Destination Guide | British Columbia
NATURE'S BOUNTY
By Alison Appelbe
“Beautiful British Columbia,” the license plate slogan in Canada’s westernmost province, doesn’t do it justice. That’s because the landscape—from the Rocky Mountains in the east, to outer Vancouver Island in the west, and north beyond the Alaska Panhandle—is so dramatically varied.
Between these extremes lie powerful rivers and long lakes, lush valleys and desert pockets—not to mention vast tracks of forest. Just over four million people live in B.C., the majority in its southwest corner. The climate on the coast is mild, with wet winters and pleasant summers. The result is lots of year-round outdoor recreation and enough agriculture to generate an exciting food and wine culture.
Metro Vancouver, on the Lower Mainland, is the economic hub. Victoria, the provincial capital, sits at the southern tip of Vancouver Island. And while these two cities are the major centers for corporate events, accommodations with meeting facilities can be found all over the picturesque province.
Close proximity to the Western U.S. is an advantage. Says Jan Larsen of the Washington State Medical Association in Seattle: “Vancouver and Victoria are always popular destinations for the associations that we manage, in many cases drawing record attendance. The cities are beautiful—and accessible in less than three hours.”
Other destinations draw meetings as well. Near Vancouver, the city of Richmond, embracing Vancouver International Airport and many large hotels, is a convenient hub. And north of Vancouver, the glamorous ski resort of Whistler—which, with Vancouver, will host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games—is an important meeting destination, particularly spring through fall.
Then, north of Victoria, in central Vancouver Island, the Parksville-Qualicum area offers hotels and resorts with meeting space, as do a few of the nearby Gulf Islands. And B.C.’s Southern Interior Okanagan region—beloved for its long lakes and more than 100 wineries—hosts groups with meeting facilities in several cities.
Vancouver
Tucked between the Fraser River and North Shore mountains, Vancouver is a watery city. Stanley Park, a 1,000-acre forest, is encircled by Burrard Inlet; Granville Island, with its popular public market and artisan studios, is on a lake-like body of water called False Creek.
Metro Vancouver has more than two million residents; an increasing number reside in fashionable condos on the downtown peninsula, where Vancouver is showing the world how to live an enviable urban lifestyle.
Vancouver is successfully multicultural—and increasingly cosmopolitan. It has many excellent Chinese, Japanese and Indian restaurants, as well as those offering West Coast cuisine. Plus, most are modestly priced by big-city standards.
Urban neighborhoods like Yaletown, Gastown and Coal Harbour invite strolling, shopping and gallery-going. Add easy access to nature and the outdoors—you can jog the seawall in the morning and ski in the afternoon, or at night on Grouse Mountain—and you have a destination well suited to a productive and relaxing gathering.
“It’s an exciting destination—and a nice alternative to Seattle,” Larson explains. “Attendees love the opportunity to travel out of the country without the hassle of dealing with foreign currency (Canadian retailers readily take U.S. currency) or language.”
Adds Cristina Sufrim, an event planner with Ingram Micro Canada: “Holding meetings in a destination that embraces the world is always rewarding.”
Major Meeting Venues
The Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre is smack on the waterfront, with gorgeous mountain views. The existing center—in the Canada Place complex that includes a pier with “five sails,” cruise-ship berths and the Pan Pacific Vancouver hotel—has 133,000 sq. ft. of space, including an 11,000-square-foot registration lobby and a 17,100-square-foot delegate concourse.
In 2009, an adjoining complex directly west will triple VCEC space to 471,000 sq. ft. Under a much-talked-about “green roof,” it will have 223,000 sq. ft. for exhibits, 60,000 sq. ft. for meetings and 55,000 sq. ft. of ballroom space. All will be technologically state-of-the-art. In 2010, it will host 10,000 journalists at the Winter Olympic Games.
