The Kelowna Visitor Centre has become a retail outlet for Kelowna Regional Transit Passes.

To gain first-hand experience on local accommodations and attractions that are accessible by public transit, Tourism Kelowna staff and volunteers were out on a familiarization tour this week using the Kelowna Regional Transit System. On most familiarization tours we travel by rental van, but for this tour, taking public transit gives us better insight into accommodations and attractions that are accessible by bus. With the goal of making public transit convenient and accessible to the visitor, our Kelowna Visitor Centre became a retail outlet for Kelowna Regional Transit Passes as of Wednesday, July 8, carrying day passes, monthly passes, and single use passes in sheets of ten.

To give you a better idea of some of the businesses that are conveniently close to public transit, here is a quick synopsis of the tour we conducted.

We started our day at the Holiday Inn Express Kelowna Conference Centre for a short tour of their rooms and conference facilities before we hopped on the 97 Express to Energyplex where we learned about their facility that offers activities for both local and visiting kids and families.  From here we continued on the 97 Express to UBC for a tour of their accommodations. UBC has over 500 rooms that are available between the months of May – September when school is not in session. After UBC we were back on the bus to the Sandman for a tour of their rooms and conference facilities. Sandman offers a variety of room types and has a Denny’s, Chop, and Bar One on site. We left the Sandman and were hosted by The Old Spaghetti Factory for a delicious lunch before finishing our tour at the Coast Capri Hotel.

In December the Visitor Sales & Services Staff and Volunteers also participated in a public transportation familiarization tour utilizing the #23 bus that connects the UBC Okanagan Transit Exchange to the Kelowna International Airport and Lake Country.