“What’s good for the resident is good for the tourist, but the reverse is not necessarily true. […] Just having it good for the tourist doesn’t make it a viable thing to do for the people that live here.” – Ellen Walker-Matthews

During the 2010s, the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) in British Columbia led a region-wide effort to become North America’s first Biosphere-certified region. The effort has had an impact across the province and beyond.

Ellen Walker-Matthews, President and CEO at TOTA, shares how it all happened. Biosphere is a globally recognized sustainability standard aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals. TOTA’s journey began in 2010 when community workshops revealed a critical challenge: the region’s tourism was dangerously concentrated in just 45 days of summer, creating unsustainable pressure on both the environment and local businesses.

Through extensive community engagement across 180 locations, TOTA discovered that residents wanted to protect the land while still welcoming visitors. This led to their 2017 Biosphere certification, which focuses on four pillars: environmental stewardship, social culture vibrancy, and economic viability.

Other destinations in BC have followed suit. Today, five BC regions now hold Biosphere certification, alongside other destinations like Tourism Tofino. Supporting the move toward sustainability, the provincial government launched the BC Tourism Climate Resiliency Initiative, providing micro-grants of up to $15,000 to help businesses implement sustainability action plans. Around 500 businesses are now involved in TOTA’s commitment program, tracked through a dashboard system that ensures genuine participation and prevents greenwashing.

The region’s tourism season has been expanding beyond the summer months, demonstrating that sustainable practices can solve economic challenges while protecting natural resources.

On Travel Beyond, you’ll learn:

• How Thompson Okanagan businesses can access up to $15,000 in sustainability micro-grants through BC’s Tourism Climate Resiliency Initiative.
• How visitor pledge programs in the Thompson Okanagan help travellers act on the Seven Generations principle during their stay.
• Why young people are driving demand for sustainable tourism employers in the Thompson Okanagan region.

Show notes

BC Tourism Climate Resiliency Initiative (BCTCRI) – Provincial program providing sustainability action planning and micro-grants up to $15,000 for tourism businesses.

Biosphere Certification – A globally recognized sustainable tourism standard developed by the Responsible Tourism Institute and aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Destination BC – Provincial destination marketing organization that now supports Biosphere certification across all BC tourism regions.

Green Step Tourism – Sustainability consulting company that helped TOTA evaluate certification options and implement their program.

Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) – The regional destination management organization that became the first in North America to achieve Biosphere certification.

Images provided by Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association.

Episode transcript

Ellen Walker-Matthews: What’s good for the resident is good for the tourist, but the reverse is not necessarily true. Just having it good for the tourist doesn’t make it a viable thing to do for the people that live here.

Peter McCully: Welcome to Travel Beyond. I’m Peter McCully for Destination Think. On this episode, we look at travel’s role in making a better world, and we highlight leading destinations and change makers. Our guests are taking local action that the world can learn from. They’re helping to regenerate ecosystems, communities, and economies, and they’re sometimes making positive change happen from the bottom up.

Many of the voices we’ve highlighted are part of the Destination Think collective, a peer group of more than 20 ambitious, forward-thinking destinations working toward a better future for travel and the planet. Today on the podcast, we’re talking with leading destinations about tourism’s role in caring for communities and the environment.

Located in British Columbia, Canada, the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association has long been known for its attention to sustainability. The region became the first in North America to achieve biosphere certification, a globally recognized sustainability standard aligned with United Nations development goals.

Since that achievement, the region has been working to expand its tourism season responsibly, and they’ve invited operators on the journey alongside local residents. Around 500 businesses are now involved in the Biosphere Commitment program, tracked through a dashboard system that ensures genuine participation.

David Archer from Destination Think spoke with Ellen Walker-Matthews, president and CEO of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association, about how putting residents first in tourism planning strengthens the visitor economy while protecting the environment for future generations.

Ellen Walker-Matthews: My name is Ellen Walker-Matthews. I’m president and CEO of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association here in the interior of British Columbia, Canada.

David Archer: I’ve visited a number of times. I think about wineries and lakes, and I think about one particularly nice trip that I had on one of the rail trails. Can you sketch out the region for us?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Certainly. Some of the areas that you’re talking about are big parts of our region, absolutely. But interestingly, the Thompson Okanagan is about the size of Ireland. We like to say it goes in the north up to Mount Robson, one of the tallest mountains in the Rocky Mountains, and then all the way down to Osoyoos on the US-Canada border. Osoyoos is a semi-pocket desert, quite a diverse geography. We then go over to Manning Park, which is bordering us on our west side, and Christina Lake, which is just before the Kootenay Rockies on the east side. Quite a large swath of land.