Other options include BC Place stadium, which has 247,000 sq. ft. for exhibits, including meeting rooms; the downtown campus of the B.C. Institute of Technology, which provides 6,000 sq. ft. in 31 rooms; and the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, in a historic building, which can host up to 154 delegates.
Unique Meeting Venues
The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia is a dramatic structure housing Pacific Northwest aboriginal art. Its Great Hall, with early totem poles and burial boxes, is not to be missed. Outdoor events, including a catered salmon barbecue, can accommodate up to 1,000.
The Vancouver Aquarium, in Stanley Park, can host up to 1,200 delegates, with catering, in its unique galleries, including a boardroom that backs onto the dolphin tank.
The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden hosts events for up to 500 in a Ming Dynasty setting in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The H.R. MacMillan Space Centre and Vancouver Museum are in an unusual complex in Vanier Park, south of English Bay. Together they offer 6,300 sq. ft. of varied space.
The Capilano Suspension Bridge, in North Vancouver, delivers a peek (and a swaying walk) into a gorgeous canyon and old-growth forest. The complex can host up to 700 delegates, with in-house catering.
Richmond
Directly south of Vancouver, the city of Richmond includes Vancouver International Airport and 26 accessible hotels and resorts.
The Richmond business district includes the Golden Village, a cluster of Asian-style malls, and as many as 200 restaurants serving Chinese and other Asian cuisines. Steveston Village, in the city’s south, is a picturesque fishing hub that encompasses the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site and Britannia Heritage Shipyards, as well as seafood eateries on a waterfront promenade.
Meeting Venues
The RiverRock Casino, located on the North Arm of the Fraser River in Richmond, offers 5,000 sq. ft. of meeting space and 8,000 sq. ft. for exhibits. With 220 luxury suites, the resort provides Vegas-style floorshows, fine dining and a casino. Several other resort-hotels in Richmond also offer generous meeting space. These include the Delta Vancouver Airport Hotel, Best Western Richmond Inn and Vancouver Airport Marriott.
Victoria
Reachable by vehicle ferry from Vancouver and Seattle, and by air, Victoria is the warmest spot in Canada. Its historic downtown, on a harbor, is framed by the B.C. legislature buildings and the Fairmont Empress Hotel.
While Victoria is famed for its English charm, this city of 326,000 has a youthful tenor. Walking, cycling, golfing and fishing are popular. Historic sites like Hatley Castle, the Royal BC Museum and Butchart Gardens add appeal. Many Victoria meetings include off-site outings to these popular spots.
Kristin Thompson, director of conferences for the Maryland-based Association For Hose and Accessories Distribution, brought 940 people to Victoria last May—one of the largest attendances in NADAD’s 23-year history. While their base was the Empress Hotel (and included high tea in the majestic lobby), delegates got about in excursions that included walking and horse-drawn carriage tours, lunch at Butchart Gardens, whale watching and a golf tournament.
“I’d recommend selling the entire destination, including pre- and post-activities, because Victoria has a lot to offer—and a group coordinator may be fulfilling someone’s lifelong wish to visit,” Thompson says.
Major Meeting Venue
Located in a garden setting on the Inner Harbour, adjacent to the Fairmont Empress Hotel and within a few minutes’ walk of other major hotels, is the Victoria Conference Centre. Opened in 1989, this wheelchair-accessible facility offers 40,000 sq. ft. of function space. The largest room, the 14,190-square-foot Carson Hall, accommodates up to 1,450 people theater-style. In 2008, it will expand to include the former Crystal Garden building, adding 25,000 sq. ft.
Unique Meeting Venues
BC Ferries has meeting space for up to 20 on its Spirit Class ferries connecting Vancouver and Victoria. The ferry is one hour and 35 minutes and features sweeping West Coast scenery. The conference room is equipped for audiovisual requirements and catering options.
