Tourism Kamloops is always looking for ways to attract people to the Tournament Capital but they’re also looking to lure people for longer than just a few days.

To get good people to move to our city, nothing is more important than that first impression as CEO of Tourism Kamloops and transplanted Kamloopsian Beverly DeSantis said on the NL Morning News. “You know, attracting business, the Hive announcement for our downtown area and just you know driving people. We need people to visit, to fill those business spots, to come to our hospitals and doctors.”

DeSantis pointed to how that first impression affected her and her husband. “That’s what happened with Carl and I. We didn’t just pick Kamloops out of our hat, you know we had been here to visitors in the area, and here we are.”

Her husband Carl DeSantis is currently the Executive Director at Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association.

She also gave TRU’s Dean of Adventure, Culinary Arts and Tourism Doug Booth, as an example. “These are the attractors that are so important to boost our economy and it starts with a visit. If he came here and he didn’t find Kamloops an attractive, welcoming destination, I think all bets would have been off.”

Booth relocated to Kamloops from New Zealand last year.