TORONTO-
Canada Day has ushered in the unofficial start of summer, and the tourism sector is hopeful that the first season in three years, largely free of COVID-19 restrictions, will provide a much-needed boost to a hard-hit industry. for a pandemic.
It has been slow to recover as new strains of COVID-19 and public health measures deterred domestic and foreign travelers, but as cases decline and restrictions are lifted, there are signs of recovery across the country.
Some tour operators are struggling to find staff to meet increased demand, and hotels are reporting occupancy rates close to pre-pandemic levels.
“This summer will be the summer of recovery,” said Catherine Callary, Vice President of Tourism for Ottawa.
The GDP of Canada’s tourism industry fell by almost 50% in 2020, according to Statistics Canada, compared to a 5.4% drop in the economy as a whole.
And while there is optimism, the most recent figures from Statistics Canada show that the recovery is far from complete.
Domestic tourism activity, which collects data such as travel movement and spending, was down 20% in March compared to 2019. And international tourism activity was 57% below pre-pandemic levels.
Callary estimates that Ottawa lost $3 billion in the tourism industry during the pandemic. However, demand for hotel rooms has recovered and is now about 15 percent below pre-pandemic levels, she said.
“Tour operators will not be able to recover the lost income of the last two years. That’s not income they can get back. But we can move forward, we can recover,” he said.
Off the coast of Newfoundland, whale-watching boats loaded with tourists are back in Atlantic waters. Mike Gatherall, director of Gatherall’s Puffin and Whale Watch south of St. John’s, said business is booming.
The 38-year-old family business had a banner year in 2019, Gatherall said. But 2022 is beating those numbers.
Bookings rose nearly 40 percent, he said.
“(This year) so far, it’s actually been pretty busy. A very healthy uptick, no doubt, for our operation,” he said.
Government support and some prudent financial planning helped the company retain its staff during the pandemic, Gatherall said. But challenges still remain.
The increase in the cost of fuel is making it more expensive to operate ships. And he says a shortage of rental cars could make it difficult for potential customers to make the trip from the city to the rural coast.
In the Toronto area, hotel occupancy exceeded 80 percent in June for the first time since the pandemic began, Destination Toronto executive vice president Andrew Weir said.
While leisure travel is expected to fuel this summer’s recovery, he said it could be years before the city sees the full return of large-scale conferences. Those events are a big boost for local businesses, whether they’re florists, caterers or audio-visual companies, Weir said.
“Until both engines are running at full throttle, the visitor economy will not have fully recovered,” he said.
Jason Kucherawy, a longtime Toronto walking tour guide, said his company, Tour Guys, was inundated with requests in April from local school groups organizing tours for May and June.
He had to turn down some requests this spring while looking for guides, after the business was reduced to minimal operation during the pandemic.
The company toured in Ottawa, Hamilton and Toronto for 15,000 people in 2019, a record year for the 14-year-old company. By 2021, only 500 people attended a tour.
But so far, 1,000 people have joined a tour in May and June alone, he said.
“And we’re getting into our peak tourist season. So I know looking ahead, we now have a lot of bookings for July and August as people are planning their trips to Canada. And most of our business, for us.” It’s Americans. That’s three-quarters of our business,” said Kucherawy, who serves as president of the Toronto Tour Guides Association.
US residents made 759,600 trips to Canada this April, eight times more than in April 2021, but less than half the trips of 2019, according to the latest Statistics Canada figures on international arrivals.
American visitors are also slowly beginning to return to one of the Prairies’ most iconic tourist attractions, West Edmonton Mall General Manager Danielle Woo said. But with inflation driving up the cost of travel, she said the mall has seen much of its business from the “vacation-at-home” crowd, whether within Alberta or nearby provinces.
“I would say at this point, we are definitely where we were or better than we were before the pandemic in terms of how the mall as a whole feels,” Woo said.
The Skwachays Lodge in Vancouver, an 18-room boutique hotel and art gallery run by the Vancouver Native Housing Society, made just one reservation in all of January 2021, said Caroline Phelps, who runs the Native Artists Residency Program. from the hostel.
The hotel mainly catered to clients from the province before the pandemic, but the return of cruise ships to the BC coast has attracted a new group of tourists, he said.
“For the rest of the summer, we’re busy. Even on weekdays,” Phelps said. “We have a lot of cruise travelers who stay.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 28, 2022.