Twenty-five minutes from downtown Victoria, and celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2008, is Hatley Park, a 565-acre Edwardian estate. The castle and gardens accommodate up to 280 indoors and 1,000 outdoors. Themed events include geo-caching for hidden treasures (or customized corporate training messages) and a medieval banquet with minstrels, wenches and jesters. Resource specialists from Royal Roads University, which shares this location, can offer a formal learning element.
Perennial group favorites include the centrally located Royal BC Museum, with large galleries, including a first nations exhibit, and Butchart Gardens, which handles indoor dinners for up to 150, receptions for up to 400, as well as tented barbecues and gourmet picnics outdoors.
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island (hellobc.com; vancouverisland.travel), with a mountainous spine and pristine coastline, is a world apart. A particularly mild climate makes it ideal for outdoor recreation and wilderness exploration, as well as gardening and farming.
The Cowichan region, 50 minutes north of Victoria, is known for its bountiful farms and vineyards. Its agri-tourism—tours and fine dining—appeals to meeting groups based in Victoria. The same distance north again, the east Central Island offers plentiful beaches, parks, gardens and golf courses. Hotels and resorts around Parksville and Qualicum Beach and the city of Nanaimo can host sizeable meetings.
Several of the Gulf Islands, reached by BC Ferries service from Vancouver and Victoria, or by floatplane, include resort hotels with space for modest-sized meetings. They include Sonora Resort, Poet’s Cove Resort and Hastings House Hotel.
Whistler
Whistler Resort (whistlermeetings.com) is a two-hour drive from the city of Vancouver on the Sea to Sky Highway. While renowned for skiing and snowboarding, luxury lodges, superb restaurants and spas, it’s also popular for summer golfing, hiking and mountain biking.
Given its 8,200+ hotel rooms and other visitor accommodations, Whistler has become an important meetings and incentive destination, particularly spring through fall. Activities and festivals are myriad; an attraction in late 2008 will be the new Peak to Peak Gondola, which will carry passengers more than 1,300 feet above the valley floor.
Keystone Symposia, based in Colorado, has brought a medical education group of between 200 and 700 to Whistler each spring since 2004—and is booked to 2010. Why Whistler? “Good meeting facilities, skiing opportunities, variety of lodging and lots of restaurants,” says Senior Planner Linda Hrycaj.
Major Meeting Venue
While Whistler offers a total of 150,000 sq. ft. of conference space, the principal venue is the TELUS Whistler Conference Centre. Located in pedestrian Whistler Village, it features 40,000 sq. ft. of function space, including an atrium with mountain views. Branded hotels that accommodate meetings include Four Seasons, Fairmont, Westin, Hilton, Delta and Pan Pacific.
Unique Meeting Venues
The Roundhouse Lodge on Whistler Mountain—at 6,069 feet and with 360-degree views—can accommodate up to 1,500 in 15,000 sq. ft. of function space. A tented event can be held at Lost Lake Park. And Rainbow Glacier, reached by helicopter, is a destination for corporate or incentive lunches.
The Okanagan
The Okanagan Valley (hellobc.com; totabc.com) is four hours by car from Vancouver and the province’s main grape-growing region. The product of 100 wineries, on two major lakes, rivals any in the world. Two cities—Kelowna and Penticton—have large resort-hotels with meeting facilities.
More northerly Kelowna is a sophisticated center, with a growing cultural component; Penticton is a more family-oriented destination, famed for its beaches. Both have airports: Kelowna is served by four daily direct flights to and from Seattle; both cities connect daily with major Canadian centers.
Alison Appelbe, a life-long Vancouverite, specializes in business and travel writing. She’s written a guide book to Vancouver, the Mobil Travel Guide to Vancouver, and several sections of Time Out Vancouver and the upcoming Fodors guide to Vancouver and Victoria.
Back to Top
Metro Vancouver, on the Lower Mainland, is the economic hub. Victoria, the provincial capital, sits at the southern tip of Vancouver Island. And while these two cities are the major centers for corporate events, accommodations with meeting facilities can be found all over the picturesque province.
