Canadians are booking trips to Europe and the U.S.. Cruise companies are expanding rapidly. And new hotels are being built in Canada around the world.
The latest RBC consumer tracking figures for Canada finds that travel spending recently touched pre-COVID levels for the first time as pandemic restrictions eased.
“The domestic tourism recovery continues to outpace international travel but Canadian spending on restaurants and hotels abroad has also been rising,” RBC said.
Meanwhile, the American Automobile Association this week said cruise bookings during the past four weeks are twice as high as this time last year.
Just 612 Canadians visited Barbados in the first two months of last year. But that number jumped to 6,769 for January and February of this year, Barbados Tourism officials said.
“While Canada arrival numbers are still lower than 2019 (pre-covid), it is promising to see a reasonable percentage share of arrivals given the travel situation that Canada was faced with throughout the month of February,” Barbados tourism officials said.
The Crane Resort in Barbados is one of the top hotels in the Caribbean. JIM BYERS PHOTO
In a recent earnings call, Air Canada Executive VP and Chief Commercial Officer Lucie Guillemette sounded an optimistic tone
“Despite the temporary setback (from Omicron), we are now witnessing strong demand across all geographies with the exception of Asia Pacific,” she said. “In fact, from a low point in early January, we are now observing a steady increase in new bookings as well as a far more stable rate of cancellations. Therefore, we project a stronger than anticipated spring and summer, and we are optimistic about demand trends going forward.”
Guillemette said Air Canada has “been actively restoring our network with 118 stations served at the end of 2021, and the average number of daily flights rising to 665 in December 2021 from 245 in January 2021. In the fourth quarter, we announced updates to our schedule, which included increasing service to key South American destinations as São Paulo and Bogota, as well as resuming our service to Santiago and Buenos Aires.
“We plan to increase our first quarter 2022 ASM capacity by 243% from the same quarter in 2021,” she said.
Immediately after the Canadian government announced it would stop requiring fully vaccinated travellers to take a COVID test prior to coming into Canada (the move takes effect April 1), WestJet officials said they expect an “immediate and dramatic” uptick in demand.
“Our view is that the desire to travel has remained throughout COVID, but it hasn’t translated into booking demand because of the restrictions that have been imposed on the industry,” said WestJet chief commercial officer John Weatherill in an interview with Global News.
Air Canada Airbus jet. AIR CANADA PHOTO
“At Maple Leaf Adventures, we are seeing huge demand from Canadians and some Americans for our expeditions – because they’re about spending a week in nature on the BC and Alaska coast, with a small local company,“ spokesperson Maureen Gordon told me. “We are also seeing people wanting to upgrade to the most expensive options more frequently than before the pandemic.
“Currently, our bookings for 2022 are 40% ahead of our total from 2019. Some of these are rebooked trips from 2020, but even when you leave those out – and some of those rebooked trips are for our longest, most expensive trips — we’re on par with 2019,” Gordon said.
Accor, which operates Fairmont Hotels and many other brands around the world, plans to open more than 300 new hotels and resorts in 2022, including Mercure Hotel President in Lecce, Italy, Mama Shelter Dubai, Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences and Raffles London at The OWO, an “architectural masterpiece located at the historic Old War Office.”
Closer to home, the Ace Hotel in downtown Toronto is now taking bookings and could open in a few weeks. The new W Hotel on Bloor Street East in Toronto is supposed to open soon, as well.
The Ace Hotel Toronto. Photo courtesy Ace Hotel
Brett Walker, general manager Canada and International Business Operations for Collette, said business in the U.S. is trending at 87% of the value of 2019 numbers. In Canada, business is at 49% of pre-pandemic levels.
Walker said Europe trips are hugely popular, notwithstanding the situation in Ukraine. But he said people are booking less far ahead (a little more than five months out, compared to a little less than seven months in late 2021). Not surprisingly, they’re also buying more of Collette’s Travel Protection Plan offerings. It used to be that 30 to 40% of travellers bought the protection plan, but it’s now more like 70%, Walker said.
In a story posted on the Saltwire.com website, Kelly Deveaux, acting superintendent at Cape Breton Highlands National Park, said travellers considering a visit to a national park or historic site should check with their destination as to what locations are open, what visitors can expect, how to prepare for a visit and what services will be available.
“At this point, we are expecting all of our visitor offers and services to be available this season, including interpretation and guided tours, and all of our visitor reception centres and campgrounds will be open,”she said. “Visitation numbers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic were on the rise and we are seeing early indications of a strong season this year as public health restrictions lessen.”
