Rob: A bit of good news coming from the provincial government. Stage Two of the Alberta relaunch strategy could be launched earlier than anticipated. They’re going to make the decision at some point next week, but it could come even before the middle of June like they were originally targeting.

And it’s because we’re doing good, folks. We’re kicking that curve in the butt. We could return to something of normalcy here very soon, as we try to target some of the people who would normally visit our area and contribute to our economy. What’s that going to look like?

Tanya: Tourism marketing is something that hasn’t been happening for a couple of months. Our destination marketing organizations focus on international travel. That’s obviously not happening in the immediate future. What does tourism marketing look like? It’s going to look like a lot of Canadians traveling inside Canada. It’s going to start with Albertans. We’ve seen that already. What has really surprised me is the extent to which there has been use in Kananaskis Country. It’s been really incredible. It’s also really concerning from the perspective of social distancing,

Rob:  There’s seems to be some expectation that tour’s numbers overall may be lower this summer just because we’re not getting the international visitation, but I wonder how accurate that’s going to end up being because we have to think that all of the Canadians who would often travel to other countries in the summer are going to be staying at home. Will it balance out? I’m wondering if we are going to see a busier summer than a lot of people are anticipating here.

Tanya:  The summer is a real unknown. I think we’ve seen the municipalities of Canmore and Banff take the responsibility of enabling businesses to appropriately social distance and reopen seriously with the closures of the two main streets. Most of our tourism businesses earn their income in the summer months. But when we see restaurants having to reduce capacity to 50% or not even having indoor seating at all, are these viable business models for them through the summer? We’re going into it to a strange time, but it’s a time when our industry here locally is reopening. That’s going to be uncomfortable for people who want to continue to see restrictions until we get to the point there is a vaccine. Economically speaking, that’s just not viable. And I think that we are capable of reopening in a very specific way to manage this problem. So what will tourism look like? I think we need to be ready to adapt to whatever the summer brings in terms of visitation of Canadians.

Filed under: Banff, Canmore, covid-19, Mountain Insider