, so it'll be interesting to compare this one in a couple of years," she said. "I was really curious and pleasantly surprised about this one, because sometimes I think the squeaky wheel gets the grease and you hear the people who are really disgruntled."
In terms of seasonality of tourism in Revelstoke, a roughly 50-50 split arose about whether winter and summer have either too many visitors or just the right number. For spring and fall, upwards of 60 per cent of respondents indicated that Revelstoke receives a good amount of tourism.
Though the survey didn't use an open-ended response format and councillors sought deeper insight into why residents had chosen certain answers, Hamilton explained that open-ended formats can require 10 times the amount of data analysis. But going forward, she said space for follow-up responses could potentially be added to opinion-based questions.
To learn more about the Residents Talk Tourism survey results, visit .
