In 1998, the City of Kelowna's Arts Development Office published a study entitled The Economic Impact of Arts & Culture in the Central Okanagan, and Toward Our Future: Cultural Tourism & the Cultural Industries.

Publication of Toward Our Future demonstrated culture's potential to grow Kelowna's tourism economy, while offering a framework strategy for cultural tourism development. The City of Kelowna subsequently enacted the principal recommendations contained in the study. The study is reproduced here in its entirety.

Note: For an overview of Toward Our Future: Cultural Tourism & the Cultural Industries, and The Economic Impact of Arts & Culture in the Central Okanagan, click on Executive Summary.



Toward Our Future: Cultural Tourism & the Cultural Industries
This study analyzes the potential of Kelowna and the Central Okanagan as a destination for cultural tourism and a centre for the cultural industries.

Kelowna is ideally positioned to become the leading cultural tourism destination in Western Canada. Similarly, the region is well-positioned to become a cultural industries centre. However, neither opportunity will be realized without strategic partnerships, planning, and the application of political will.

Political will has always been the deciding factor in communities that have profited from culture. Without the will of elected officials to invest in cultural initiatives, little can be achieved.

To what extent do Canadian governments invest in culture? In 1994-95, Ottawa's spending on arts and culture amounted to 1.65 percent of total federal spending. The same year, Victoria's spending on arts and culture amounted to 1.03 percent of total provincial spending. For its part, the City of Kelowna allocated 1.96 percent of its 1995 gross budget to culture and the arts.¹ (Statistics Canada, 1997a; Arts Development Office, 1996).

Aided, in part, by these public investments, culture makes a substantial contribution to the Canadian economy. Statistics Canada estimates that, in 1993-94, the cultural sector (consisting of the arts, heritage, and the cultural industries) directly contributed $29.2 billion to Canada's GDP, while employing almost 900,000 people, or 6.9 percent of Canada's labour force (Statistics Canada, 1996).

In British Columbia, the economic value of culture is no less impressive. In fiscal year 1994-95, the cultural sector had a direct GDP impact on the provincial economy of $3.3 billion (Statistics Canada, 1997). In Greater Vancouver, arts and culture accounts for 65,000 direct jobs (GVRD, 1997), while in the Central Okanagan, the direct GDP impact of arts and culture is $37.3 million.

In addition to government, business has long supported cultural activity through direct funding, sponsorships, in-kind donations of goods and services. In 1996, about 12 percent of corporate giving in Canada was directed toward the arts.² However, increasing competition for charitable dollars, combined with a tax structure in Canada that does not reward corporate giving generously, challenges the capacity of business to maintain this level of support. Moreover, business cannot create the public policies needed to encourage the arts.

In short, for Kelowna to realize its potential as a cultural tourism destination and a centre for the cultural industries, local government must take the lead. The investment will be modest. The reward will be a city where culture is a significant economic generator, and where citizens enjoy an enhanced quality of life.


1 Figures cited for both Ottawa and Victoria include capital and operational funding for the performing, visual and literary arts, museums and heritage resources (excluding parks), arts education, libraries, broadcasting, film and video production, and sound recording. The figure cited for Kelowna includes capital and operational funding for all public cultural facilities (including libraries), as well as funding for the Kelowna Arts Foundation and the Arts Development Office.

2 Based on data from 143 companies responding to the 1996 annual survey of the Council for Business and the Arts in Canada.