Canada opening U.S. land border
Protocols require COVID-19 test before entry, plus full vaccination
If excitement can be gauged cautiously, Windsor's battered and bruised hospitality sector is feeling a tempered optimism and hope about the federal government's announcement Monday that the Canadian land border will soon open up to most Americans.
“It's a great day. It's momentous — another step toward recovery,” said Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island CEO Gordon Orr.
Starting Aug. 9, fully vaccinated Americans considered non-essential travellers will be able to visit Canada for the first time in nearly 18 months. Depending on the continued course of currently favourable COVID-19 domestic trends, fully vaccinated visitors from farther abroad will be allowed in effective Sept. 7.
PRE-COVID, American guests represented nearly a third of visitors to Caesars Windsor, the region's biggest tourism draw, and about a quarter of visitors to the area's important winery sector.
“We've lost a lot and the sacrifices have been real — the tourism and hospitality sector has been battered,” said Orr.
“I'm hopeful, I'm pretty excited about it,” Downtown Windsor BIA chair Brian Yeomans said of the news. Until the pandemic hit the local economy, restaurants, bars, businesses and thousands of hotel rooms in the city core depended to “a very large percentage” on American visitors.
Orr said Monday's announcement represents a great step forward in the return to normalization, but he foresees it as “incremental growth.” Orr and Yeomans caution there's still a long way to go.
Fully vaccinated Americans might be welcome to show up at the border again, but entry into Canada will still require a negative pre-entry COVID-19 molecular test result, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. For the casual traveller those tests aren't cheap, with a quick online scan of available U.S. testing sites advertising average prices of $200 and more.
“I just don't know if weekend travel is going to return in force yet,” said Yeomans.
While also “cautiously excited,” Adriano Ciotoli, founder and co-owner of Windsoreats, the food and drink guide and tourism organization, is less optimistic about any immediate big windfall. “We really don't think we're going to see (local) tourism get underway again until 2022.”
The pre-entry testing requirement is just one of the “headaches” Ciotoli sees in trying to lure Americans back across the border. “How do I say this? Americans are all about not having their freedoms infringed upon.”
Our U.S. neighbours, he said, are embracing a “life as normal” attitude at home, with “very loose,” if any, ongoing restrictions in dayto-day life. “While we're opening the borders, we're still living with restrictions here.”
Because those restrictions still govern how people and businesses on the Canadian side of the border live, work and socialize, Orr said there will have to be “an educational component” to help inform potential foreign guests in advance.
“Welcoming back our American visitors is what our industry has been asking for — this is why today is a momentous day,” Orr said Monday. But, he added, “We're still living in a pandemic — there's not going to be a tremendous initial rush.”
Caesars Windsor, which begins a gradual reopening to the public on Friday, described Ottawa's announcement as a “positive first step.”
“However, with the COVID-19 testing protocols that are required to cross, and the current vaccination rates in the U.S., we do not expect to see a material impact to our business at this time,” Susanne Tomkins, manager of public relations and communications, said in a statement.
“We have seen an overwhelmingly positive response from all our guests since announcing our reopening, and we believe when border and testing protocols ease, our U.S. guests will be excited to cross the border,” she added.
This week's border announcement is welcome news, however, for families, business operators and cottage and other property owners with connections to both sides of the border who have been kept apart since the border was made impassable (since March 2020) to almost anyone not connected to essential services and trade.
Opening the border, even just a crack, “means a great deal,” said Orr, but there remains an ongoing need for locals to support local. Pre-pandemic, he said, the hospitality sector employed 16,000 workers in Windsor and Essex County and injected a half-billion dollars annually into the local economy.
“We still need our friends in Windsor and Essex County to support local and shop local.”