With the provincial visitor centre near Merritt closed down, new numbers show 2018 was a record year for the visitor centre in the Merritt city centre.

Manager of the Baillie House Sandy Carnow says 28,801 people stopped at the visitor centre on Voght Street last year, which is a jump of 21.1 per cent from a year earlier.

“The fourth quarter we had another nice increase in visitors. I think it really helped that there wasn’t much snow and the roads were good, and people came downtown. And for the year as a whole, we were up over 5,000 people,” Carnow says.

“I heard it from lots of the businesses, that business was really up downtown. Even the sports shops, the restaurants, a lot of people came downtown. So that really helped out businesses.”

Carnow says a big reason for the record number of visitors was the rest stop off of Exit 286 closing down in mid January of 2018.

“Lots of them came downtown just because of that reason. There’s a sign up there that directs them to come downtown to the restrooms here, and there’s also about another 80 toilets around here for people to use, within five minutes of us.”

A report from the Baillie House staff that went before Merritt city council shows more than 5,000 tourists used the visitor centre in July and August each alone.