THE SIX-FOOT CONUNDRUM
Unique attractions left wondering
Danny Guillaume gets a lot of anxious questions as he walks along the streets of downtown Moose Jaw.
“When are you opening?” he hears, again and again.
Restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, hotels — they all depend on the roughly 80,000 annual visitors Guillaume’s Tunnels of Moose Jaw draws to the city. He figures the economic spinoff from his business is in the neighbourhood of $30 million — “There’s a lot of businesses that can’t exist without our traffic,” he said.
But he doesn’t have much of an answer for them.
“I just shrug and say, ‘As soon as we can.’ ”
“As soon as he can” is still a long way off, Guillaume fears. He’s a long way down the list in Saskatchewan’s five-phase reopening plan. Tunnels are not the ideal environment for social distancing.
“It just doesn’t work,” he said. “We don’t have six feet.”
Guillaume’s story is just one of the struggles facing the attractions, festivals, and natural wonders that drive Saskatchewan’s $2.4-billion tourism sector. Few of those stories are alike.
Provincial parks could open in May, but Wallace Sauvé’s petting zoo near Lloydminster is still waiting for a date. While Guillaume worries about the challenges of social distancing, the open-air tours in the Big Muddy Valley near Coronach won’t have so much trouble keeping guests six feet apart.
What most do share is a sense of dread for what the future holds. Will antsy travellers be willing to get back on the road? How far will they travel? And will the government be there to help their cashstarved businesses scrape through what could be a years-long downturn?
“It’s not an industry that you can just fire up,” Guillaume said. “We’re dealing with a psychologically changed market, where we have to have new strategies, we have to have longer-term thinking, and hopefully there’s some support out there for that.”
Saskatchewan’s Minister Responsible for Tourism, Gene Makowsky, shares that uncertainty about what tourists will do as the economy reopens.
“I think there is going to be a certain percentage of the population that’s just not going to be interested in travelling out too far,” he admits.
But Makowsky sees a “silver lining.” Saskatchewan isn’t as vulnerable to the heavy loss of international and out-of-province visitors that stands to devastate tourism in Alberta or B.C. Saskatchewan’s market has always been primarily domestic, and that’s precisely where Tourism Saskatchewan is looking to focus its marketing dollars.
Saskatchewan residents made up 97 per cent of same-day tourism visits in the province, and 73 per cent of overnight or longer trips. Alberta visitors made up 19 per cent of the remainder. There are exceptions — angling and hunting are heavily reliant on Americans — but most Saskatchewan destinations won’t be crushed by a closed international border.
Take Guillaume, for instance. He sees his fair share of Albertans and Manitobans, and some British Columbians and Ontarians. But his “core business is Saskatchewan visitors.”
Jonathan Potts, executive director of marketing and communication for Tourism Saskatchewan, said the goal is to persuade residents that there are safe and fun ways to travel within the province while following public health orders. About $2 million in marketing efforts will begin rolling out this summer to “address those apprehensions head-on.”
He knows it won’t be easy, or fast. Potts is expecting tourism spending will be down by “well over 50 per cent” compared to 2019.
“It’s a very big challenge,” he said. “The economic impact is devastating and it’ll take a few years to come back to the levels that we were at.”
At his petting zoo near Lloydminster, Sauvé’s goats aren’t getting much attention. They usually see about 20,000 to 30,000 visitors per year, he estimates. Sauvé figures about 30 per cent are locals from around town. There’s also plenty of Albertans from further afield, but it’s not unusual to see Brits and Americans passing through on their way to the mountains.
Sauvé doesn’t know when he’ll be reopening, but when he does, he’s skeptical that Makowsky’s staycations will be enough to make up the gap.
“I can see tourism in our province dropping to almost nothing ...” he said. “It’s hard to speculate, really, but the future looks fairly bleak. It really does.”
He fears he might not make it. That’s a major concern for Makowsky
and Potts. If attractions die, Saskatchewan will have a weaker foundation as it strives to draw back visitors in the years to come.
“There will be some businesses that will struggle to survive. I think there’s no question about that,” said Potts. “There will be a long-term impact in terms of attractions lost that will limit the amount of people that travel from elsewhere.”
Guillaume said there’s a chance that his two-decade-old business could go bankrupt. He’s dealing with near-zero cash flow, and expenses are piling up. He’s laid off 20 people, but rent hasn’t gone away.
“With zero income, it’s just impossible to stay in business. It’s just a matter of time,” he said. “How long can you just last on fumes?”
Makowsky listed the suite of support programs the province has rolled out over the course of the pandemic, including its $5,000 small business grant.
Guillaume has applied for the programs Makowsky listed, and then some. He got a loan from the federal government, and a wage subsidy for the two employees he managed to find work for.
He feels those programs — billed as short-term support — don’t recognize how long the pain is due to last in tourism. He calls them “nickels when you need dollars.”
“This is all three-months relief programs,” Guillaume said. “This has damaged us to the point where it’s more like three to five years.”
Makowsky acknowledged there is no provincial support program geared toward the unique challenges of the tourism sector. He could not say whether a longer-term program will be on offer down the road.
Come what may, Guillaume is bracing for a “bleak year” in 2020. He doubts he’ll open at all before next spring.
But he has one source of optimism: Saskatchewan’s people.
“I think Saskatchewan will rebound much quicker because most of our tourists are Prairie people,” he said. “I think people want to do something. There’s a pent-up demand already.
“I get phone calls every day. ‘Are you open? Are you open?’ They’ve been bottled up and they want to go out and do stuff, and I think there’s a good local market to come back.”
I can see tourism in our province dropping to almost nothing ... It’s hard to speculate, really, but the future looks fairly bleak. It really does.