Close proximity to the Western U.S. is an advantage. Says Jan Larsen of the Washington State Medical Association in Seattle: “Vancouver and Victoria are always popular destinations for the associations that we manage, in many cases drawing record attendance. The cities are beautiful—and accessible in less than three hours.”
Other destinations draw meetings as well. Near Vancouver, the city of Richmond, embracing Vancouver International Airport and many large hotels, is a convenient hub. And north of Vancouver, the glamorous ski resort of Whistler—which, with Vancouver, will host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games—is an important meeting destination, particularly spring through fall.
Then, north of Victoria, in central Vancouver Island, the Parksville-Qualicum area offers hotels and resorts with meeting space, as do a few of the nearby Gulf Islands. And B.C.’s Southern Interior Okanagan region—beloved for its long lakes and more than 100 wineries—hosts groups with meeting facilities in several cities.
Vancouver
Tucked between the Fraser River and North Shore mountains, Vancouver is a watery city. Stanley Park, a 1,000-acre forest, is encircled by Burrard Inlet; Granville Island, with its popular public market and artisan studios, is on a lake-like body of water called False Creek.
Metro Vancouver has more than two million residents; an increasing number reside in fashionable condos on the downtown peninsula, where Vancouver is showing the world how to live an enviable urban lifestyle.
Vancouver is successfully multicultural—and increasingly cosmopolitan. It has many excellent Chinese, Japanese and Indian restaurants, as well as those offering West Coast cuisine. Plus, most are modestly priced by big-city standards.
Urban neighborhoods like Yaletown, Gastown and Coal Harbour invite strolling, shopping and gallery-going. Add easy access to nature and the outdoors—you can jog the seawall in the morning and ski in the afternoon, or at night on Grouse Mountain—and you have a destination well suited to a productive and relaxing gathering.
“It’s an exciting destination—and a nice alternative to Seattle,” Larson explains. “Attendees love the opportunity to travel out of the country without the hassle of dealing with foreign currency (Canadian retailers readily take U.S. currency) or language.”
Adds Cristina Sufrim, an event planner with Ingram Micro Canada: “Holding meetings in a destination that embraces the world is always rewarding.”
Major Meeting Venues
The Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre is smack on the waterfront, with gorgeous mountain views. The existing center—in the Canada Place complex that includes a pier with “five sails,” cruise-ship berths and the Pan Pacific Vancouver hotel—has 133,000 sq. ft. of space, including an 11,000-square-foot registration lobby and a 17,100-square-foot delegate concourse.
In 2009, an adjoining complex directly west will triple VCEC space to 471,000 sq. ft. Under a much-talked-about “green roof,” it will have 223,000 sq. ft. for exhibits, 60,000 sq. ft. for meetings and 55,000 sq. ft. of ballroom space. All will be technologically state-of-the-art. In 2010, it will host 10,000 journalists at the Winter Olympic Games.
Other options include BC Place stadium, which has 247,000 sq. ft. for exhibits, including meeting rooms; the downtown campus of the B.C. Institute of Technology, which provides 6,000 sq. ft. in 31 rooms; and the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, in a historic building, which can host up to 154 delegates.
Unique Meeting Venues
The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia is a dramatic structure housing Pacific Northwest aboriginal art. Its Great Hall, with early totem poles and burial boxes, is not to be missed. Outdoor events, including a catered salmon barbecue, can accommodate up to 1,000.
The Vancouver Aquarium, in Stanley Park, can host up to 1,200 delegates, with catering, in its unique galleries, including a boardroom that backs onto the dolphin tank.
The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden hosts events for up to 500 in a Ming Dynasty setting in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The H.R. MacMillan Space Centre and Vancouver Museum are in an unusual complex in Vanier Park, south of English Bay. Together they offer 6,300 sq. ft. of varied space.
The Capilano Suspension Bridge, in North Vancouver, delivers a peek (and a swaying walk) into a gorgeous canyon and old-growth forest. The complex can host up to 700 delegates, with in-house catering.
