{"id":9621,"date":"2020-09-12T16:05:53","date_gmt":"2020-09-12T20:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=9621"},"modified":"2020-11-18T15:24:39","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T20:24:39","slug":"covids-impact-on-local-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/covids-impact-on-local-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19’s impact on local tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Roy L Hales<\/p>\r\n

COVID-19's\u00a0 impact on local tourism has been devastating. While there was a rush of visitors in August, Kirsten Soder<\/a>, Executive\u00a0Director\u00a0of\u00a0Destination\u00a0Campbell\u00a0River<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>says it will not be enough to carry some businesses through the winter. However some businesses are faring better than others. <\/p>\r\n

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Squirrel Cove on Cortes island - by Amy Forest<\/p><\/div>\r\n

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Harbour Authority Cortes Island*<\/h2>\r\n

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Many of the recreational boats visiting Cortes Island normally tie up at one of the five docks managed by Harbour Authority Cortes Island<\/a>: Cortes Bay, Gorge Harbour, Mansons Landing, Squirrel Cove and Whaletown. The docks were closed to visitors and the general public last March. After they reopened this summer, Harbour Manager\u00a0Jenny Hartwick<\/a> said the docks received about the same number of recreational visitors as a normal year, possibly a little less.<\/p>\r\n

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Gorge Harbour Marina<\/h2>\r\n

Bill Dougan<\/a>, the manager of\u00a0Gorge Harbour Marina<\/a> on Cortes Island, said the Marina\u2019s sales are 68.2 per cent of last years, which is slightly above the goal they set after COVID-19 hit. \u201cThere were more boats than normal and and now we are experiencing long term guests, including eight new liveaboards who are fleeing major population centres ( Vancouver, Nanaimo, Victoria). We have demand for long term winter campers now since holidays to the south have been wiped out for most,\" Dougan said. \u201cOur peak was and always has been August long weekend. It is impossible impossible for me to tell when it comes to local volumes,\" Dougan added. \"I will know by mid-October.\u201d From what Soder says, Gorge Harbour may be benefiting from two advantages. Firstly, a number of cooped up British Columbians have taken to the water and most local marinas have benefited. Also, rural areas like Cortes Island are viewed as an exotic destinations on the domestic tourist market.<\/p>\r\n

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Cortes Natural Food Coop \u2013 courtesy Amanda Creative<\/p><\/div>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Local stores<\/h2>\r\n

Of course, Gorge Harbour has a third advantage which everyone on Cortes is aware of. Gorge Harbour has a general store and large numbers of local residents who normally make the trek into Campbell River for groceries are now staying home. Eric Hargrave<\/a>, the manager of\u00a0Cortes Natural Food Co-op<\/a>, gave CKTZ some insight on the local business impact. \u201cBusiness has been good.\u00a0 We were expecting a drop of 30 per cent from last year for the summer, but July was only down 10 per cent and August down 8 per cent,\" said Hargrave. \"We were quite busy in the spring because of the pandemic, so we\u2019re in a healthy financial position now at the end of the summer. We\u2019re really glad for that because the world at large has become unpredictable, which makes planning difficult. We know that we\u2019ve started a giant recession, but we don\u2019t know what that means for our island yet.\u201d \u201cThe pandemic has shifted the way people shop, it\u2019s really hard to tell,\" he added. \"As with the spring, people are making many fewer visits to the store but buying a lot more on each trip. Our average shopping basket went from $21 to $40 in the spring and it\u2019s still $31 for the summer; those are actually quite remarkable numbers. This seems to be true for both the locals and the tourists, so we can\u2019t tell just by looking at the number of customers. Also, based on anecdotal information, many people with second homes have decided to stay year-round, and many people who came to visit early in the summer have also decided to stay permanently. My guess would be that we\u2019re still seeing about 75 per cent of the tourists we would have had normally, and the other 25 per cent is lacking simply because Hollyhock is closed and there were no big public or private events (such as Cortes Day or private weddings).\"<\/p>\r\n

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Fence at Smelt Bay, Cortes Island\u00a0\u2013 by Djun Kim via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)<\/p><\/div>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Are they still coming?<\/h2>\r\n

\"Yes, the tourists are definitely still coming.\u00a0 With such beautiful weather, why not?\" said Hargrave. \" The demographic has changed, as it normally does in September; we are seeing fewer families with young children and more couples who are presumably retired.\u00a0 There are still plenty of campers, boaters, and kayakers here. I know that other tourist communities, like Tofino, are booked through October and don\u2019t expect any respite until then. I doubt this will happen to the same extent for us, but it does look like an extended season. When was the peak? \u201cThe peak was definitely the August long weekend,\" said Hargrave. \"During July, it felt like we could handle the number of people reasonably.\u00a0 Once the long weekend came, though, it felt just like a normal summer \u2013 no matter how many staff we had, it wouldn\u2019t be enough.\u00a0 I has slowly tapered off since then, but it felt just like normal for a week or so.\"<\/p>\r\n

The residents of many small communities started shopping locally rather than making the trek into Campbell River.<\/p>\r\n

