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.