My joke is always that we have everything except whales, but we do have an Ogopogo apparently in our lake, which makes up for it. But yes, a really diverse geography in the region.

David Archer: What are some of the signature experiences, if you could choose a few?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Certainly you named some of them. The wineries—we have over 200 wineries in the region, which a lot of people are not aware of, but they’re well known if you’re in the domestic market. Certainly cycling, hiking, and soft adventure throughout the region are big. The Kettle Valley Rail Trail, Myra Canyon, part of the Trans Canada Trail route, all very popular. In the north part of our region, there are amazing waterfalls and hiking, and just spectacular outdoor adventures. Then if you look at Kamloops and the Merritt area, there are more rolling hills, lots of horseback riding, and that outdoor western feel to it. We just have, again, largely soft adventure experiences with a range for everybody.

We also have some of the world’s best climbing and bouldering. If you happen to be a little bit more extreme, you can get that in the region as well. Again, a little bit of everything, but a lot of it focused on the great outdoors.

David Archer: What’s one thing that you miss about this part of the world when you’re away?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: The big blue skies, the openness, the lake—Okanagan Lake, which is a hundred miles plus or minus, really defines a lot of the region. Then we have the North Thompson River, so it’s quite defined by water as well as this beautiful nature.

David Archer: Water, but not whales.

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Water, but not whales. I keep looking sometimes.

David Archer: I like to ask because everyone has a little bit of a different answer. Was there a moment for you that you can point to where you became committed to sustainability or climate action?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Our organization, under a different CEO, Glen Manke, who’s gone on to do great things, was very interested in building out the economy of the region. That was really the catalyst that started the conversation. People weren’t talking about sustainability really in 2010. It was a bit of a foreign conversation. But a series of workshops around the region were conducted to talk about how we built a better tourism economy.

It was very focused on July and August, very focused on that six to eight weeks. If in those six to eight weeks anything happened—and particularly I’m talking about rain or cold weather, because we were a warm summer, sun, and fun location—then we lost that. Building an economy in tourism was a lot of skating uphill in the summer and a lot of holding on for dear life in the winter.

The initial conversation was: how do we change that? When the workshops happened and when the organization went out and talked in community—they went to over 180 different locations and had workshops—people had a message around wanting to keep it authentic. They wanted to tell a deeper story, to talk more about what the region is about outside of July and August. We have a lot to offer; we’re just not talking about it. But underlying this was a conversation about wanting to protect the land. They couldn’t articulate it as sustainability at that point because, again, as I say, it wasn’t something that was commonplace to talk about. But it really was the catalyst for saying: How do we make sure 20, 30, 50 years from now, when people come to visit this region, the experience is still as rich as it is today?

I think that really set us on the journey.

David Archer: As part of a seasonality effort to expand what the region could offer, were there particular sorts of threats that people were looking at, or challenges to maintaining the land, as they might’ve said it back then?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: I think the big one was just overtourism. Again, a word they didn’t know how to use, but—

David Archer: They didn’t want too many people.

Ellen Walker-Matthews: It wasn’t about bringing more people in July and August, which was really what was happening. It was the only way you grew—more people would come in July and August. They were saying, no, we can’t have more boats on the lake. We can’t have more people here. We need to—and again, “flatten the curve” wasn’t even a term then—but flatten the curve. Forty-five days of tourism revenue was really what we were seeing. The goal and objective, again from my predecessor, was: how do we make that 110 and even 220 days versus the reliance on this 45-day window? It is a twofold sustainability: protecting what we have and protecting the economy and the tourism business so that it can survive for the long term.

David Archer: Can you give us an overview of what biosphere certification is? I know that’s a commitment that TOTA has made, but tell me a little bit about that.

Ellen Walker-Matthews: I’ll just walk it back a little bit. After we finished all of those workshops, we then created a regional strategy. It was released in 2012, and in that, we had talked about creating our own sustainability certification. But we went out into the universe with a very good company called Green Step. Angela Nagy works in this region and works all over the world now. We talked about what sustainable certifications already existed, and we looked at a variety of them. But the one that seemed to be the most fitting for our region and had some very practical components was biosphere.

It was a globally recognized standard developed by the Responsible Tourism Institute and aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. There were some other ones out there that maybe were more academic, some that were more theoretical, but this one had a component that we could really bring home and talk to our stakeholders about.

