Town of Osoyoos gives rare cold shoulder to visitors
ISpecial to The Herald
t has been difficult to offer Canada’s Warmest Welcome in recent months, but Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff is actually pleased to see the reduced flow of north-south travel across the U.S. border — and not just for health reasons.
“We’re quite happy that the border has closed. It forces people to rethink what they are doing. They can’t cross, because they would have to quarantine for 14 days and no one I know wants to go through that, and it forces people to think about where they’re going to spend their money and to shop locally,” said McKortoff.
“The fact is people can’t run down to get gas or buy some groceries in Oroville. Some people would still prefer to do that but they can’t, so it now means they need to look carefully and support the businesses in our town. In light of what’s happened, it has never been more important to buy local.”
Non-essential travel between the United States and Canada has been halted since March, with the shutdown now expected to last at least through late June.
As long as precautions remain place, McKortoff is confident a return to normal can happen sooner rather than later.
“We’re going to have to do things slowly and carefully,” she added. “We’ve been pretty lucky in this town as there’s no one I know of who has been sick. We’re all being very sensible about it and this has to continue.”
Besides American visitors, Osoyoos also gets plenty of domestic tourists, whom McKortoff asked to stay away in public pleas issued prior to the Easter and May long weekends
Council has met regularly with Destination Osoyoos, the town’s destination marketing agency, and is supportive of their efforts to bring tourists to town as long as it is done in a safe manner.
“They are obviously quite keen to get things going again and what we’re saying is we just need to be careful we are doing this slowly because that last thing we need is an outbreak and have to dial everything back again,” said McKortoff. “We’ve done things very well so far and I don’t see any reason why this can’t continue.”
The town has had to cancel its Canada
Day Cherry Fiesta parade and fireworks display, which traditionally draws between 25,000 to 30,000 visitors, as well as the popular Music in the Park concert series.
“People are kind of on board knowing these events had to be cancelled, but the attitude is we’ll come back next year with events that are bigger and better than ever before,” said McKortoff.