With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/950283
B o A t I n g I n B . C . S P e C I A l F e A T u r e B.C.'s Newest Growth Industry Recreational boating has $1.3 billion in spinoffs to dealers, service stores, marinas and manufacturers m ention recreation in British Columbia to anyone, and among the images conjured will be those of kayakers, power boaters, yachting enthusiasts, and other aquatically inclined people having fun on the province's innumerable waterways. So alluring are the images — and boating itself — that they tend to obscure the proposition of boating being big business in B.C. In fact, it's a huge industry that has grown by almost 30 percent in the past five years. Last year, a National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) Canada study found that recreational boating injected $1.3 billion into B.C.'s economy in 2016 on revenues of $2.2 billion, and employed nearly 17,000 British Columbians — with boat dealers and service stores, marinas, and boat manufacturers among the biggest contributors within the core industry. "Recreational boating causes revenue to flow into other sectors, such as tourism. In 2016, B.C. residents and visitors spent almost $1.8 billion on goods and services," says Don Prittie, President of Boating BC — the voice of recreational boating in the province with 315 member companies. The NMMA report also highlighted the critical importance of recreational boating in smaller communities by noting that the populations of small towns where boating is prevalent more than double during the summer season.