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Tourism Counts: putting tourism's economic footprint on the map in every BC riding
We've teamed up with the Tourism Industry Association of BC (TIABC) to launch a free, non-partisan platform that shows tourism businesses and estimated employment across all 93 provincial ridings.
Tourism shows up in every corner of British Columbia, but it rarely shows up in the numbers people use to make decisions. Today, tourismo and TIABC are changing that with the launch of Tourism Counts.
Tourism Counts gives elected officials, candidates, residents and tourism operators a simple way to see tourism-related business activity and estimated employment in their own communities. It arrives just ahead of the provincial election on October 24, and it's built to stay useful well beyond it.
What Tourism Counts shows
Pick any of BC's 93 provincial ridings and Tourism Counts brings its tourism economy into focus. Each riding page shows:
- The share of local business locations with employees that operate in tourism
- Estimated tourism employment, modelled from published business counts
- Business counts across five sectors: accommodation, food and beverage services, recreation and entertainment, transportation, and travel services
- A community-by-community breakdown and detailed industry categories
- Provincial park visits and the number of parks in the riding
The platform is free to use and non-partisan. Its job is simple: put local evidence in the hands of the people who shape their communities, so tourism is part of the conversation wherever decisions get made.
Why it matters
Tourism is one of BC's biggest economic engines. In 2024, it contributed over $8 billion in real GDP to the province, more than forestry, mining, oil and gas, agriculture or fisheries did individually. The sector supports more than 163,000 full-time jobs.
Yet those provincial totals can feel far away from a single riding. Tourism Counts closes that gap by showing what tourism looks like where people actually live, work and vote.
"Tourism is BC's economic superpower, and we need the policies, infrastructure and investment to match its potential. Through our partnership with tourismo, we're giving decision-makers a new way to understand tourism's footprint in their own riding."
— Amber Papou, CEO, TIABC
The people behind the numbers
Every business and estimated job in Tourism Counts represents real people: guides, cooks, front-desk staff, operators and the families who build their lives around them. Keeping those people in their communities depends on more than tourism alone. Housing, living costs and infrastructure all play a part.
"Behind these numbers are people building careers and families making their lives in our communities. Tourism Counts helps make that local contribution visible, and shows why tourism needs to be part of decisions about workforce housing, infrastructure and our communities' future."
— Heather MacDonald, President, Gibbons Whistler, and TIABC board director
How we built it
Tourism Counts brings together TIABC's 50 years of industry advocacy and tourismo's data and technology expertise. TIABC knows what decision-makers need to hear. We built the platform that turns raw business data into clear, riding-level insight.
Under the hood, Tourism Counts runs on tourismo's agentic destination management platform, paired with our tourism data intelligence. That's the same foundation we use to help destinations develop their regions and measure their impact, with all data hosted in Canada.
"Tourism Counts shows what's possible when tourism data intelligence and our powerful agentic destination management platform come together around a shared industry priority. Working with TIABC, we've built a foundation we can keep developing as new data becomes available and the industry's needs evolve."
— Chris Nohr, CEO, tourismo
This is a starting point. We'll keep adding data and features as the platform grows, and feedback from the industry will help shape what comes next.
Explore your riding
Whether you run a tourism business, work in the industry, or simply care about your community, Tourism Counts is for you. Find your riding, see how tourism shows up locally, and share what tourism means where you live and work.
Want deeper economic data for your region or industry?
Tourism Counts is just the beginning. Our data intelligence and technology can help any organization explore and communicate the economic contribution of its industry, in the regions that matter most to it.
For destination marketing organizations, we can go deeper into your region's tourism economy. We bring local research and interactive tools together to support planning, advocacy and investment conversations.
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