By David F. Rooney
Homecoming has come and gone and the community consensus is probably that everyone had a good time. Judging by the numbers of people who packed our restaurants, bars and shops, it was certainly good for many local businesses but how many people actually came to town?
Even though participants were encouraged to register no one seems have any numbers. Repeated enquiries to the Parks, Recreation and Culture Department have gone unanswered but the Revelstoke Accommodation Association was pretty sure that their members did very well on the weekend
“Every property I spoke with was at 100% occupancy this past weekend,” said Revelstoke Tourism’s Meghan Tabor. “However, there were only a handful (the Regent, the Revelstoke Lodge and the Lamplighter Campground) that could tell me for sure that it was directly related to the Homecoming. I spoke with a variety of properties: including hotels, motels, campgrounds, and B&Bs. The town was hopping!”
Timber Days, for one, did extremely well with between 300 and 400 people attending their events at Centennial Park. That’s more than this annual event has seen in the last two or three years combined. And Friday afternoon and evening probably saw 2,000 to 3,000 people come downtown. With numbers like that how can you go wrong. But as economically encouraging as those kind of numbers are, Homecoming may not likely be an event that should be repeated on an annual basis. We don’t want to wear out its novelty.
The Chamber of Commerce is currently conducting a survey of its members to see whet they thought of Homecoming and whether they favor holding one every five years.
The Current is very much in favour of making this a regular event held every five years. What do you think?
