Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada

🇨🇦 Kamloops is a city in south-central British Columbia, Canada, at the confluence of the two branches of the Thompson River and east of Kamloops Lake. It is located in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, whose district offices are based here. The surrounding region is more commonly referred to as the Thompson Country. It is the twelfth largest municipality in the province. The Kamloops census agglomeration is ranked 36th among census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada.

Kamloops is known as the Tournament Capital of Canada. It hosts more than 100 tournaments each year at world-class sports facilities such as the Tournament Capital Centre, Kamloops Bike Ranch, and Tournament Capital Ranch. Health care, tourism, and education are major contributing industries to the regional economy and have grown in recent years.

In 2016, Kamloops was the first city in British Columbia to be designated as a bee city. Numerous organisations in the community are protecting and creating bumble bee habitats in the city.

Economy Kamloops' economy includes healthcare, tourism, education, transportation, and natural resource extraction industries.

The Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) is the city's largest employer. RIH is the region's acute care and health facility and is one of two tertiary referral hospitals in the Southern Interior with 239 acute beds and an additional 20 more beds upon completion of the expansion in 2016.

Thompson Rivers University (TRU) serves a student body of 25,754 including a diverse international contingent mainly from Asian countries. Thompson Rivers University, Open Learning (TRU-OL) is the biggest distance education provider in British Columbia and one of the biggest in Canada.

Heavy industries in the Kamloops area include primary resource processing such as Domtar Kamloops Pulp Mill, Tolko-Heffley Creek Plywood and Veneer, New Gold Inc - New Afton Mine, and Highland Valley Copper Mine (in Logan Lake).

Four major highways join in Kamloops, the BC Highway 1 (Trans-Canada Highway), the Coquihalla Highway (BC highway 5 south of the city), the Yellowhead Highway (BC Highway 5 north of the city) and BC Highway 97, making it a transportation hub and a place which attracts business. There are over 50 trucking and transport companies located in Kamloops that ship across Canada and into the United States. Both the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian National Railway service Kamloops with both lines running through the city.

Tourist Industry Kamloops welcomed 1.8 million visitors in 2017, a 9% increase from 2015 (1.64 million). Tourism's economic ROI is immense. A$1.8 million destination marketing budget returned $449 million in economic benefit in 2017.The annual Direct Visitor Expenditure is estimated at $270 million, a 19% increase from 2015 ($227 million). Further, the total estimated tourism economic impact was $449 million in 2017, a 32.4% increase from 2015 ($339 million).

Tourism generates many types of income for the region, including business income, wage earnings, share earnings, rates and levies. Conservation springs from industry wide support for management, research and education initiatives that benefit everyone through responsible tourism management.

Kamloops has over 50 accommodation choices from major hotels to bed and breakfasts. Accommodation occupancy rates were 61.5% in 2017, up 2.6% from 2016.