By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles on Twitter

Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden aiming to become global attraction

Oct 23, 2018 | 3:35 PM

LETHBRIDGE – Staff at Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden are taking steps to make the site a location that tourists seek out and plan a trip around, rather than somewhere that they visit while in the city or region for something else.

To that end, a couple of announcements were made Tuesday morning, Oct. 23, including a three-year partnership with the Lethbridge Lodging Association (VisitLethbridge.com), a new website, and information on the upcoming Winter Light Festival.

The partnership will see the Lethbridge Lodging Association become a major sponsor of the ‘Grow With Our Garden’ campaign, as well as the Garden’s preferred accommodations provider.

“This is sort of a new standard in terms of sponsorship for Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden,” said Nikka Yuko’s marketing and special events manager, James Phelan. “It’ll be consistent sponsorship money that’ll help the garden expand into our Henderson Lake multi-use centre, which will be constructed sometime in the next number of years.

“Visit Lethbridge is sort of connecting the dots in between a lot of the different organizations in town and making sure that residents, as well as tourists, are aware of all of the incredible events and activities and restaurants [in Lethbridge]. So, it’s a win-win for everybody in Lethbridge that we can celebrate everything that the city has to offer,” Phelan added.

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Other initiatives to expand their reach, include returning to the Canada West Marketplace next month, which connects global tourism companies with attractions and products in Alberta and B.C. It will be Nikka Yuko’s second time there, and this year they will be adding the Winter Light Festival, in addition to what they offer in the summer.

“For the last four years, we’ve been developing a tourism product to take to the global market in the travel trade industry, and this is really significant because Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden is a significant garden in Canada with a municipal and provincial historical resource,” explained Michelle Day, the Garden’s executive director. “It was important for us to be able to go out to the world and invite the world to Lethbridge, Alberta to see the signature attraction.”

Focussing on the festival – beginning Dec. 1 and wrapping up for the season on Feb. 2 – Day says last year they saw more than 14,000 people come through their gates. She’s hoping to see that number climb as high as 20,000 this year.

“If you’ve never been to Nikka Yuko – and we’ve heard there are some people out there that [are] born, raised, never been to Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden – if you come for the lights and then you’re inspired to come back in the summer and learn more about the significance of the garden,” said Day.

“Every year we try to change the display of lights just a little bit to represent different significant things that are happening,” she continued. “So, for example, last year was the 50th anniversary for Nikka Yuko Japanese Gardens, so we did gold and red. This year, we’re celebrating the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Canada.”