Salmon Arm is a better real estate choice for city slickers re "Kamloops beckons to city slickers"

The City of Kamloops is targeting Lower Mainland residents where it hurts -- as they sit in their idling cars stuck in traffic at 7:30 a.m.

The southern Interior city is running 30-second radio ads promoting the website www.movetokamloops.com to entice Vancouver-area residents to consider a change of scenery.

The $35,000 ad campaign which will run until next fall, highlights the business and lifestyle advantages of moving to Kamloops. It's part of a larger campaign that includes sending representatives to job fairs to attract people from across Canada and beyond -- especially those with professional skills.

The ads make the point, in a light-hearted way, that rush hour in Kamloops isn't quite the same as driving from Surrey to downtown Vancouver on a daily commute.

In April, the ads start running in Alberta.

"We've had a really positive response from people who live in Vancouver," Jeff Putnam, CEO of Venture Kamloops, the city's economic development office, said in an interview Tuesday. "We thought the most innovative approach was to use radio and direct people to the website. Then they can get their own customized relocation package on Kamloops."

Putnam said the campaign has saved the city a lot of money and time because it allows people to download a customized package on their area of interest --including real estate, immigration, schools, recreation facilities and jobs. Venture Kamloops staff would otherwise mail out the packages by hand.

Putnam said there will be nearly 70,000 new and replacement positions opening within the next five years, about half in call centres and retail and the other half in skilled, higher-paying jobs. "We surveyed 80 employers in 14 sectors. They said they'll need 68,000 positions."

The high number of people who will retire in the area is adding to the shortfall, he said.

Kamloops is positioning itself as a regional hub where a lot of skilled workers, especially information technology professionals, engineers and medical specialists, are needed in its diversifying economy. "We have an exceptional lifestyle here, with zero commute time and great roads. We're 45 minutes to Sun Peaks. We're affordable and our sports facilities are second to none. And we have a really healthy business climate."

Kamloops is also looking for workers from Europe. Putnam's two-member economic development team attended job and immigration fairs in Edinburgh, London and Utrecht earlier this month.

Putnam said Kamloops generated 210 leads from the European job fairs, enough to warrant attending a fourth fair in England next year and another in Germany in 2009.

"We were expecting about 30 to 40 leads per show. We did almost double that. I just got a call from a couple in England. They're flying to Kamloops and want to start an agri-tourism related business."

Putnam said Venture Kamloops also produces a publication on Kamloops six times a year called City of Rivers, which reaches 180,000 homes through newspapers across the province. "And this year we'll attend the oil and gas show in Calgary."

Putnam said another factor in Kamloops becoming a business centre is Thompson Rivers University, which not only attracts significant investment but has a large percentage of foreign students, particularly from China.

He also cited the just-completed $12-million TRU World building to accommodate international students at the university.

Despite Putnam's comments about the city's affordable housing, the average price of a home in Kamloops rose 28.6 per cent from February 2006 to February 2007 -- the second highest increase in the province. By comparison, prices in Greater Vancouver rose an average 8.5 per cent. The B.C. average was 12.2 per cent.

However, Putnam said Kamloops prices are still considerably cheaper than the Lower Mainland. The website www.movetokamloops.com lists the median price of a single-family house in Kamloops at $291,000 in 2006. The same figure for Vancouver is $650,000.

According to the 2006 census, the population of Kamloops grew four per cent since 2001, from 77,281 to 80,376.

(prepared by Brian Morton/Vancouver Sun)