Ed Zavertea owns a tourist outfitter in Cochrane who hosts black bear hunts in the spring and fall. (Facebook)
Last June, Ed Zavelcha was busy preparing for the season. Two groups from Pennsylvania were scheduled to come to Cochran to hunt bears. Americans are the bread and butter of Zavelcha’s business. About a week before they were scheduled to arrive, the weather started to get hot and dry, and wildfires that had already started in various parts of the state in May of this year started to break out.
“It was about two days before they were supposed to come ashore, and then all of a sudden the fire started,” said Zavelcha, owner of Zavelcha Outfitters, a tourist outfitter that organizes black bear hunts in the spring and fall. “The fire started again.”
He called the group and told them to wait a few days and see if heavy rains would bring the fires under control. That didn’t happen. “Within three days, we knew the fires were bigger than we expected,” he says. “We had helicopters and we were trying to get them out. [fire services]and he sent me a picture. The size of it was unbelievable.”
Zabelcha was forced to cancel his hunts, and with them the spring hunting season, and he estimates his business’s annual revenue is down 40 percent. He never got around to recouping the $4,900 he owed to the Department of Natural Resources for lease payments he already had to buy gas and food.
(A department spokesperson told TVO Today in an email that “the department understands that access to commercial outpost campgrounds may be affected by travel restrictions to ensure public safety in fire areas,” adding that standard land use permit conditions state that access to the land is “fully subject to the permittee’s responsibilities” and that “there are no other representations, warranties or conditions between the state and the permittee regarding the use of the described lands or whether the described lands are suitable for the permittee’s intended or permitted purposes.”)
He said his father, who started a fishing tackle business, taught him to save money when he could, so he scraped together enough to pay the rent and host the fall hunt. “Every year, I worry about how many customers we’re going to get, how the season is going to go,” he said. “I worry about whether I’ll be able to make it, whether I’ll be able to handle it.”
Across the province, tourism businesses large and small are gearing up for the summer season, but the industry is still recovering from the fundamental changes brought about by COVID-19, with operators like Zavelcha dealing with high inflation and labour shortages, plus fires, floods and a warm winter that ruined the skating season on Ottawa’s Rideau Canal for the second year in a row.
Industry officials and the auditor general’s office say a clearer vision is needed from the state to help tourism recover from COVID-19, decarbonize and weather the economic shock.
Agenda segment for June 7, 2022: Will Ontario’s tourism season be a success or failure?
However, the province has not released a comprehensive tourism strategy since Doug Ford was elected premier in 2018.
TVO Today has reached out to Hamilton East Stoney Creek Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport Neil Ramsden for comment. In an emailed statement, a spokesman said: [Yukon] For the Conference of Federal, State and Territory Culture Ministers.”
“Tourism is a key economic driver and strengthening the sector plays a key role in delivering on these priorities and promoting communities across Ontario,” a spokesperson for another ministry told TVO Today in an email. “Between 2023 and 2024, Ontario plans to invest approximately $40 million in the tourism sector.”
Tourism’s impact goes beyond contributing billions of dollars to the province’s GDP and tax revenues each year and creating more than 600,000 jobs. Experts say the industry’s success has a huge impact on the province’s reputation and ability to attract national and international attention. It’s also especially important to Ontario’s small-town main streets and northern regions, where tourism is a major industry.
“Tourism… has a huge ripple effect,” says Daniel Safaeny, vice-president of policy at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. When tourism is booming, he says, it attracts visitors who bring lots of cash into local economies. That money supports local businesses and funds infrastructure investments that benefit both residents and tourists.
But the opposite is also true: When tourism struggles, local economies stagnate. This is especially true for smaller, regional economies, “where tourism can be a big part of the overall economic activity in that particular region,” Safaeni said.
Ontario’s tourism revenues are approaching and slightly above pre-pandemic levels, but the future is far from certain and the industry is growing at a slow pace. Andrew Siegwart, president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario, says key areas remain problematic: fewer international visitors, fewer business and corporate travel, and persistent staffing shortages. “The benchmark will be when we fully surpass our 2019 economic performance,” he said.
Tourism’s recovery prospects are further clouded by inflation. Operating costs like food and fuel have increased significantly, says Laurie Marcil, executive director of the Northern Ontario Tourism Traders Association (also known as Nature & Outdoor Tourism Ontario), which represents 230 businesses in the outdoor tourism sector. Insurance premiums are a particular issue because of more volatile weather conditions caused by climate change, she said. “We’re hearing stories of premiums increasing by 30 to 50 per cent on policies with limited coverage.”
Ontario also faces competition from other provinces and other places around the world, Siegward said. “Other parts of Canada are increasing investments to attract international tourists and encourage Canadians to travel to their regions.” British Columbia and Quebec, Ontario’s two biggest rivals for market share, have released new comprehensive tourism recovery strategies for 2022. A recent study by Destination Canada found that Canada as a whole is at risk of losing tourist money, especially from the United States and the United Kingdom.
A series of audit reports by the Auditor General on the cost-effectiveness of the tourism sector published in December last year found the state government’s tourism investments lacked vision. “Overall, we found that departments do not have effective long-term strategic plans to support and grow tourism in the state, particularly as the tourism industry recovers from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said one of the Auditor General’s three reports.
“The report was excellent,” Siegward says. “They interviewed all the right people and got a comprehensive set of recommendations.” Behind the scenes, the right people are taking the auditor general’s recommendations seriously, but it will take time to make the big structural changes that are needed, he says.
The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport was obliged to review and comment on the auditor’s findings as part of the audit process but did not issue a statement in response to the announcement. Ramsden has not mentioned the audit in parliament in the months since, although he has spoken out about culture grants, the AGO strike and the Grey Cup.
Siegwart said recent state budgets did not include any significant increases to the tourism budget, but added that “budget levels have been maintained, which is good.”
Many other state decisions, particularly those regarding public infrastructure, will affect tourism in some way. But “I think it’s fair to say the budget was pretty small when it came to tourism-specific initiatives,” Safaeni said. “I would expect the government to provide more support in this area.”
“Ontario has a very dynamic and strong tourism and hospitality industry,” says Mark Bingeman, president of Bingemans, a multi-use entertainment park in Kitchener with camping, bowling, a water park and more. “But to compare with other jurisdictions, we definitely need more support to encourage further growth and product development.”
Bingemans is a multi-purpose entertainment park in Kitchener. (Facebook)
The majority of Ontario’s tourism providers are small businesses like Zavertya. Siegwart says they’re the ones most affected by the turmoil of the past few years. Marcil agrees, saying this season and next are important for her small crew. She says what she’s heard from them is that “it’s going to be about five years before everything gets back to normal and we can grow a little bit.”
TVO Today also reached out to Ontario Indigenous Tourism for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.
For now, Zavelcha is watching the weather forecast and hoping for the best. “I’m hearing on CBC radio that the fires this spring are going to be just as bad as last spring,” she said. At the time of writing, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry reported two fires burning in the province.
Five people have signed up for the spring bear hunt, far fewer than the usual 20 to 25 before the COVID-19 pandemic. “People have changed a lot,” he said. “It’s not like it was before. People are careful about money, they’re careful about where they go and what they do.”
“I definitely think this is going to be a big year” for the membership as a whole, Marcil said. His biggest worry is that 30% of the membership, or about 70 companies, “are really going to struggle.”
Meanwhile, Zavertje is considering retiring from the industry in the next few years. “I have health issues,” he says. “I think after a few more years it’s time to think about doing something else.”
