Tourism Prince George is continuing to promote sport tourism in the city, this time by partnering with the Prince George Youth Volleyball Club and the Northern Sport Centre to put together a bid to host the 2017 U21 Volleyball Pan American Cup and they’re hoping to receive some support from the City.
“We’ll have a delegation at the Council meeting present this to Council and answer their questions and hopefully receive a positive response for the $60,000 commitment,” says Leanne Schinkel with Tourism Prince George. “I just think it’s going to be a really great event.”
She says the city would be a great host for the event, which would feature eight teams and six days of competition in May of next year.
“We’ve got a great volleyball community in this town. We’ve obviously got a great hosting reputation too and we know that we can definitely grow the events that we bring to town. The Northern Sport Centre is a great venue so this just seemed like a great opportunity for us to thrown in a bid and see if we can bring this event to PG.”
The group’s presentation will include its calculations on the economic impacts of hosting the tournament. While the price tag may seem steep, the group thinks the payoff will be well worth it.
“We take all the numbers, like the budget, and then we take the number of participants, the number of VIPs, everyone who’s coming in from out of town and what we got out of that is over $800,000 in local revenue and $1 million for provincial.”
The group has already submitted an expression of interest to host the event but will need the City’s support, as well as $50,000 from the provincial and federal governments, to make it a reality.