Attracting the Tourist

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12824, 19 August 1939, Page 6

Attracting the Tourist

Because it offers within a small radius nearly every natural outdoor attraction, Victoria, in British Columbia, capitalizes on its advantages as a holiday centre in a major fashion.

For the last 2 0 years it has carried out an organized publicity programme that to-day nets the city between £ 300,000 and £ 400,000 a year in tourist revenue, one of its

largest businesses. Victoria has largely given up hopes of becoming a big industrial centre. For the last 10 years the community-minded citizens have concentrated on the entertainment of visitors and building up the city’s reputation as a residential centre. To that end the equable climate, due largely to the warm Kuro Siwo current that swings across the Pacific Ocean and the variety of natural playgrounds, afford an excellent talking point. With probably the livest publicity bureau in British Columbia, Victoria is in the business of selling itself to travellers in a large way. » To the sea borne visitors, and because it is on an island most of them come by sea, the city presents a mil-lion-dollar front door, a picture-book entrance that few cities can rival. As the palatial ferry steamer draws up to its dock almost in the heart of the city, the visitor gets his first glimpse of the restrained dignity of the harbour front, set off by the imposing pile of the Parliament buildings within a stone's throw and the magnificent architecture of the Canadian Pacific’s Empress Hotel. Fronted by velvety lawns that are greed the year round, these structures furnish a spectacle that is etched in memory long afterwards. Immediately from the dock the visitor can step into surroundings of absorbing interest. In the legislative buildings themselves, with a museum, archives and library, and displays of natural resources, there is a storehouse of interest. Close by is the Crystal Garden, Canada’s finest, indoor swimming pool and one of the largest covered salt water tanks in the world. The Empress gardens and the floral avenues of Beacon Hill Park, with its tree-shaded, lanes and .gorgeous acres of golden broom,.provide relief from the glare of city streets. Within easy distance of street car or htis is Canada’s .. most . western

Victoria in British Columbia

A “MILLION DOLLAR” FRONT DOOR

Meteorological Observatory, atop Gonzales Hill. From these same heights, named after an early Spanish explorer, there is an unexcelled view of beautiful Juan de Fuca Straights, sweeping, across to the majestic snow-capped Olympic Mountains of Washington State in the background.

Northward from the city is the Astrophysical Observatory, equipped with a 72-inch telescope, one of the three largest in the world.