The tourism industry has rolled out a roadmap it hopes will attract more tourists to Canada after being hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the country’s largest annual tourism conference in Edmonton, Destination Canada and the federal government announced Thursday that they are extending the travel season, lengthening stays and bringing more locals, foreigners and businesspeople to a wider area. announced plans aimed at attracting the city to the area. .
Global warming means wildfires are keeping tourists away and mild winters are hitting ski resorts hard. But rising temperatures could bring in more travelers in the spring and fall, potentially filling hotels and tour buses well into the off-season, said Marcia Walden, CEO of Destination Canada. Stated.
“We want to retain our talent long into the season, and typically we don’t have to make major adjustments to our product for a new season, like we get closer to fall or winter,” Walden said in an interview.
“We have to rely heavily on further expansion of the shoulder area.”
Building the attraction as a year-round vacation spot is also an option. Resorts from Quebec’s Mont-Tremblant to Ontario’s Blue Mountains demonstrate how summer activities can attract tourists beyond traditional skiers.
“What do you think of when you think of Whistler? You think of skiing, right? But Whistler in the summer is also very beautiful,” Tourism Minister Soraya Martínez Ferrada said in an interview.
Meanwhile, more vacations mean millions more in the coffers of lodging companies.
“Having people stay longer and therefore spend more money is just good for Canadian tourism,” she says. Part of her plan is a marketing campaign focused on “getting travelers to say, ‘Canada is so big, I should stay a few more days.'”
The federal strategy also aims to promote a wider range of destinations, from indigenous-owned projects to remote ecotourism spots.
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Business travel still lags behind the resumption of leisure travel, and the plan also aims to address the post-pandemic hangover.
The goal is to improve Canada’s ranking in the World Economic Forum’s tourism development rankings by 2030, after Canada falls out of the top 10 for the first time in 2022.
Tourism has rebounded sharply from the pandemic-induced downturn, but tourism has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels and debt remains a heavy burden for thousands of small businesses across the country, business owners say. ing.
According to Destination Canada, international tourist arrivals last year were lower than the numbers four years ago, with U.S. visitors accounting for 85 per cent of 2019 levels and out-of-town visitors accounting for 78 per cent. But almost $4 out of every $5 earned from tourism comes from Canadians, Walden said.
According to the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, the industry will bring in more than $109 billion in revenue in 2023, about 4 per cent more than in 2019, but significantly less in real terms after accounting for inflation.
The association’s president, Beth Potter, called on the federal government to create a new low-interest loan program and temporary foreign worker stream specifically for the tourism industry.
She said there is no sign of movement on those fronts in Ottawa.
Recovering Canada’s reputation as a nation on fire will be a further challenge.
“People thought the whole country was on fire,” Martínez Ferrada said of last summer’s wildfire evacuations. “I made the front page of the New York Times.”
The minister highlighted British Columbia’s fall marketing campaign, which issued an “urgent appeal” to residents in British Columbia, Alberta and Washington state to explore areas affected by recent wildfires. Ta.
Mr Walden added that even one month’s loss of income could be “devastating”.
The sector’s recovery continues to lag that of the broader business community.
Destination Canada data shows the number of active tourism-related businesses was slightly below pre-pandemic levels in December, while the overall number of businesses was higher than 2019 numbers.
A Canadian Federation of Independent Business survey of 3,148 members found that two in three small businesses across all sectors still had pandemic debt at the end of last year, with an average of $107,700. Of the 14 industries surveyed, hospitality and transportation were the most pessimistic about next year. The score for retail only worsened.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 16, 2024.
Christopher Reynolds, Canadian Press
