Lockdowns in Ontario, B.C. and Quebec: More Bad News Today for Canadian Tourism
April 1, 2021 Jim Byers
Canada is in danger of losing the summer travel season. Again.
Today’s news of a new lockdown for Ontario, combined with more restrictions being announced in Quebec and a recent decision to lock things down in British Columbia, is fully justifiable given the conditions we’re in. But there’s no doubt it’s another huge blow for tourism.
Ontario is Canada’s largest province, and one of its most popular for visitors. Ditto for British Columbia and Quebec City. But now they’re all headed into some kind of lockdown.
For Ontario, it’s going to be at least four weeks from Saturday, April 3, when the new lockdown measures take effect. Which means the earliest they would end is May 1.
It will take a couple weeks after that to see where we are in terms of COVID-19 numbers. And then at least a couple weeks for governments to decide, what, if any travel restrictions they want to lift.
That means that, in all likelihood, the earliest we could have any kind of improvement for travel and tourism is early June. And that’s probably pushing it.
Beth Potter, President and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, said today’s Ontario announcement and other provincial lockdown announcements are definitely not good for the industry.
“As we look towards the summer season, we will hopefully see that the vaccination roll-out is going well and that a majority of Canadians will have at least had their first jab,” she said in an email to Canadian Travel News. “Domestic travel will be incredibly important this year, and we need to start planning for the re-opening of our borders. A plan will give businesses in the tourism industry that have been closed, on and off or completely, for the last year a chance to plan, to ramp up operations, to hire staff, and to communicate with their clients.”
(Minutes after our email exchange with Potter we found a note on Sunwing’s website to say that, effective May 1, 2021 to June 23, 2021, Sunwing is cancelling all southbound flights to sun destinations and domestic flights to/from British Columbia and Newfoundland.
Potter is right. Things are bad. But there may be just enough time to save the summer.
Given our weather in most of the country, most of our big tourism numbers tend to come from mid-June and run into the early fall, when folks come to check out the marvels of the Rockies or enjoy the flowers around Niagara-on-the-Lake.
If, and it’s a big if, but if we can get things under some kind of control by mid-May there’s a chance we can open the U.S. border some time in June, and also allow more folks from other parts of the world.
We might also be able to convince Atlantic Canada by then that it’s safe to allow visitors from Vancouver or Quebec City or the COVID-19 hotbed of Toronto.
But we have to wrestle those number down again and wait for more vaccines to roll out. If both of these things happen in April, we can maybe make decisions in May and free things up in June. But if we don’t get it right this time, we’re looking at even more delays, and more damage to our already bloodied, hunched over, kicked on and discouraged tourism sector, which provides roughly one in ten jobs across Canada.
The next month isn’t just important; it’s critical.
About the Author
