‘Great deal of unknowns’

Both optimism and uncertainty for Atlantic Canada fall tourism season

CHARLOTTETOWN — While there is considerable optimism about the fall tourism season in Atlantic Canada, it is accompanied by plenty of uncertainty about the projected fourth wave of COVID-19 and the challenges attracting enough workers.

"Golf bookings are really strong for the fall. I understand they are significantly above the fall of 2019," said Corryn Clemence, the chief executive officer of the Tourism Industry Association of P.E.I. "That is really great to see because that is such a significant part of our total tourism package."

One contributing factor may be that many golfers in the Atlantic region routinely head south of the border during the winter months, she says. With that option still on hold for land travellers and courses within the region staying open later in the season, Clemence believes many people may be pursuing their hobby closer to home.

As for the rest of the industry, Clemence said there's still a long way to go until they reach the milestone of one million-plus visitors that was standard fare in P.E.I. before the pandemic. Bookings were strong last spring when the Atlantic bubble was forecasted to open in April, but that was followed by a steady stream of cancellations when interprovincial travel restrictions stayed in place until mid-July.

"Then we had a lot of people rebooking for August and into September and even October," Clemence said. "There is no question the demand is strong for visitors to come to PEI."

She said older travellers — especially those from Ontario, Quebec and the United States after the border reopened in August — are a significant part of fall tourism in 2021. Significant efforts have been made in the last few years, she added, to grow the fall tourism production in Canada's smallest province, pointing to such events as Fall Flavours and the PEI International Shellfish Festival.

NOVA SCOTIA STILL STRUGGLING

Clemence's counterpart in Nova Scotia said demand is markedly better than 2020 but significantly lower than prepandemic levels. Darlene Fiander said a survey conducted by Statistics Canada in July showed overall tourism activity to Nova Scotia declined by 65.6 per cent between April 2019 and April 2021.

According to recentlyreleased figures from Tourism Nova Scotia, there were 106,000 non-resident visitors to Nova Scotia between January and June 2021, a decline of 87 per cent compared to the same six months in 2019 (a difference of 742,000 visitors).

Atlantic Canadians accounted for 75 per cent of overall visitors to Nova Scotia from January to June, compared with 59 per cent over the same period in 2019.

Visitors from other parts of Canada accounted for 23 per cent, while visitors from the US and overseas accounted for two per cent.

In the accommodations sector, there were 406,000 room nights sold from January to May, representing a nine per cent drop over the same period in 2020 and a 49 per cent drop from 2019. However, she said there is some reason for optimism in those figures, noting room nights in Cape Breton were up 29 per cent and the South Shore increased 46 per cent.

On the other side of the ledger, room nights were down in Halifax (25 per cent) and 34 per cent in the Eastern Shore compared to 2020.

"There is growing optimism in the Industry and many operators are anticipating a return to stronger activity in 2022," she said. "However, there are a great deal of unknowns."

FOURTH WAVE

Leading the list is the impact of the so-called fourth wave, predicted to ramp up in this fall across the country.

Driven largely by the highly transmissible Delta variant and the possibility of vaccineresistant variants like Mu that have surfaced in Ontario, there are predictions it could be worse than any of the preceding varieties.

"We have no idea how this is will impact travel either this fall or going into 2021," Fiander said.

Clemence agreed, saying tourism has been one of the hardest-hit sectors of the Island economy and operators have been dealing with a moving target in terms of lockdowns and restrictions since the start of the pandemic.

While some motorcoach tours are now starting to appear on Island highways, the absence of cruise ships in the Island's capital has left a major hole in the tourism numbers. Clemence noted many cruise ship passengers explored the Island either on their own by renting cars or through organized tours "so the impact has been felt across the entire province."

LABOUR SHORTAGE

COVID-19 had a major impact on the labour force, said Clemence, as many operators made hiring plans in the spring based on an early reopening of the Atlantic bubble, then were forced to cut back when that didn't happen. It's become more challenging to find workers now that many students have returned to school and new immigrants — another major source of workers for the industry — have slowed down due to the pandemic.

Fiander agreed the labour shortage is having a "profound impact" on the ability of many businesses to remain open and operate at full capacity. Her association is hoping adjustments to federal policy around EI and other supports "will be adjusted to support labour market needs," she said, adding "it is time to pivot toward recovery and productivity of workers."

Both women said talks are underway with tourism operators throughout the region on how to address the problem going forward. While Clemence says support programs like the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) do play a role, she noted the tourism sector is far from the only industry having problems attracting workers.

"There is no one magic bullet that will fix the problem," she said. "We have to look at it from a number of fronts."