Canada has, on occasion, been laughed at for being a tad on safe and conservative side of the tourism ledger.
Given the climate we’re living in and the COVID-19 crisis, “safe” might be the best thing we have going for us, tourism consultant Greg Klassen says.
Speaking on Hotelier Magazine’s Checking In podcast with host Rosanna Caira, Klassen said he worked for more than a decade at Destination Canada, selling the country to potential visitors.
“We were always fighting this notion of Canada as a safe place,” said Klassen, a partner at Twenty31 consulting in Vancouver. “But people were going to exotic, off-the-beaten-path destinations. I think now that ‘safe’ might come back; it might actually be a selling feature for Canada.
“I believe we’re going to be perceived as having managed this crisis very well. From a health care perspective, we’ve got our social safety net, and I think that will come back to serve us well. I think people will be looking for family-based vacations, nature, back to the community, those kinds of things. It’s still too early to tell … But I’m guessing we’re going to fit nicely” into that pattern, Klassen said.
Greg Klassen, Twenty31 Consulting.
Beth Potter, President and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario, said TIAO has been talking with tourism officials in Canada and around the world to see what the future looks like.
“We honestly believe we’re going to see a little bit of a peak coming out once we can all start socially integrating again. We’re going to see that domestivc visitor start to help the business rebound, but we’re really not going to see that upward trajectory in recovery until people feel safe again. If a vaccine is 18 to 24 months down the road, then that may be what we’re looking at before we see that trajectory of recovery really start to take off.”
Scott Beck, President and CEO of Tourism Toronto, said the consensus seems to be that local tourism will rebound first, “not only leisure but corporate travel between places like Ottawa and Toronto; those types of things were people feel normal.
“I don’t think people are going to risk their health by getting on a plane for a long period of time,” Beck said. “There also seems to be a desire by the industry to reconvene. I think a lot of people aren’t a big fan of Zoom or Google Hangouts. They’re enormously helpful but people still want to meet and be with other people. That’s an important part of the recovery, but I think long-haul overseas will be one of the last” areas to recover.
Beck also warned about slashing prices.
“The biggest learning from SARS is going to be that going on discount is the only sure way to make it (the recovery longer and harder than it needs to be.”
Frederic Dimanche, Professor/Director at the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at Ryerson University, he thinks Zoom will have an impact on business travel.
“I think business is learning from this and they will change their policies to protect their staff… and limit travel. “
“More than 100 countries around the world have stopped travel to their borders” and some are limiting travel within their countries, Klassen noted. “No movement at all obviously means no tourism industry at all. We’ve never seen anything like it.”
Scott Beck, Tourism Toronto President and CEO.
Beck, who came to Tourism Toronto from Visit Salt Lake City, said his first few months of the job have not been quite what he was expecting.
“In March we had a $494 million in decreased visitor spend versus 2019. In April it will be upwards up $760 million of lost spend. Extrapolate that for a year and you’re looking at $5.4 billion in monies that visitors would typically spend in Toronto are just gone. And the first months of 2021 could be bad.”
Beck said the damage is felt all over the city.
“It’s real. It’s felt in restaurants. It’s felt at the Eaton Centre when you see it closed up.”
Potter said the impact is being felt in every corner of the province, and not just in hotels but also in unique recreational products like fly-in fishing camps in northern Ontario.
“Over 50% of those businesses have already closed their doors, temporarily anyway, and 38% have laid off their staff.”
“Right now over 30% of business fear they will … close permanently. It’s a huge number.”
Klassen said he’s been through many crises over the years, from 9-11 to SARS.
“I think we’re kinda beyond those comparisons now; we’re in brand new territory.”
“It’s a new normal we’re facing,” said Dimanche. “International travel will take years to get back to the level we saw in 2019.”
Any recovery for travel and tourism will require that conditions be put in place to make travellers feel safe, Dimanche said.
“Airlines may only have one consumer for every two seats, for example. Hotels and restaurants will have to practice physical distancing if they want customers back at their properties. They have to re-invent a whole series of practices that will make people feel safe.”
Beth Potter, Tourism Industry Association of Ontario.
Potter said TIAO is already starting to have conversations with the accommodations community about changes to housekeeping standards, as well as how to manage crowded attractions.
“Maybe we have to look at time tickets; how do you manage (visitor) flow.”
Potter said the Ontario government is “moving at lightning speed” on the issue and that it’s great to see all levels of government rowing in the same direction.
“I came from the U.S, and I’m feeling really damn lucky to be in Canada,” Beck said. “I think the ability of this government at the provincial level has shown to listen to and engage with and speak to the industry has been above anything I’ve ever experienced. And when I tell people in the US what’s going on, they find it hard to even get their head around. “
Looking at the safety net in Canada for front-line workers who are carrying the brunt of the load, and looking also at the seriousness that government officials have about the issue, “has been an incredibly uplifting force for a new person in this country,” he said.
“I spent 20 years in Canada in this business trying to grab the attention of government,” Klassen said. “I think we got it. We’ve all collectively been working so hard to communicate with government the importance of tourism; how much it contributes to our economy, how much it contributes to our exports. They see the downside and the impact it has had. Hopefully we can sustain that awareness … and work with government to rebuild our industry.”
Still, he’s expecting changes, including perhaps a few bankrupt airlines.
“Flights from London to Johannesburg. Are they coming back to seven days a week or not at all or two days? Maybe airlines will get incentives from destinations to fly there to help with the recovery.”
It’s hard to know, but Klassen said one thing is for sure, and that’s that 2021 “is simply not going to look like 2019 when it comes to airlines.”
If and when travel restrictions are lifted, there’s going to be one heckuva commotion in the tourism and travel marketplace, Beck noted.
Frederic Dimanche, Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Ryerson University.
“We’re all going to want earplugs and earmuffs,” he said with a chuckle. “Everyone is going to be saying ‘Come visit me, come here, come there.’ As a marketer what we’re really going to be tasked with is not how loud we can yell or how much more media we can buy, but how we can really portray those authentic elements of Toronto that are very transformational. I lobbied very hard to get this job to come here, and I did it because of the affinity I had developed for Toronto over the 10 years I’ve been coming here.”
“Our future in tourism will be a very very competitive environment,” Klassen agreed. “There will be fewer people travelling in the immediate future with a lot of destinations looking to attract them. I think those destinations that will thrive … are ones that aren’t sitting on their hands right now.”
Tourism officials in the Yukon, for example, are giving their workers new skills and improving their visual marketing.
“They’re using their (down) time wisely,” he said.
Klassen said one sector that could do well in the short term are hotels that have a loyal customer base.
In many cases, well-known hotels have people who stay with them who are more like friends than guests.
“Ask for their help, ask for them to come back and visit, ask them to help you recover quicker. Make it a family event, a big family reunion. I’m thinking of places like the Royal York. Get them talking about your hotel. Use your digital and social network and make sure everyone knows there’s vibrancy back in our cities, back in our hotels, so we can encourage and compel others to follow suit and visit us again.”
Beck agreed.
“As a recovering hotelier I’d say focus on most loyal guests. Group up. Be creative and embrace the new reality of the customer feeling skittish. Embrace it make them feel comfortable, and I think we’re going to come out of this better than we could.”
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