As B.C. begins planning for a gradual return to normal, one of the biggest challenges could be the tourism sector, a key part of the Sunshine Coast economy.
“[We have] big challenges when it comes to tourism,” Premier John Horgan said at an April 20 news conference. “That’s going to take some time to rebuild.”
Sunshine Coast Tourism (SCT) executive director Paul Kamon told Coast Reporter this week that the pandemic’s impact on the local tourism sector has been “massive.” And although some businesses are finding ways to stay open and bring in revenue, “effectively the industry has been shut down.”
Kamon said destination marketing organizations (DMO) like Sunshine Coast Tourism have stopped actively promoting the area as a place to visit now and shifted their resources to helping tourism operators survive and laying the groundwork for attracting visitors again when health authorities loosen the pandemic restrictions.
“We’re hopeful for some kind of a season, maybe in late summer, but we’re also planning for not having that.”
SCT is part of the Vancouver Island Coastal Tourism Resiliency Project, an initiative launched this month by the Island Coastal Economic Trust.
Kamon said the project will help businesses in the sector navigate all the federal and provincial programs rolling out to aid employers and businesses.
One SCT staffer has been assigned to act as a program advisor to help connect tourism operators with experts in human resources, finances, and legal issues, “and ultimately create a custom recovery strategy for the business.”
The other aspect of the project is helping businesses in the tourism sector with training to bring more online and digital tools into their operations. “Businesses who are well digitized and aligned with the Internet are doing better [right now],” Kamon said.
SCT has also been trying to support and promote local businesses, including the craft beverage makers who’ve been the keystone of the BC Ale Trail – a tourism marketing program SCT created several years ago.
“We’ve been promoting how to support the Sunshine Coast from your couch,” Kamon said. “That’s just one example of the kind of stuff we want to support. We love what the breweries are doing and it shows that across the province how these small businesses are the ones that are on the ground helping their communities, and that’s a really important message.”
Destination BC, the provincially-funded umbrella organization for tourism marketing in the province, has laid out a strategy for dealing with the effects of the pandemic. The “recovery” leg of the strategy, which it said could kick in during the late summer and fall, includes a “significant domestic campaign to drive immediate travel.”
Kamon said similar blows to the tourism industry, like the SARS outbreak, were followed by surges in travel within the country and this time the potential tourists SCT will be trying to reach could be from our own back yard, with “hyper-local” initiatives like promoting the Powell River area to potential visitors from the lower Sunshine Coast or marketing Sechelt and Gibsons to people on the northern Sunshine Coast.
SCT itself has seen its revenues from the accommodation tax dry up and had to lay off staff and delay filling vacant positions. Kamon said the biggest thing the federal or provincial governments could do at this point is provide bridge funding to make up for the loss of the tax, “so that we’re ready to go when the time comes.”
“I think they recognize at the federal and provincial level that the DMOs are important to the recovery and an investment in the DMOs will help in jump-starting the economy.”
Speaking on a conference call with members of the Coast’s three chambers of commerce April 20, West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country MP Patrick Weiler said an announcement of support from the federal government should come soon.
“This is something that I’ve been pretty involved in from the very beginning, given the importance of tourism throughout our riding,” Weiler said.
In an open letter to the tourism industry shortly after the province announced its $5-billion COVID-19 Action Plan, Tourism Minister Lisa Beare said the government is still working on “sector specific” support for tourism and hospitality.
