Evidence of meeting #28 for International Trade in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was measures.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Basically it's the air travellers who tend to stay for a longer period.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Yes.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Again, my question to you is, how much of the drop in business from international air travellers is related only to ArriveCAN?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
That is a really hard question to answer. What we know is that we lost 53% of international visitation into Canada—
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
I understand that. People are frustrated due to everything related to the pandemic—labour shortages, supply chain problems, inflation. There are people who are opposed to vaccinations. They are all zeroing in on one thing: ArriveCAN. It is very easy to take out our frustrations on something else, and now there is ArriveCAN. They say to take it out and everything will go back to normal. Is that the case?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
I would suggest that we were not zeroing in on just one thing and that ArriveCAN was one of—
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Exactly. The point of this committee study is ArriveCAN. Again, my question is, how much did ArriveCAN contribute to the drop in international air travellers?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Again, I don't have that number.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Okay.
Domestic tourism is increasing, which is a good thing, in my view. I'm from Ottawa and I was on the board of Invest Ottawa. People think it's a government town. We want to change that. The technology sector here is one of the biggest sectors, probably the biggest in Canada, which is surprising to many people.
The second thing about the innovation technology sector...we have identified tourism. Ottawa is a beautiful place. The national capital region is a beautiful place. We want domestic tourism to improve.
Have the problems with international travel contributed to the increase in domestic tourism?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Certainly we are seeing domestic tourism coming back and coming back faster than international travel is. It is still down across the country by about 16%. One of the things we found was that when our borders were closed, Canadians were exploring their own country and discovering places within the country that they didn't really realize were there. So instead of saying, “I want to go on a hike to base camp on Mount Everest”, they were saying, “I'll hike in Banff”, as an example. They are saying how great that was.
Canadians also like to get on a plane and go elsewhere. As much as domestic travel has rebounded over the last year or year and half, we are also anticipating that we will start to see that travel deficit come back up again as Canadians get on planes and go elsewhere.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Okay, I will ask this quickly.
Domestic tourism has gone down by 16%, so why is it very difficult to get a hotel room?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Contrary to popular belief, hotels aren't filled to 100% of the rooms they have. They are filled to the capacity of customers they can service. A hotel may be operating at only 60% or 70%. That's why it's been very difficult to get bookings in some parts of the country.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
Mr. Savard-Tremblay, go ahead for two and half minutes, please.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My question is quite simple.
I can't remember which of the witnesses talked about the need to promote the lifting of restrictions. Does that mean anything to you? That is what I want to ask about. If the person recognizes their testimony, I invite them to raise their hand, please.
My question is this: should we now promote the use of the ArriveCAN application, which is now voluntary?
Bearing in mind that it is a tool that can now be used on a voluntary basis, is it useful enough to be promoted?
My question is for anyone who wants to answer it.
President, Canadian Airports Council
I think we need to separate promoting our tourism industry and saying that Canada is open for business from advocating for this tool, this application, that can help travellers fill out a declaration in advance and help with processing at our airports. I believe there's messaging we can use with our government agencies to support airports and airlines, but I think the promotion of Canada is separate from that.
Mayor, City of Niagara Falls
I'll jump in and say that it's not helpful at land border crossings. I can't speak for airports, but I can tell you that the majority of people come into this country through land border crossings, and it is not helpful at land border crossings.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
I would just add that having only one version of the tool is not helpful given the multiple languages we encounter with international visitors coming in or from an accessibility standpoint, whether for seniors or for others. Always having an alternative method of communicating and sharing the information that's being asked for is something we need to have regardless of which way we go forward.
Bloc
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Maybe I'll just ask Ms. Potter a follow-up question on her last point. She said, if I understood correctly, that having an alternative option for people who struggle with the technology or who don't have access to the technology would have avoided a lot of the problems we saw at land borders and air borders. I appreciate that this is sort of a retrospective on how things could have been done better.
Separate from the question of whether the vaccine requirement was appropriate, given that the government put the vaccine requirement in place at the borders, do you feel that having the app as an option as opposed to a requirement would have avoided a lot of the challenges we saw?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
I certainly do. I think you can look at how we process people through our borders and at the ability to make a declaration verbally, which we've been doing for years at the land borders, with people coming into the country and declaring verbally how much they are bringing back into the country. This is a process that was put in practice and well used. Mandating people to use a tool they weren't familiar with, a tool that took some time to fill out and caused massive delays at border crossings in the country, really caused damage to Canada's reputation and brand. That is something that will take time for us as an industry to undo.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Madam Chair, can I ask one very brief question of Mr. Boudreau?