As the first Saturday Market kicked off an unofficial start to Salt Spring’s summer tourist season, residents and businesses might have noticed 2026’s vacationers didn’t wait for the first blossoms before heading to the island.
In fact, according to new statistics compiled by volunteers at the Visitor Information Centre in Ganges, walk-in numbers for the first three months of the year have already jumped 18 per cent over 2025. Brigitte Diebold, who coordinates consolidation of stats for Destination BC, said the noticeably busy centre tallied 887 visitors in the first quarter, compared to 753 in 2025. Diebold said one reason for the boost is likely the longer hours of counting, with the centre open seven days a week — recording 268 hours compared to 199 in 2025, or 35 per cent more.
“On the long Easter weekend we provided services from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to cover the demand,” said Diebold. “Over 101 visitors came to the centre from April 1 to 5.”
That strong start — much of which was technically still taking place during the winter season — is exactly the sort of tourism increase residents are hoping for, according to a survey conducted this past fall by the Southern Gulf Islands Tourism Partnership (SGITP). While 63 per cent of residents — surveyed across multiple islands — reported a “sense of over-tourism” during the summer months generally, 44 per cent said they believed the region was under capacity during the winter.
Notably, according to SGITP’s survey, resident perceptions about both spring and fall “shoulder seasons” showed something of an equilibrium; the perceptions of “too few” versus “too many” visitors differed by only four per cent, which SGIPT said suggested current visitor levels during those periods aligned closely with community expectations.
Most of the first quarter’s Salt Spring Island visitors — about 80 per cent, according to VIC statistics — came from within the province, with another 14 per cent from elsewhere in Canada. Just a handful (2.1 per cent) arrived from the U.S. and another 2.8 per cent reported visiting from Europe, Asia, Australia and elsewhere.
It would be interesting to know Brigitte Diebold’s math background. She states there is a strong 18% increase in tourism for the first quarter of 2026 but then acknowledges that there is a 35% increase in the number of hours the Tourism Centre is open…therefore more hours to count visitors! Seems to me it is more likely we have had a decrease in visitors from last year if one is comparing apples to apples. And while we are on the subject, how do we know these people are not just buying bus passes? Aren’t bus passes being sold at the Visitor Centre? They used to be and when they were, the staff were counting the buyers as “tourists” in the numbers reported to Tourism Vancouver Island. Hmmm….seems we have a ways to go in getting accurate reporting. Before the tourism people go around patting themselves on the back, let’s face facts: Salt Spring has become a far less attractive place to visit in recent years and we must, as a community, fix that if we are to have a vibrant economy.