Tourism Kamloops to measure impact of movie star’s compliment

In the coming days and weeks, DeSantis says her organization will be able to measure the initial impact of Pratt’s compliment.

“We haven’t measured it yet. We’ll be measuring it this week and seeing if we had any spikes,” DeSantis told CFJC Today. “But we know he’s in town for a while so we’re certainly hoping he’s going to continue to [promote Kamloops on social media] so we can measure lots of spikes in our searches.”

“It would probably motivate folks to go, ‘Where the heck is Kamloops?’ and start their search to see where he is in the world. And that bodes really well for us,” said DeSantis. “Any sort of awareness that we get — and positive awareness such as [Pratt] gave us that shout out, how beautiful it was and we all know it is — you know people are going to search it.”

While Pratt’s brief comments about Kamloops may yield a bounty of tourist dollars, DeSantis says the region’s growing profile in the film production industry will have a more long-term impact.

“We’re finding that more and more companies are coming here to film because we’re very cost-effective for them, we have a diverse landscape in and around Kamloops, and we’re so welcoming,” said DeSantis.

“Kamloops especially, the folks are very friendly here. So these actors and producers and movie teams like to come in, they become part of our community, we leave them alone and let them do their good work — and they really respect that. That’s spreading throughout that industry and that bodes really well for us.”

According to IMDB.com, filming in the Kamloops area is expected to take about two weeks, wrapping up on March 6.

by James Peters

Tourism Kamloops to measure impact of movie star’s compliment

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