With the second half of summer underway, tourism operators in the Okanagan are hoping business will pick up after a slow start to the season.
Some businesses are blaming provincial legislation that bans short-term rentals, resulting in fewer places for visitors to stay.
The lack of tourists is also impacting the region’s restaurant industry, which heavily depends on summer traffic.
“If we go back one year when we had the forest fires last August, it’s never really recovered,” said Ian Tostenson, the president and CEO of the B.C. Restaurant and Food Services Association.
“A number of things are going on. I think the overriding issue is the economy. People with their incomes, you’re seeing travel, even in places like Whistler and Vancouver Island, is down.”
“How are restaurants doing? We’re not doing well up here. This is the time when we literally want to be making hay, and we’re not seeing that.
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“A lot of locals are out, doing things, but not tourists.”
Proof of that can be seen on local highways, where vehicles with Alberta licence plates aren’t as numerous as they should be during a normal summer.
“Normally, we’d have floods of Albertans coming through. Now we’re down to maybe one a day. Also coming in from Vancouver, we’ve seen some big declines as well with travel,” said Jane Sawin, who owns Priest Creek Family Estate Winery.
Sawin said the winery is seeing about half the traffic it saw last summer.
“We’re seeing a big decline,” Sawin said. “Last summer, we would see upwards of 40 reservations on a Saturday, now I’m sitting at about eight or nine.”
Tostenson said weather, forest fires and the wine industry are the region’s dominant talking points. And those talking points aren’t necessarily positive.
For instance, the weather has been dominated lately by heat warnings and thunderstorm alerts. And the wine industry is hurting following two catastrophic years.
“The wineries have a lot of wine, and the tasting rooms are open. But a lot of people think because of the grape problems, they’re not (open),” Tostenson said.
“(The visitor downturn) is a little bit perception, a little bit economic. But it’s not great. It’s unfortunate and it’s so beautiful up here.”
Typically, tourism during July and August accounts for 30 per cent of a restaurant’s overall business.
“That’s a big problem because we didn’t have (big tourism numbers) last August because of forest fires. And it looks like it’s not going to transpire this year either,” Tostenson said.
“Unfortunately, the industry, which is on its heels … I’m always the optimist but it’s not very happy right now for restaurants. They’re trying to provide value to attract people, but there’s no (profit) margin.
“I worry that going into the fall we’ll see all throughout British Columbia a lot of independent restaurants probably deciding to close their doors. It’s just getting really tough out there, unfortunately.”
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