Richmond
Directly south of Vancouver, the city of Richmond includes Vancouver International Airport and 26 accessible hotels and resorts.
The Richmond business district includes the Golden Village, a cluster of Asian-style malls, and as many as 200 restaurants serving Chinese and other Asian cuisines. Steveston Village, in the city’s south, is a picturesque fishing hub that encompasses the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site and Britannia Heritage Shipyards, as well as seafood eateries on a waterfront promenade.
Meeting Venues
The RiverRock Casino, located on the North Arm of the Fraser River in Richmond, offers 5,000 sq. ft. of meeting space and 8,000 sq. ft. for exhibits. With 220 luxury suites, the resort provides Vegas-style floorshows, fine dining and a casino. Several other resort-hotels in Richmond also offer generous meeting space. These include the Delta Vancouver Airport Hotel, Best Western Richmond Inn and Vancouver Airport Marriott.
Victoria
Reachable by vehicle ferry from Vancouver and Seattle, and by air, Victoria is the warmest spot in Canada. Its historic downtown, on a harbor, is framed by the B.C. legislature buildings and the Fairmont Empress Hotel.
While Victoria is famed for its English charm, this city of 326,000 has a youthful tenor. Walking, cycling, golfing and fishing are popular. Historic sites like Hatley Castle, the Royal BC Museum and Butchart Gardens add appeal. Many Victoria meetings include off-site outings to these popular spots.
Kristin Thompson, director of conferences for the Maryland-based Association For Hose and Accessories Distribution, brought 940 people to Victoria last May—one of the largest attendances in NADAD’s 23-year history. While their base was the Empress Hotel (and included high tea in the majestic lobby), delegates got about in excursions that included walking and horse-drawn carriage tours, lunch at Butchart Gardens, whale watching and a golf tournament.
“I’d recommend selling the entire destination, including pre- and post-activities, because Victoria has a lot to offer—and a group coordinator may be fulfilling someone’s lifelong wish to visit,” Thompson says.
Major Meeting Venue
Located in a garden setting on the Inner Harbour, adjacent to the Fairmont Empress Hotel and within a few minutes’ walk of other major hotels, is the Victoria Conference Centre. Opened in 1989, this wheelchair-accessible facility offers 40,000 sq. ft. of function space. The largest room, the 14,190-square-foot Carson Hall, accommodates up to 1,450 people theater-style. In 2008, it will expand to include the former Crystal Garden building, adding 25,000 sq. ft.
Unique Meeting Venues
BC Ferries has meeting space for up to 20 on its Spirit Class ferries connecting Vancouver and Victoria. The ferry is one hour and 35 minutes and features sweeping West Coast scenery. The conference room is equipped for audiovisual requirements and catering options.
Twenty-five minutes from downtown Victoria, and celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2008, is Hatley Park, a 565-acre Edwardian estate. The castle and gardens accommodate up to 280 indoors and 1,000 outdoors. Themed events include geo-caching for hidden treasures (or customized corporate training messages) and a medieval banquet with minstrels, wenches and jesters. Resource specialists from Royal Roads University, which shares this location, can offer a formal learning element.
Perennial group favorites include the centrally located Royal BC Museum, with large galleries, including a first nations exhibit, and Butchart Gardens, which handles indoor dinners for up to 150, receptions for up to 400, as well as tented barbecues and gourmet picnics outdoors.
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island (hellobc.com; vancouverisland.travel), with a mountainous spine and pristine coastline, is a world apart. A particularly mild climate makes it ideal for outdoor recreation and wilderness exploration, as well as gardening and farming.
The Cowichan region, 50 minutes north of Victoria, is known for its bountiful farms and vineyards. Its agri-tourism—tours and fine dining—appeals to meeting groups based in Victoria. The same distance north again, the east Central Island offers plentiful beaches, parks, gardens and golf courses. Hotels and resorts around Parksville and Qualicum Beach and the city of Nanaimo can host sizeable meetings.
