COVID-19: Travel Industry Wants Testing Rules For Fully Vaccinated Visitors To Be Relaxed

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Vancouver travel industry stakeholders called on the federal government to remove the requirement for pre-departure PCR testing for fully vaccinated travelers coming to Canada, saying it is hurting current and future hotel and conference bookings. .

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“The federal government’s own panel of experts, in fact, does not recommend the approach. They said it’s unnecessary for fully vaccinated travelers, ”said Greater Vancouver Board of Trade President and CEO Bridgitte Anderson, referring to advice from Ottawa COVID-19 screening and testing experts. Panel.

The panel report calls for the elimination of pre-departure PCR tests and tests for fully vaccinated travelers 10 days after arrival, but says that for “surveillance purposes, administer PCR tests on arrival.”

The recent reopening of the land border with the US was a welcome step, but Anderson stressed that having to do PCR tests before departure was “expensive” and “cumbersome” for travelers.

She estimated the costs of up to $ 800 to $ 1,000 for a family of four to have the necessary pre-departure PCR tests that are currently required.

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“The added cost of a PCR test makes traveling to Vancouver more expensive. That makes us less competitive with all the destinations in the world competing for the fully vaccinated traveler, ”said Karen Soyka, vice president of strategy and business development for Destination Vancouver.

While local and national travelers have so far propped up local tourism, “travelers from the United States contribute nearly twice as much as a domestic traveler spends at our destination, and other international visitors spend nearly three times as much as a domestic traveler. “Soyka said. .

He said that, in 2020, 193 different business meetings and events reserved for Vancouver were canceled.

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“That was because of where we were at that time,” Soyka said. “But what we have to do now is return that business to our destination.”

“More than others, BC’s hospitality industry relies heavily on international travel,” said Mike Macleod, director of the BC Hotel Association.

“The wait time and in terms of those groups and events, they need to book, in some cases – the bigger the event, the longer the wait time – two, three, four, five years,” Macleod said.

“And despite the wide availability of vaccines and a stable COVID-19 case count and hospitalizations across the country, many of our members are facing another winter season of staff cuts, low incomes and foreign guest decisions from stay at home”.

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“We are still sailing throughout the province with an occupancy of around 50 percent. We are about to enter a ski season. We have many hotel operators in the Interior, the Kootenays, areas like that. They want to welcome Americans, for example. They want to take advantage of the potentially excellent conditions at the beginning of the season. But they’re nervous about reaching out to those guests to come and make a last-minute decision because these barriers are in place. “

When asked to respond to the federal government saying that the time may not be right to eliminate the need for PCR testing for public health reasons, Macleod said: “We have been extremely patient as a business community. You look around you at other sectors that are thriving. I passed several film crews on the way here today. There are businesses that prosper. We know that there are areas of the economy that are growing. Our sector has not. We’ve been in a kind of stalemate. “

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