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Adventure Centre used as Olympic pit stop

Media and visitors invited to learn about Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵduring the Games

While the hottest Olympic spotlights were centred on the sporting venues in Vancouver, Whistler and Richmond, the Adventure Centre experienced a boon in media enquiries and traffic over the last few weeks.

About 1,000 passengers travelling on buses between the Vancouver International Airport and Whistler stopped at the centre per day, according to Tourism Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵmanager of tourism development Lesley Weeks.

"It was people from all over the world. And the great thing about being at the Adventure Centre was the [Olympic] Homestay Program was based out of here, so we had an opportunity to actually tell the Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵstory to a lot of the visitors who came in," she said.

Pacific Coach Lines made 20 stops at the Adventure Centre every day between Feb. 12 and 28, dropping off about 60 people on the hour.

During the 10-minute pit stop, the travelers browsed cultural information kiosks, perused the gift shop, refuelled at the café, took photos near the inukshuk and viewed the Spirit of Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵfilms featuring local Olympians, landmarks and activities.

"A lot of the people who we wouldn't normally have been coming through here were coming in," said Weeks.

Tourism Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵoffered interview space and work stations for media to turn the Adventure Centre into a headquarters. And although most enquiries about Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵcame via telephone and email, American television network NBC out of Anchorage, Alaska, performed live broadcasts onsite over multiple days.

Weeks also provided media with "story starters" summarizing popular local events and places, and helped tour Olympic networks around town, where they collected footage of the waterfront, various viewpoints, and the spirited climbers who hung a banner on the Stawamus Chief proclaiming gold medalist Maëlle "Ricker Rocks."

The footage was to be released on the media wire to make it available to networks around the world.

Weeks said the Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵWindsport Society was featured on a tourism-related commercial that was created before the Olympics and aired on CTV-affiliated stations throughout the Games.

Tourism Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵconnected with networks from countries such as Germany, Denmark, Slovenia and China. However, Weeks said she is unsure to what degree the networks actually used footage from Squamish.

"We're trying to collect information on that. It's hard to connect into all of the different host networks of every country."

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