Brian Lawrence

Autumn Yesh and Amy Maddess recently attended the Inland Northwest RV Show in Spokane, Wash., to promote the Creston Valley.

By sheer coincidence, while a string of torchbearers were carrying the Olympic flame in and out of Creston on the weekend, two young women were carrying a torch for the Creston Valley in the first of three out-of-town trade shows.

Autumn Yesh and Amy Maddess, tourist information staff for the Creston Valley Chamber of Commerce, took a display to Washington state last weekend to promote the area at the popular Inland Northwest RV Show in Spokane.

The young duo will attend another RV show in Calgary in February and an outdoor adventure show in Edmonton in March. In the three shows, an estimated total of 50,000 people will have the opportunity to learn more about the many attractions in the Creston Valley.

“Most of the visitors we see here at the Tourist Information Centre come from Alberta,” Maddess said. “So that’s definitely one of our target markets.”

The women both represented the Creston Valley at the Spokane RV show in 2009.

“We got really positive feedback,” Maddess said. “We had lots of visitors come into the tourist information centre last year whom we had met at that show.”

The biggest surprise, the pair agreed, was lack of awareness among the people they talked to.

“So many people didn’t realize how close we were,” Maddess said. “They think we’re a thousand miles away. So we are creating awareness about how close we are.”

Most common questions are about fruit ripening dates, the Goat Style Bike Festival and the Columbia Brewery.

“Kokanee is a pretty big brand down there,” Yesh said. “Older people are very interested in the Wildlife Interpretation Centre and birdwatching opportunities.”

The women weave their promotional magic from a booth that features a large photographic mural depicting local activities (on loan from the Creston Valley Tourism Authority), pass out promotional materials and invite attendees to visit the Creston Valley.

The women clearly relish the opportunity to tell others about their home community and invite them to visit.

“We want to be seen as a place where people can vacation that is close by and that has inexpensive things for people of all ages to do,” Maddess said. “The wildlife centre, Kootenay Lake, our agricultural businesses and Kokanee tours are all things that people like to hear about.”

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