We had to do the initial year’s worth of work, which was very extensive. Then that certification is audited annually, so it’s not a one-and-done. It’s a continual improvement program, which is also very important to us.

David Archer: What was that year of work like, getting that together?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: It was a lot. I think we were very new to the game. It was all very new in the world, and even understanding what we needed to find—there are four pillars: environment, stewardship, social and cultural vibrancy, and economic viability. There’s a massive document that you had to go around the region, find evidence, talk to individuals, learn what we had and what we didn’t have.

Fortunately, we live in Canada and we live in British Columbia, so a lot of things that maybe other destinations in the world don’t have were already in place. Some of the work that was going on in areas like garbage and preservation of water, clean water, and access to fresh food—things like that may not be as easily accessed in other parts of the world and may not have as many rules and regulations around them—were already in place.

Some of it was easy to find, some of it was a lot of digging. But it took about a year. Then in 2017, we were awarded certification for the work that we’d done.

David Archer: What kinds of support for this commitment were you finding across the region? I imagine there was an effort to tell other people what was happening and rally everybody, right?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Absolutely. Again, a lot of people that live in this region spend their time in the outdoors. When you take it from that perspective, I always like to say: What’s good for the resident is good for the tourist, but the reverse is not necessarily true. Just having it good for the tourist doesn’t make it a viable thing to do for the people that live here.

When you take the perspective of wanting to live here—why do you want to live here? What makes it good for you? Now, how do we protect that but still invite the world to visit? Invite the world to see it. Invite the world to partake. People can start to wrap their heads around that idea.

David Archer: Tourism operators include residents, obviously, people that live in the region. But what about residents who might not be involved in the tourism industry? Do you think the certification might say something about the type of region that this is or the values of the people that live here?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Absolutely it does. We, and the province, do a residents’ survey on satisfaction with the tourism industry. We have continually, as a region, punched above our weight and hit 80, 80-plus percent of people who see tourism as a positive force for good, who see tourism as positive for the region. I think that comes from managing tourism in a way that people feel it’s not taking more than it’s giving back. That’s a continual conversation that you need to have.

David Archer: The TOTA website shares some statistics showing that travellers want to act sustainably and will pay for it, and we’ve been hearing that from a few places lately. It said that 87% of travellers want to travel sustainably, and 67% would pay more for travel that impacts the environment less. Do you think that the travel industry is still catching up to that fact, or how are you seeing that play out?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: Two or three years ago, I would’ve said we’re still catching up. I think the industry’s very active now, very involved. Unfortunately, climate events have had an impact on that, waking people up to the fact that things are happening that are out of our control. We want to control what we can; we want to make sure that what we are able to do, we are doing. I think it’s always unfortunate that negative things sometimes have a positive impact in making people change behaviours.

But certainly, I think the tourism industry is well aware of their role and their need to act responsibly. I think it’s a common conversation now, not something that’s odd or unusual to hear talked about. You talked earlier about our wine region and our soft fruit growing area. We’re a big farming region, all being affected by climate events, having to figure out how to grow differently and protect the fruit and the crops differently. All of those we see as part of the tourism ecosystem, and our tourism operators all do as well, because people want to come here to sometimes pick fruit, sometimes drink wine, sometimes do both. It’s all part of it, and we need to find ways to protect that industry as well. They’re having to adapt and change, and I think everyone’s coming along on that process.

David Archer: For listeners who aren’t in Western Canada, having grown up in Alberta, eating fruit fresh from the orchard is one of the main draws for people coming west, I have to say, it makes sense.

Let’s talk a little about what some of the sustainability mindset looks like in practice, perhaps, and in some ways that businesses are responding. Are there certain experiences that you’d like to point to as examples, coming up alongside you at TOTA with the biosphere certification?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: The first example I would like to raise is that the other regions in the province followed suit. There are five regions—there’s a sixth region that’s under the umbrella of Destination BC—but the other five regions that include Vancouver Island, Northern BC, Cariboo Chilcotin Coast, and the Kootenay Rockies have all become biosphere certified over the last few years. To me, that says a tremendous amount. We were the first region in North America to do this, and now we’ve got our own province all following suit. I think appreciating the value of it and understanding, as a person living in this province which is so dependent on protecting its environment for the future, really speaks volumes to us.

That would be the biggest example. But of course, we’ve had great success with having our wine industry come on board. Certainly our hotel industry has followed suit, and we’re seeing it in our ski resorts and restaurants. It’s quite extensive. It’s not easy for small businesses. A lot of our industry is very small-business oriented. We’re not a region full of big brands and big franchises, so a lot of our industry is made up of small mom-and-pops. For them to take the time to work on sustainability is an effort. But we’re seeing more and more people try and figure out how to put that effort in.

