As COVID-19 continues to cause health and economic havoc around the world, Sault tourism and business officials say they’re having to review their game plans in the face of recreational and business-related travel cancellations caused by the virus.
“At this point in time we haven't confirmed any large scale cancellations in terms of any large events, but this is changing by the hour...we may see, in the future, some cancellations of some events that are coming up in April,” said Travis Anderson, the City of Sault Ste. Marie’s tourism and community development director, speaking to SooToday Friday.
“I think we’re in the same boat that every other citizen of Ontario and Canada is in. We’re at a point where we’re looking forward to getting more information and just watching this scenario evolve. Once we have more information we’ll be able to respond and react.”
Local tourism officials are already adjusting their strategies to make up for the loss of tourism dollars normally generated by international visitors, Anderson said.
“We have been proactive already. We are expanding our marketing efforts within Ontario, in Toronto, in the GTA, because we do anticipate later in the year we will be seeing a drop in international travel. We’re focusing our marketing efforts to communities and demographics that are within driving distance of Sault Ste. Marie. It makes sense for this year with everything that’s going on.”
As reported earlier by SooToday, City of Sault Ste. Marie travel and tourism officials are adjusting their tourism marketing efforts to focus more on the U.S. midwest.
“On a global scale this is unprecedented and the tourism industry as a whole is continuing to digest the information as it becomes available...we’re continuing to work with our partners at Destination Ontario and Destination Northern Ontario to get a sense of what the impact might be,” Anderson said.
Meanwhile, Rory Ring, Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce CEO, told us “there definitely will be an impact on business and the majority of that on the downside.”
“We’ll decide what our events schedule will look like this coming Monday when we’ve had an opportunity to meet with our board of directors and get our own game plan together. I think you’ll see some impact on the traditional events we hold, and some of the specialty events as well.”
“We’re looking to hold a Trade Accelerator Program in March (beginning Monday, March 23 and Tuesday, March 24 and continuing through to April and May), and we have to consider those dates because there were a lot of partners that were going to be coming to Sault Ste. Marie that have now had their firms place travel restrictions on them, so we have to review that,” Ring said.
The Trade Accelerator Program is designed to help small and medium-sized enterprises gain knowledge and a network of contacts to unlock their export potential through a series of workshop sessions with trade and industry experts.
“We know as well the (local) hotel industry will be significantly impacted by cancellations of team travel, be it the OHL or the minor hockey leagues. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce just cancelled their 2020 annual general meeting that was to take place in Timmins at the end of April. So it is having a very, very widespread impact.”
However, Ring said “I think, overall, recovery from this will be relatively quick. There will be some pent up demand for services and goods and those business relationships.”
