The Canadian Tourism Industry’s sufferings has been immense in recent times due to the pandemic COVID-19. As part of these sufferings there has been some recent developments that are in place as well. These are to encounter the impacts of the pandemic in the North-American continent. Furthermore, one of them has been the closure of the Canadian- US border. The border has been closed since a while now and there is an ongoing push from the Canadian Govt. to open borders for the sake of tourism & promotions of tourism activities.
Many tourists from the neighbouring country United States visit Canada annually by road for tourism purposes. The closure has impacted the numbers by huge margins as travel restrictions has been in place as well i.e. Air travel from across the border. In terms of annual generation of revenues from the Tourism sector Canada, there have been huge impacts. In addition to this, they can be highly devastating in future. The main reason is as it would take a while to recover from all the incurred losses.
The Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable is as organisation that comprises of members of travel & tourism sector in Canada. In an open letter to the PM Justin Trudeau, the request has been placed very openly. This request has been for the reopening of the Provinces, territories, and country to travel. Hence, laying special emphasis on The Canadian-US Border.
INT. TRAVEL & MOST RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:
Slow and gradual is the reopening process that is taking place. This is according to international developments in place in recent times. Hence, the travel & Tourism sectors should be permitted to open up for the summer season. The main reason for this is that the industry houses 1.8 million jobs. On top of this, it also accounts for $102 billion of the country’s economy. These are huge figures for the Canadian economy both in terms of jobs and revenues contributed to the economy from the Travel & Tourism sector.
The organisation has also emphasised to the Govt. of Canada that they are highly aware of the Health & Safety laws and parameters. They further emphasised in a highly critical manner that the current travel restrictions implemented by the Govt. of Canada are too broad and unnecessary, as COVID-19 is getting over and most of the country is opening up.
The letter further implies in terms of the international travel that the approach should be more targeted. This explains how the compulsory 14-day quarantine policy and the closure of the country’s borders is now unnecessary for all those travelling from abroad. This is mainly because the 14-day quarantine policy is not in line with what other countries are following around the world.
This has been taken as a huge step from Canadian Travel & Tourism Roundtable as they have received immense amount of support & endorsements from many companies in the travel & tourism sector Canada. These companies includes Air Canada, Vancouver Int. Airport, The Business Council of British Columbia, & finally The Tourism Industry Association of Canada. All of the bodies has shown huge concern regards to the sustainability measures for Canadian Travel & Tourism Industry.