Canada plans to extend travel seasons and attract more visitors to recover from pandemic impacts
The tourism industry has introduced a road map to boost visitor numbers to Canada following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, as reported by BNN Bloomberg.
At Canada’s largest annual tourism convention in Edmonton, Destination Canada and the federal government unveiled a plan to extend the travel season, increase the length of stays, and attract more locals, foreigners, and business travellers to a broader range of sites.
A warming climate has posed challenges, with wildfires deterring visitors and milder winters affecting ski resorts.
However, the hotter weather also provides an opportunity to attract travellers during the spring and fall, filling hotels and tour buses during the shoulder seasons, said Destination Canada CEO Marsha Walden.
“We would love to retain our workforce longer into the season. And normally the product doesn't need to be hugely adapted to take in a new season like fall and approaching into winter,” Walden stated in an interview. “We really need to lean heavily on expanding further into the shoulders.”
Developing attractions into year-round vacation spots is also an option, with resorts from Quebec's Mont Tremblant to Ontario's Blue Mountain demonstrating how summer activities can attract visitors beyond the traditional ski crowd.
"When you think Whistler, what do you think — you think skiing, right? But Whistler in the summer, it's also pretty amazing," said Tourism Minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada in an interview.
Longer stays could significantly benefit the hospitality industry. “Having people stay longer — having people spend more money — is just good for tourism for us in Canada,” Martinez Ferrada said. Marketing campaigns that encourage travellers to extend their visits are part of the plan.
The federal strategy also aims to promote a broader range of destinations, including Indigenous-owned projects and ecotourism spots off the beaten path. Business trips continue to lag behind leisure travel, a post-pandemic hangover the plan also addresses.
By 2030, the goal is to boost Canada’s spot in the World Economic Forum's tourism development ranking, after the country slipped out of the top 10 for the first time in 2022.
Tourism has rebounded from pandemic lows, but the sector has yet to reach pre-COVID levels, with debt remaining a significant burden for thousands of small businesses across the country.
International visitor numbers last year were below those from four years earlier, with tourists from the US at 85 percent of 2019 levels and those from further afield at 78 percent, according to Destination Canada. However, nearly four out of every five tourism dollars come from Canadians, Walden said.
The industry generated more than $109bn in revenue in 2023, about four percent more than in 2019, but significantly less in real terms after accounting for inflation, according to the Tourism Industry Association of Canada.
Beth Potter, head of the association, has called on the federal government to create a new low-interest loan program and a temporary foreign worker stream specific to the tourism industry. She noted there have been no signs of progress on these fronts in Ottawa.
Addressing Canada's growing reputation as a country frequently affected by wildfires marks another challenge. “People thought the whole country was on fire,” Martinez Ferrada said of last summer's wildfire evacuations. “We made the New York Times front page.”
The minister highlighted a marketing campaign by British Columbia in the fall that made an “urgent appeal” to residents in Alberta, Washington, and within the province to explore areas recently affected by wildfires. Even a month of lost revenue can be “devastating,” added Walden.
The sector's recovery continues to lag behind the broader business world. The number of active tourism-linked businesses was slightly below pre-pandemic levels as of December, while the number of businesses overall had surpassed 2019 figures, according to Destination Canada data.
Across all sectors, two in three small- and medium-sized enterprises still held pandemic debt at the end of last year, with an average of $107,700, according to a Canadian Federation of Independent Business survey of 3,148 members.
Operators in hospitality and transportation were among the most pessimistic about the coming year, with only retail scoring worse in sentiment surveys.
