Quesnel businesses seem to be surviving the COVID-19 pandemic quite well, at least so far.
Kathy Somerville is the President of Quesnel and District Chamber of Commerce.
“The Chamber, we’ve actually increased membership this year.  We only lost two businesses and they were two businesses that have just got off the ground for 2020, and didn’t have any 2019 records, so they couldn’t get going for 2020 which was a shame.”
Somerville says they now have 320 members.
As for why Quesnel and area businesses seem to be hanging in there, Somerville says there are a few reasons.
“There were a lot of shop local campaigns that were going on, the need to get it out to the public to support what we have here, and I think this community has done an amazing job to support our businesses.  We’ve had lots of programs with Community Futures and development, getting them to do some extra training, maybe do some on-line marketing etc.  We had West Fraser Mills buy all those gift certificates which was a huge asset to this community, so those types of things are still gong on and they’re ongoing.”
Somerville says they are not out of the woods yet however.
She adds that she wants to know from businesses what the Chamber can do to help, as they are open to suggestions.
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