Lodges and outfitters in the Northwest say business is on the rebound coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is still has a way to go.
Pandemic restrictions, including border closures and vaccination requirements, resulted in a few tough years for outdoor tourism in Northwestern Ontario as one of their main client bases — U.S. travellers — were unable to come.
Jeff Moreau, the general manager of Temple Bay Lodge near Vermilion Bay, said business is definitely better now than in the past two and a half years.
Moreau said it’s still not the same as pre-COVID and thinks one reason maybe is that tourists from the U.S. aren’t up to date with the lifted restrictions.
“For people in the States, they don't get the same information that we are putting out,” he said.
“For example, when we were at the sport shows, a lot of people still thought the borders were closed or there [were] restrictions. So in explaining to them that our borders were wide open, that actually we had to be vaccinated to go across to the south [until May, when the U.S. lifted restrictions], they were surprised that their border was the issue, not our border.”
Moreau said there needs to be more education about this and any help from the federal government with a campaign or something that would help in the marketing area would be welcome.
“I'm hoping they would help us with marketing dollars because everybody has done what they had to do [to get] through COVID,” he said. “Maybe you drained your resources, you sold some boats, you did this or that or whatever, but coming back now, you have a lot less dollars to spend on marketing.”
Dan Bevilacqua, executive director of Superior Country, said what they are hearing from the lodges about business this year is very positive but it's still a bit of a challenge getting the messaging out that the borders are open and restrictions are gone.
“The Americans are very good at pushing shop local and visit local during tough times and that's what they've been concentrating on,” he said. “However, the message is getting out there that Canada is open for business again and open to travellers again and we are getting those travellers coming up.”
Bevilacqua said it’s impossible to make up the lost revenues from the pandemic.
“It's just not possible even with full bookings that those were like one or two years in some circumstances of no revenue,” he said. “But the tourism industry from what we're hearing has bounced back and is becoming more viable again.”
He says there’s still a way to go to reach the same numbers prior to the pandemic, but getting the messaging out there has been key and that's what his organization has really been focusing on in terms of the fish-and-hunt sector.
“Those are individuals spending thousands of dollars to spend five days in a drive-to lodge or a fly-in lodge, to go fishing that entire time,” he said. “That's why fish-and-hunt is such a priority for us because it generates those receipts.”
Kenora MP Eric Melillo said there’s really a sense of cautious optimism about the first full tourist season without restrictions from outfitter business owners.
“But I don't think it's coming back quite as strongly as we had hoped,” he said. “I think that there's some work to be done there from Canada's perspective to help market our tourism, particularly to the United States once again, and build that back up.”
Melillo said he hopes to see some flexibility again from the federal government from organizations like FedNor when it comes to paying back some of the pandemic loans that businesses needed to take out to keep afloat.
“We supported a lot of those programs being rolled out, got them through the pandemic,” he said. “And now I think people are just looking for the ability to get back to work, do their work, and be able to have a bit of a bit of grace in paying back those loans, because we haven't seen tourism bounce back quite as strongly as we were hoping for.”
—NWOnewswatch
