BANFF – A task force is being set up to look at economic recovery for Canada’s flagship national park once restrictions to protect people from the COVID-19 pandemic begin to lift.
The Alberta government hopes to start a staged reopening of the economy sometime in May given that revised modelling predicts fewer people will become critically ill from the coronavirus, which is expected to reach its peak in the number of cases in late May.
Tourism officials say it’s going to be a long road back for Banff and Lake Louise’s decimated tourism industry, with predictions of permanent business closures, concerns about staffing levels and uncertainty about how to welcome back visitors.
“The studies are all really telling the same story in so far as it’s going to be really bad,” said Leslie Bruce, president and CEO of Banff & Lake Louise Tourism (BLLT), noting the tourism industry is unlikely to bounce back once the pandemic has ended.
“Recovery is looking like it could take longer than some people initially expected.”
In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, 80 to 85 per cent of the workforce has been laid off, non-essential businesses are closed and the Banff townsite and surrounding national park are off limits to visitors. The Banff Springs Hotel closed its door for the first time since the Second World War.
The business community has been calling for a tourism recovery strategy for the area, which typically sees more than four million visitors a year. The terms of reference for the task force, which will involve the Town of Banff, BLLT and Parks Canada, are currently being drafted.
“I know there is a desire to assure that a cross-section of the community has an opportunity to participate at some level,” said Banff Mayor Karen Sorensen, noting the makeup of the committee is still being explored.
The municipality was quick to respond to the COVID-crisis with its first priority to keep people safe and work to "flatten the curve." But Sorensen said talk has now turned to the next phase of the pandemic and what economic recovery could look like.
While feeling confident that Banff will be a desirable place for visitors to come back to when the time is right, and respecting the townsite exists as a service centre for visitors, Sorensen said she also believes Banff’s future will be different moving forward.
“Rather than recovering to what we were, it’s an opportunity for discussions and planning on what we want to be as a tourism destination,” said Sorensen.
“I think that through this crisis we need to also see it as an opportunity to reimagine ourselves.”
One of the biggest concerns about the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis centres on the anticipated permanent closure of some businesses, including the smaller mom-and-pop operations.
New studies prepared for Destination Canada predict substantial business closures across the industry if tourism businesses are not provided with financial support to stay open and retain staff this summer – when most revenue is generated – and beyond.
One study predicts COVID-19 could result in the closure of more than 61,000 tourism businesses and 1.7 million layoffs in the event of no summer season, driven mostly by a lack of cash on hand, and relatively fixed expenses like rent, mortgages and utilities.
Lodging and food and beverage services would both see losses of more than $6 billion in revenue in 2020 under the worst case scenario, which experts in the tourism industry now believe is more likely.
Bruce said BLLT has been working hard with groups such as Banff & Lake Louise Hospitality Association to advocate for financial help from different levels of government for local businesses.
“We’re going to lose businesses … in order to have a tourism product when people are allowed to travel again, we are still looking at the top priority as being liquidity of businesses,” she said.
“We’re fighting really hard to ensure we can get access to those funds to try to preserve as many of those businesses as possible so that when we come out the other side, a) people have their businesses and their livelihoods, and b) we have something to offer visitors so that we can rebuild or reimagine the tourism economy in our community.”
While she is unaware of specific permanent closures at this time, Bruce said she has heard a number of businesses are looking at extending their closures even if the economy slowly opens up.
“They are not certain that they can afford to staff up if there isn’t a certain level of business that they can anticipate,” she said.
“That’s a concern for us because it will be hard to really welcome back visitors if we aren’t able to open businesses. It’s sort of that very difficult chicken and egg piece.”
The top priority for BLLT has been keeping people safe during the coronavirus pandemic, but Bruce said the organization has been working hard to protect Banff’s reputation as a leader in tourism.
“We’ve walked that really fine line of asking people to love us, but to wait, to stay home and come when we’re ready – and we’re still seeing a need to convey that message,” she said.
“But we believe in order to welcome back visitors, we’re going to have to demonstrate how we are leaders in hospitality in a COVID environment. We want to be able to meet or exceed the health guidelines around operating safely in this environment.”
Regional visitors, followed by domestic travel will likely drive the recovery as the pandemic fades, but international visitation isn’t expected to start anytime soon. One study suggested the economic impact on international tourism will be 13 times that of SARS and double that of 9/11.
Bruce said research in the U.S. and Canada suggests that people will be looking to get back to nature once restrictions are eased and the pandemic fades, adding national parks are at the top of the list.
“We are actually quite well set up to be attractive to visitors when the time comes, when restrictions are released,” said Bruce.
“We don’t expect the volume to come roaring back at once and, frankly, I don’t think anybody is suggesting that that would be a good idea,” she added.
“But we do need to be prepared for the fact that people are going to want to be here, which is good thing, but we want to be ready to do it safely.”
Bow Valley Naturalists, a 50-plus year-old conservation group that has been pushing for a visitor management strategy, said the proposed task force and drafting of the new Banff National Park management plan provide a unique opportunity.
Reg Bunyan, a spokesperson for Bow Valley Naturalists and retired national park resource conservation officer, said “it was quite clear that all was not well in paradise” prior to the emergence of COVID-19.
“We had been seeing growing frustration among visitors and residents alike due to overcrowding and congestion, as well as the direct and indirect ecological impacts caused by heavy visitation,” he said.
Bunyan said BVN is aware of the very real pain of Banff’s business community and those whose livelihoods depend upon tourism, but the downturn has provided some interesting insights, such as how wildlife seem to start to fill niches normally occupied by visitors and how more walkers and cyclists are in areas used by vehicles.
“BVN is concerned that any push for the tourism sector to get back to ‘normal,’ especially when combined with the hunger of all levels of government to generate taxable revenue, may well land us back to where we were before the pandemic,” he said.
“COVID-19 has given us all a snapshot of what one visitation extreme looks like, but it has also bought us some time to engage, plan and think about the future of both our community and our park – not what it was, but what we want it to be.”
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