3426 replies to this topic

[laconic]

Could be I've confused my fests.

[zoomer]

The Jazz festival is using the Ship Point parking lot. Every year they set up a seemingly higher and higher curtain on the Wharf Street sidewalk to block the view of the stage. This year it is about 10 feet high and extends the full length of lot.
 
Not very tourist friendly to block one of the nicest views of the harbour with a wall. More importantly, it blocks the view of the deeply significant Sooke hills.

That’s total bs. They need to pick another location then if it means blocking off entire views. TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! I’ll be there with my sledgehammer if need be.

[aastra]

Fishhook:

 

 

Would have appreciated ice in the sodas and waters, but I realize this is not the US!

 

From TripAdvisor.com...

[Mike K.]

Frick, few things have changed I see. It was the same old song back in the 90’s. If American tourists didn’t get ice in their drink they’d be mighty upset.

[gstc84]

I've definitely noticed a shift in the last year or so at local fast food places where suddenly I usually have to ask for ice in my fountain drinks. It's really weird to me (and super annoying, because I generally forget to ask). Why would anyone want a fountain pop that's room temperature after 5 minutes? When did 'no ice' become the assumed preference? Can I blame millennials for this paradigm shift?

[aastra]

It's a Canadian thing. Or a not-USA thing.

 

You don't really need ice in your drink in Victoria unless your drink is warmer than you want it to be.*

 

*clever callback to the great air conditioning debate

[Rob Randall]

Or iced tea. Americans are shocked and baffled that it is served pre-sweetened.

[sdwright.vic]

^I think they are more baffled that it is not brewed in house.

[Hotel Mike]

I love your description of the "paradigm shift" gstc. When I'm in the U.S. and go to a movie or a take out restaurant, I always ask them to go easy on the ice. Americans tend to load your cup full with ice and then put the liquid in. You don't get much that way, and if you don't drink it pretty fast, your drink is really watered down. 

[DustMagnet]

I love your description of the "paradigm shift" gstc. When I'm in the U.S. and go to a movie or a take out restaurant, I always ask them to go easy on the ice. Americans tend to load your cup full with ice and then put the liquid in. You don't get much that way, and if you don't drink it pretty fast, your drink is really watered down. 

Well if you ask for ice water in France you either get a bowl of ice and small tongs to go with your glasses of water, or the admonition, "Oh but our water is very fresh!"  Never figured out what "fresh" had to do with "cold", but whatever.  Should be drinking wine anyway.

 

And yes, our "ice tea" is what Americans call "sweet tea".  The surprise is the other way around when south of the border.

[vortoozo]

I much prefer the unsweetened iced tea available in the US. Much healthier and refreshing.

[sdwright.vic]

^and as I said, it's pretty much fresh brewed in almost all restaurants on a daily basis.

[aastra]

I was doing my annual perusal of the various travel guides on the ferry and unfortunately Victoria's tourism honchos seems to have chickened out yet again re: providing context shots or establishing shots of the city itself. The one guide (the small one, like a TV guide) comes across as a generic coupon book for no place in particular. The magazine-sized guides don't do much better. If not for the condo ads there wouldn't be any meaningful city pics in those, either.

 

Meanwhile, every frickin' other place shows off the city or town with at least one splashy pic, typically right near the front or on the cover itself. Vancouver does it, Portland does it, Huntington Beach does it... even Nanaimo and Campbell River do it. Why wouldn't they? You MUST provide that context. When you're promoting a place, people are naturally going to expect to see a picture of that place. But the folks in Victoria still seem convinced that providing context images would scare the tourists away. Seriously, it's 2018. This is lunacy.

 

It's as if the goal is to gradually strip Victoria of any visual identity at all. It's the city about nothing! (Seinfeld reference) All of those shops and restaurants and special events that we're promoting in this guide are just clustered together by random chance.

 

(For those who don't know what I'm talking about, you can review some of my past gripes on this topic here and here.)

 

Edit: In 2013 I posted the following:

 

 

...one of the new guides went so far as to include two aerial pictures of Sidney, just in case one aerial picture of Sidney wasn't enough.

Edited by aastra, 05 July 2018 - 09:06 AM.

[Jackerbie]

^ Are you talking about this one? http://www.nxtbook.c...dden/bcv_ovg18/

 

I agree. There are the typical shots of the Empress and Legislature, but that's about it. The one overhead of Victoria shows the golf club in Oak Bay.

[aastra]

That's one of them. Gotta love that cover. The Juan de Fuca trail on the cover of a Victoria guide. Where would that spot be located? Maybe 40 miles from downtown Victoria? Could you possibly get any more remote and still claim that it was "Victoria"? I suppose the next issue will feature a picture of Bellingham on the cover of the Victoria guide?

[Nparker]

...It's as if the goal is to gradually strip Victoria of any visual identity at all. It's the city about nothing!...

...There are the typical shots of the Empress and Legislature, but that's about it...

...Gotta love that cover. The Juan de Fuca trail on the cover of a Victoria guide...

It's probably becoming increasingly difficult to take contemporary photographs of Victoria that don't include all the "devastating" changes (aka those nasty "skyscrapers") that might damage our reputation of being some sort of fairy tale, Ye Olde English village. It's like we're a real city or something. 

[RFS]

​Well, the good news is no one reads those things

[vortoozo]

That's one of them. Gotta love that cover. The Juan de Fuca trail on the cover of a Victoria guide. Where would that spot be located? Maybe 40 miles from downtown Victoria? Could you possibly get any more remote and still claim that it was "Victoria"? I suppose the next issue will feature a picture of Bellingham on the cover of the Victoria guide?

 

Tourism Victoria's mandate extends to Port Renfrew on the west coast and basically everything south of the Cowichan. The photo is within this area. Bellingham, not so much.

[aastra]

Like I say, they've consciously and deliberately avoided showing the city itself for a long time. But they seem to be getting even more aggressive about it now. I'm not kidding, the imagery in the Victoria guides is what you'd typically see for more remote and generalized regions that don't have a defining city or town centre to show off. "Northern BC" or "the Olympic Peninsula" or places like that. Lots of wilderness shots, mountains, beaches... people hiking and kayaking and fishing or whatever. But for a city to exclude itself from its own promotional efforts in this manner is downright bizarre.

 

On this board we've seen numerous pics that show off the city's uniqueness. Why not try putting a picture like this on the cover of the city's guide? Or somewhere inside the guide, if not on the cover? Imagery of this nature has generally been suppressed by the authorities (it sounds like I'm talking about a top secret jet fighter or something, that's how silly this whole thing is), so if you put it out there now it would probably blow people away. In terms of themes, try selling the fact that there's much more there than you (the tourist) ever knew.

 

For goodness sake, the cover pic is a remote spot way the hell out of town that would take a tourist two hours to reach by car. 98%* of Victoria's visitors would never get anywhere near it. And yet this is what gets the spotlight? It's crazy.

 

*damned statistics

Edited by aastra, 05 July 2018 - 11:40 AM.

[aastra]

 

Tourism Victoria's mandate extends to Port Renfrew on the west coast and basically everything south of the Cowichan.

 

The cover pic is a spot that makes no money for anybody in Victoria. Heck, if (day-tripping) tourists were to flock to that spot it would actually hurt Victoria. And yet it earns the cover.

Edited by aastra, 05 July 2018 - 11:41 AM.