David Archer: How do you think travellers can find out whether a business shares that kind of commitment? What are they looking for?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: We try to make sure that they are elevated in all of the marketing efforts that are happening. We do have a pledge program that many businesses offer, and it’s a pledge by the business as well as by the visitor on how they’ll behave in the region, if you will. A lot of it’s seen on websites as well as when they’re actually in the region.

David Archer: You mentioned back in the early 2010s trying to figure out how to expand the tourism season. How is that going? Are more people visiting at other times of the year?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: In 2019, I think we were really close to our 110-day number, which was very exciting. We were seeing great activity levels right into late November and early activity levels as early as the beginning of April. COVID put a little wrench in that, I’m not going to lie. Unfortunately, when people were able to travel in Canada and when they were able to travel in this region, oftentimes the way it was opened up, it was opened back to our summer, sun, and fun timeframe.

All of a sudden, July and August—we call it the COVID effect—was just inundated with visitation, and then we would be closed up as the cold and flu season came because they were starting to worry about spread. It really was a challenging couple of years for all of us, for various reasons, but certainly in our work around sustainability, we saw that as a setback.

I would say this year, in talking to our operators, we’re very much back to where people have started—our tourism season has started to really show itself as early as March. Again, that can be many factors. Certainly what’s going on between Canada and the US, notwithstanding the dollar, is keeping people at home. But I’ve talked to many of our operators who say their May business has started in March, and we’re seeing it extend right through to the end of October. For whatever reason—I can’t just say that it’s all our great work—but it’s coming back to where it was and what we were starting to see in 2019. I think that’s fantastic because the region’s story is so much more than July and August.

David Archer: That’s really positive to hear. Aside from maybe visiting at different times of year, how do you think visitors can help the region with its commitment to sustainability? Or is there anything that they should be mindful of when visiting?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: I encourage them to go on our website and look for our pledge. It’s very easy to find, and they can take the pledge. I think it makes people mindful of how to be in any region, not just ours. Take what you need, be careful how you treat each other, be careful how you treat the land. I think looking at the Indigenous people who talk about the seven generations principle—which is what we do today affects seven generations ahead of us—think about that as you go through things. If I take this away, that means somebody else will not have the opportunity to see it in the future. If I destroy this in some manner, my children’s grandchildren’s children will not see this. I think as people start to think more about that future person visiting and what they would like to be able to leave them, they start to behave in a different fashion.

David Archer: What’s one thing that you hope visitors can learn from their visit to the region?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: The importance of outdoors, the importance of the environment. We are definitely not a region of malls and Disney rides. We’re small-business operators, we’re entrepreneurs, we’re people who are very connected to the work that they’re doing, be it growing something or delivering a service. The people here are resilient, and they love and are passionate about inviting people in to see who we are and what we are. I think just understanding that you’re not dealing with multinationals when you come to this region. You’re dealing with individual owners and operators.

David Archer: If we look ahead, or if you think about the next five or 10 years in tourism and maybe even zooming out beyond the region, what hopes do you have for the travel industry? What would you like travel to look like in the bigger picture?

Ellen Walker-Matthews: I hope that we continue to be able to travel in a way that is sustainable and not impacting the environment as much as it has in the past. But I think travel is important. I think being with each other, being together, be it for leisure, for family, for learning, for understanding culture, really is a road to peace and understanding. When we aren’t together, we are not better.

How we transport to different locations—I know the airline industry is working hard on trying to find ways of decarbonizing—we’re all trying to work on that. But I think underneath it all, what we need to make sure happens is that we continue to move around. I think that’s who we are as humankind. We’ve been doing it for centuries. We just have to do it in a way that’s better. But I think it’s important that we keep doing it.

Peter McCully: This has been Travel Beyond, presented by Destination Think. Our thanks to Ellen Walker-Matthews from the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association. To learn more about Biosphere certification and sustainable tourism in the Thompson Okanagan, you can visit totabc.com. For more resources and show notes, visit our website at destinationthink.com.

This episode was co-hosted and co-produced by myself, Peter McCully. David Archer hosted the interview and composed the theme music. Sara Raymond de Booy is co-producer. Lindsay Payne, Amy Bjarnason, and Cory Price provided production support. 

If you like what you hear, please take a moment to give us a five-star rating. It helps more people find our show. Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back with more next week.