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B.C.’s tourism sector likely won’t meet revenue targets despite boom
Claudine Lafreniere and her husband, Rod Foley (BIV photo)
Claudine Lafreniere and her husband, Rod Foley, are staying in B.C. this summer and plan to do a lot of cycling. Photo submitted

Rod Foley and his wife, Claudine Lafreniere, had been looking forward to a Hawaiian vacation in April to cheer on family members taking part in a triathlon.

But prices kept rising as the Canadian dollar fell, so the busy 40-somethings decided to cancel the trip and spend more time at home on road-cycling excursions.

The New Westminster couple is now planning a trip later this summer to the Okanagan, where they will ride their bicycles, camp and visit wineries.

“The main goal is to relax and maybe go swimming in the lake,” Foley told Business in Vancouver on July 31.

He’s not the only one in the province rethinking the viability of a trip to the U.S.

In a July 23 Insights West poll , 64 per cent of British Columbians said the declining Canadian dollar has had a “significant” or “medium” impact on their travel plans.

Hoteliers across B.C. are enjoying what they call a banner year in part because the low dollar is encouraging locals to take trips in their home province.

“We’ve been fully booked in part because there’s also been a rise in the B.C. film industry,” Rosewood Hotel Georgia managing director Philip Meyer said.

A busy convention schedule including the World Congress of Dermatology and an international AIDS and HIV conference, combined with the FIFA Women’s World Cup, has similarly helped keep occupancy sky-high.

Tourism Vancouver reported that on July 5, occupancy city wide was 99 per cent, which happens rarely and is about as high as it has ever been in the local industry.

“It’s a banner year across the city, and we’re feeling the warm glow of that,” said Kyle Matheson, Pinnacle International’s director of hospitality marketing.

Matheson’s company recently rebranded its Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside Hotel as the Pinnacle Hotel Vancouver Harbourfront and made minor renovations.

“It’s not like we considered closing the property or limiting it in any way,” Matheson said. “We wanted to make sure that we operated the property and did not disrupt service because it has been so busy.”

Tourism industry insiders say visitation to Vancouver is likely to increase given that the lure of a cheaper Canadian vacation may take a while to get on most U.S. residents’ radar.

“Canadians are so attuned to what the U.S. dollar is doing that it impacts our propensity to cross the border and shop,” said Destination British Columbia CEO Marsha Walden. 

“It’s different with Americans and their propensity to come north because they’re not nearly as attuned or aware of the exchange rate. For many, it’s a wonderful surprise when they get here.”

Despite what is evidently a boom time, Walden doubts that B.C. will achieve what she calls Premier Christy Clark’s “aggressive” tourism-sector annual revenue target of $18 billion by 2016 — a goal that was watered down from former premier Gordon Campbell’s ambitious 2003 projection that the province’s tourism sector would generate $19.6 billion in annual revenue by 2015. 

The most recent Statistics Canada data states that the province generated $13.9 billion in tourism revenue in 2013. 

Walden expects the province to increase that by slightly more than 5 per cent per year and get to the targeted $18 billion by 2018. 

“I have a ton of confidence that we’ll do that,” Walden said. “When your competitor, the U.S., is suddenly more expensive, that does a lot of good for your domestic industry.” 

She pointed to Bellingham International Airport (BLI), which has suffered from service cuts by Frontier Airlines, Allegiant Air and Alaska Airlines. 

The airport’s passenger count dropped 14.5 per cent in the first half of 2015 compared with the same period a year ago, according to numbers that BLI provided to BIV. That’s evidence that British Columbians’ trips within the U.S. are down, Walden said.

gkorstrom@biv.com

@GlenKorstrom