Northern BC hotels bracing for influx of guests this summer

BC Hotels Association President Ingrid Jarrett stated there is hope on the horizon for the hospitality sector after 16 months of losses.

Much like restaurants, hotels are facing a severe labour shortage that has reached well over the 20-thousand range.

“So, all of the hotels are looking at rehiring either laid off workforces or hiring new employees in order to meet that demand and ramp up their operations.”

“All of them are faced with 16 months of losses and some pretty significant shortages (labour) when we are looking at our rehiring and what we need to do to prepare for British Columbians who are ready to continue to travelling,” said Jarrett.

However, Jarrett mentioned hotels in Prince George and the north have seen much higher occupancy rates during the pandemic than the rest of the province.

“Certainly, we are looking at communities in the north that have had nowhere near the occupancies we would have seen in 2019 and previously. Certainly, the region is a little bit stronger than those larger, urban centres we have in the southern part of the province.”

Jarrett attributes this to different industries like construction, energy, and mines who have flourished.

Pressure continues to mount on Ottawa to loosen border restrictions to fully vaccinated travellers.

Both Canadian and American tourism groups want the land border reopened quickly.

The groups say tens of thousands of jobs are at risk and an entire second tourism season could be lost.

Jarrett went on to say a federal group called the COVID-19 Testing and Screening Expert Advisory Panel is also urging the feds to resume international travel.

“They have submitted a report to the federal government and are indicating with the vaccines, the number of vaccination rates, the number of hospitalizations and COVID cases that it is actually safe to reopen the international border this summer.”

“The position of that expert advisory panel is that if Canadians with two doses of the vaccine are welcomed to return then all other international travellers should be as well. We completely support that position.”

In May, MyPGNow.com spoke with outgoing Tourism PG CEO Tracey McBride who reported the pandemic has been unforgiving on all of our hotels.

“We lost at least 44,000 room nights and that is just from tournaments and conferences that we had already had committed but that doesn’t include losses that we could have received.”

The Northern BC Tourism Association surveyed regional operators and found last month, 31% of businesses were temporarily closed due to the pandemic and 44% of businesses were operating with a reduction in hours, staff, and/or services.