Several of the Gulf Islands, reached by BC Ferries service from Vancouver and Victoria, or by floatplane, include resort hotels with space for modest-sized meetings. They include Sonora Resort, Poet’s Cove Resort and Hastings House Hotel.
Whistler
Whistler Resort (whistlermeetings.com) is a two-hour drive from the city of Vancouver on the Sea to Sky Highway. While renowned for skiing and snowboarding, luxury lodges, superb restaurants and spas, it’s also popular for summer golfing, hiking and mountain biking.
Given its 8,200+ hotel rooms and other visitor accommodations, Whistler has become an important meetings and incentive destination, particularly spring through fall. Activities and festivals are myriad; an attraction in late 2008 will be the new Peak to Peak Gondola, which will carry passengers more than 1,300 feet above the valley floor.
Keystone Symposia, based in Colorado, has brought a medical education group of between 200 and 700 to Whistler each spring since 2004—and is booked to 2010. Why Whistler? “Good meeting facilities, skiing opportunities, variety of lodging and lots of restaurants,” says Senior Planner Linda Hrycaj.
Major Meeting Venue
While Whistler offers a total of 150,000 sq. ft. of conference space, the principal venue is the TELUS Whistler Conference Centre. Located in pedestrian Whistler Village, it features 40,000 sq. ft. of function space, including an atrium with mountain views. Branded hotels that accommodate meetings include Four Seasons, Fairmont, Westin, Hilton, Delta and Pan Pacific.
Unique Meeting Venues
The Roundhouse Lodge on Whistler Mountain—at 6,069 feet and with 360-degree views—can accommodate up to 1,500 in 15,000 sq. ft. of function space. A tented event can be held at Lost Lake Park. And Rainbow Glacier, reached by helicopter, is a destination for corporate or incentive lunches.
The Okanagan
The Okanagan Valley (hellobc.com; totabc.com) is four hours by car from Vancouver and the province’s main grape-growing region. The product of 100 wineries, on two major lakes, rivals any in the world. Two cities—Kelowna and Penticton—have large resort-hotels with meeting facilities.
More northerly Kelowna is a sophisticated center, with a growing cultural component; Penticton is a more family-oriented destination, famed for its beaches. Both have airports: Kelowna is served by four daily direct flights to and from Seattle; both cities connect daily with major Canadian centers.
Alison Appelbe, a life-long Vancouverite, specializes in business and travel writing. She’s written a guide book to Vancouver, the Mobil Travel Guide to Vancouver, and several sections of Time Out Vancouver and the upcoming Fodors guide to Vancouver and Victoria.
Back to Top
Getting There
- Vancouver and Richmond: Vancouver International Airport (YVR) serves major Canadian and U.S. carriers. The modern terminal is 20 minutes by taxi or airport bus from downtown. The Canada Line, a light-rail link, will open in 2009. Amtrak (amtrak.com) provides rail service between Seattle and Vancouver.
- Victoria and Vancouver Island: Victoria International Airport (YYJ) is served by Horizon Air (Alaska Airlines) from Seattle, Pacific Coastal Airlines, Westjet and Air Canada. Westcoast Air and Harbour Air fly floatplanes between Vancouver and Victoria. Kenmore Air runs charter flights to Victoria from Seattle. BC Ferries run morning to evening between two Vancouver terminals, and Victoria and Nanaimo.
- Whistler: The resort town lies 76 miles north of Vancouver by a mostly single-lane highway. The Whistler Mountaineer rail service runs daily between Vancouver and Whistler from late April to October. Greyhound and Pacific Coach Lines run daily bus service between YVR, Vancouver and Whistler.
- Okanagan: Horizon Air flies daily between Seattle and Kelowna.
Fast Facts
| Population | 4,413,973 |
|---|---|
| Temperature | -4°f - 75°f |
| Nearest Airport | Ketchikan International Airport |
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