"People in rural areas don't have the resources (time and money) to travel around and do networking. There are only so many leaders in our communities to begin with and we all sit on 12 committees!"

~ Rural resident

TRIP Partners

• Vancouver Island University
• Thompson Rivers University
• College of the Rockies
• University of Northern British Columbia
• College of New Caledonia
• Tourism BC
• The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts
• BC Parks
• LinkBC Network
• Canadian Rural Secretariat

Funding

• This project received funding support from the Government of Canada.

Northern TRIP-2006

The purpose of the 2006 extension tour was to build on observations from the 2005 trip and determine if the information needs in rural, remote and northern communities was consistent with overall findings in 2005. The purpose of the trip was to determine information support and knowledge transfer strategies to assist in rural community economic development through recreation and tourism, or amenity based industries in northern British Columbia and Alberta.

The research questions were threefold: 1) to assess current information gaps in rural tourism development, 2) to gather effective strategies used by rural communities to diversify through amenity-based sectors, and 3) to determine what role the academic community can play to support development.

Furthermore, the Northern T.R.I.P. was the first official extension tour for the Tourism Research Innovation Project (TRIP) therefore it was intended to create collaborative partnerships with rural community leaders and to share research and practical information rich resources to allow for a smooth transition into a multi-faceted amenity-based economy.

2006 Research Team (Link to PDF for description of the team members)