The tourism industry is reporting more revenue loss due to COVID-19 but officials say it’s possible to recover.
Victoria Clarke, the CEO of Discover Saint John, says it’ll be integral to be positive and to deliver messages at the best times.
“Our destination as a location for meetings and conventions, sports tours and special events, visit friends and family and leisure tourism obviously was given a devasting blow on March 13th,” she said.
Clarke said in the first two weeks of the pandemic, Discover Saint John saw the immediate loss of $8 million due to cancelled events.
Where possible, events were postponed and rebooked to benefit the industry overall.
“Our industry has seen about an 80 per cent potential (loss in revenue) because we’re imagining our revenue through the end of 2020,” she said.
She said the human resource impact has been devastating as about one in 10 people in the Fundy Region are employed in some form of hospitality.
“Tourism marketing is actually an export product that encourages us to import clients and our capacity to export that message has obviously been greatly diminished, and also the opportunity to import those clients from outside of our provincial boundaries have been devastated,” she said.
Clarke said it’ll be integral for Saint John to give the right message to the right market at the right time moving forward.
“We have incredible culinary experiences. Our outdoors and our waterfront are things that our clients are looking for. Our built heritage, the history of our city, and the urban experience not only will hold true as we move forward but they will ring true for the rest of the province, again as we are limited in who we’re going to be marketing,” she said.
Clarke said we need to be positive and tell only the story of the possible in Saint John because it is possible to recover with patience and compassion.
“This industry drives just short of $300 million worth of economic activity in the greater Saint John area,” she said.
Clarke is challenging people who normally travel outside of the province for tourism to spend that money on their city first, and then rediscover the rest of the region.
“Take advantage and meet all of our members where they are. If they’re doing curbside, get curbside. If they’re doing home delivery, do home delivery, but as restrictions lift, I really do believe that health starts at home. Let’s make our businesses healthy again,” she said.
