The Okanagan Cultural Corridor Project

What is the Okanagan Cultural Corridor Project?
The Okanagan Cultural Corridor is a cultural tourism development project, supported by Tourism British Columbia. The Project takes its name from the Okanagan Valley, a semi-arid, fruit and wine-producing region some 250 kilometers in length, nestled in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. When marketed to the public in 2003, the Okanagan Cultural Corridor will offer visitors a multi-faceted experience of the arts, heritage, and agri-tourism attractions of the Okanagan Valley.


How was the Project conceived?
Steven Thorne, the Executive Director of the Okanagan Cultural Corridor Project, first conceived of a regional cultural tourism initiative in 1997.

Employed as the Arts Development Officer for the City of Kelowna (pop. 100,000), Thorne envisioned a cooperative marketing campaign that would embrace all the cultural attractions of the Okanagan Valley: arts events, cultural festivals, museums and galleries, heritage attractions, cuisine, wineries, and other agri-tourism attractions. Thorne reasoned that, by packaging and marketing these attractions collectively as a "corridor of cultural experiences", the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts, sufficient to support an export marketing campaign.

From this idea, the Okanagan Cultural Corridor Project was born.