By Lara Fominoff (@LaraFominoff on Twitter)

Future of Chinook Country Tourist Centre uncertain as it closes end of September

Sep 10, 2018 | 6:18 AM

LETHBRIDGE – The Chinook Country Tourist Association Visitor Information Centre will close its doors for the season at the end of September, as questions remain about whether it will re-open again next summer.

Executive director Nikolaus says most services for RVs and other visitors, however, will remain accessible.

“This is all City of Lethbridge land, and the playground, the picnic shelter, the Sani-dump and all those things that RVs need will remain open. Unfortunately…. there’s a separate building with washrooms that typically closes Oct.1, due to… the freeze-up of pipes.”

However next year, it’s not clear whether the information centre will be back up and running. Wyslouzil says unless they can find other sources of funding or make an arrangement with Tourism Lethbridge to remain open, the tourist information centre may permanently close its doors.

“Basically, it all comes down to the same thing. And that’s money. If we were successful in certain aspects, we could consider keeping it open. The visitor service is only one part of our business. We may just be letting that portion go but continuing on the organization in a destination marketing capacity.”

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Wyslouzil says over the summer, nearly 9,000 people stopped into the visitor’s centre, about a 20 per cent drop from 2017. However, he says the building wasn’t open on Sundays this year, and last year was extraordinarily busy because of the Canada 150 celebrations.

The fate of the visitor’s centre will be decided in the next couple of months. 

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