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View from the Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre on Quadra Island across to the city of Campbell River\u00a0\u2013 by David Stanley via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)<\/p><\/div>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Tourism in Campbell River<\/h2>\r\n

\u201cThis summer was good, but it couldn\u2019t make up for what was lost in the Spring and what we are anticipating will be lost over the winter,\u201d said Kirsten Soder, from Destination\u00a0Campbell\u00a0River. The most recent hard data available is from the first six months of 2020, at which point Campbell River\u2019s accommodation had already taken a 32 per cent hit compared to last year. \u201cThis is slightly better than Vancouver Island overall, which experienced a 39 per cent decrease,\u201d Soder said. She described the pandemic as \u201carguably the most challenging scenario that the tourism industry has ever faced.\u201d Marine tours were hit particularly hard because they rely on international travellers. \u201cIn some cases 70 per cent of their business has dried up,\" Soder said. \"Those that were able to offer domestic tours were able to make up a portion of that gap, but certainly not enough to cover the loss of international tourists.\u201d She was not surprised when I mentioned that some marine adventure operators are reporting losses of up to 85 per cent. Sectors not normally associated with tourism, like\u00a0 independent book and clothing stores, experienced heavy losses. The sports fishing industry was already suffering because of fishing regulations, but was able to refocus domestically and has turned out to be have been one of the most resilient sectors.<\/p>\r\n

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Shoreline at night\u00a0\u2013 by Darren Kirby via Flickr (CC By SA, 2.0 License)<\/p><\/div>\r\n

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The accommodation sector<\/h2>\r\n

\u201cThere is a good news story when we talk about accommodation,\" Soder said. \"Many are reporting they are operating at maximum capacity. Granted maximum capacity is not 100% this year because cleaning protocols required them to operate at less than 100 per cent. Housekeeping costs, to meet the new COVID protocols, have increased significantly.\u201d Campbell River hotels and motels have fared much better than those in larger urban centres like Victoria or Vancouver, \u201cwhich rely so much on conferences and business travel.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m hesitant to be overly optimistic, knowing that this week kids go back to school. People are concerned about the rising number of COVID cases,\" she added. None of this bodes well for tourism.<\/p>\r\n

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Seals beside the shoreline in Campbell River\u00a0\u2013 by Andrea_44 via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)<\/p><\/div>\r\n

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Strong partnerships within the SRD<\/h2>\r\n

One advantage that the Campbell River area enjoys is strong partnerships within the Strathcona Regional District. \u201cWe\u2019ve been able to leverage additional funds that will help with the regional recovery and we are focusing on new content that will have real impact as we go into future years,\" Soder explained. She expects Campbell River\u2019s accommodation industry to experience a 20 per cent drop in occupancy this fall.<\/p>\r\n

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Wharf scene from Campbell River\u00a0\u2013 by Darren Kirby via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)<\/p><\/div>\r\n

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Rural communities<\/h2>\r\n

Communities like\u00a0Tahsis<\/a>,\u00a0Gold River<\/a>,\u00a0Sayward<\/a>,\u00a0Quadra Island\u00a0<\/a>and Cortes Island have conflicting views about tourism. While some residents rely on tourist dollars, others prefer a quieter lifestyle. \u201cThe rural area representatives in the SRD have chosen to opt out of the regional tourism program \u2026 We\u2019ve been very careful not to promote Quadra or Cortes as an option unless we\u2019ve been specifically approached by a stakeholder in our organization that operates on Cortes or Quadra,\" Soder added.<\/p>\r\n

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Gowland Harbour on Quadra Island\u00a0\u2013 by David Stanley via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)<\/p><\/div>\r\n

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Local tourism and stores<\/h2>\r\n

Eric Hargrave write that Cortes Island\u2019s Natural food Co-op is still experiencing an increased number of local customers. \u201cThat could be just because the island population has risen.\u00a0 It seems that some locals were staying away because the store was so busy with tourists, so we\u2019ll have to see if and when they come back,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd this is true only for the store \u2013 the cafe has relied almost exclusively on tourists for the summer season,\" he added. \"At least 70 per cent of our cafe business came from tourists, and this does not bode well for the winter.\u00a0 The industry expects at least 40 per cent of restaurants to go out of business by the end of the year, and we don\u2019t want our cafe to be one of them, so we\u2019re looking at a transformation in the coming months to a more sustainable model.\u201d As regards Gorge Harbour Marina, Bill Dougan said, \u201cI expect increased sales all winter due to the fact that most people will not be leaving for the winter, as per usual, and I expect year round tourism this winter.\u201d *Segment on Harbour Authority Cortes Island added September 15th and not in podcast.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Roy L Hales COVID-19’s\u00a0 impact on local tourism has been devastating. While there was a rush of visitors in August, Kirsten Soder, Executive\u00a0Director\u00a0of\u00a0Destination\u00a0Campbell\u00a0River,\u00a0says it will not be enough to carry some businesses through the winter. However some businesses are faring better than others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":9623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[217,218],"tags":[368,314,534],"radio":[],"origine":[280,266,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9621"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9621"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=9621"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=9621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}