108 BCBusiness jULY/AUGUST 2018 ISTOCK
A
nyone who's ever visited B.C. can gure
out the province's main selling point in
about ve minutes. It's all over posters
and press conferences—heck, it's on our
licence plates: Beautiful British Columbia.
But as the tourism industry gets larger by the year,
it has increasingly come face-to-face with another key
sector of the B.C. economy—the extraction of natural
resources. Although many development advocates
and environmentalists alike will agree that it doesn't
always mean resources decisions are black and white,
the nancial gap between the two industries some-
times puts tourism's most attractive quality at risk.
"Tourism is not the biggest revenue earner," says
Brian White, head of the tourism and hospitality
management program at Royal Roads University in
Victoria, referring to the fact that industries depen-
dent on natural resources, such as mining and for-
estry, tend to make more money.
For White, that disparity means that tourism isn't
E N V I R O N M E N T A L S T E W A R D S H I P
The Forest
for the Trees
B.C. has its hands full protecting one of its biggest industries
while trying to develop others. Meanwhile, it's not clear that the
environment is top-of-mind for most people
ROOM FOR ALL?
some believe that
tourism needs a
seat at the table for
land management
decisions
