Re-Starting Downtown Business - Idea No. 3 - Tourism, Movies and Restaurants (again...)
It is clear that while we are still in the midst of the pandemic, one of the longer lasting impacts is going to be travel. This is and will continue to hit Victoria particularly hard, not because Victorians like to travel (though I think we do), but because a lot of people used to like to travel here. Really since early in the 20th century, when Vancouver eclipsed us in regional importance, Victoria has focused on being a tourism destination. In the near future, we will see border closures lifted and people allowed to start moving about again, but I am fairly certain that it will take a long time before they actually want to. Another issue is that it won’t be easy to travel either as flight frequency will not go back up until people start to want to travel again. So what does a city that has grown up on tourism do while it waits for travelers to come back? Maybe one of the solutions is for Victorians to start to see their city in the same way tourists do at least a little bit. And a second solution might be to start looking at a different kind of tourist.
The Short Term
While we are still in the return to active life but not too active a life, I think that we have an opportunity in showcasing Victoria for Victorians. This could look like the “Be a Tourist in your own Home Town” that we have each year but more focused, and of course done safely. So the idea would be to have some options for Victorians to stay in our hotels, maybe for a weekend. This could be paired with a night out at one of the recently opened restaurants. To cap off the evening, you could go back to the hotel to enjoy a streamed movie presented one of our local theatres. Imagine staying in one of our hotels overlooking the Inner Harbour and heading out for a dinner at Chorizo and Co. or Brasserie l’Ecole and then returning to the hotel to watch an arthouse film streamed by the Vic Theatre or Cinecenta. Or maybe enjoy a safe outdoor concert! I know that this would just be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of visitors we usually have in the city by this time year, but at least it would allow for a few more people to get back to work while the broader service industry prepares for a larger re-opening.
The Longer Term
As I said, it looks like one of the larger impacts of the pandemic will be on global tourism and we will likely not see it return to the way it was previously. This is not all bad. There are certainly some places in the world that were getting too many tourists and it was having a significantly negative impact. I can only imagine how magical Venice is to walk through right now. In the not too distant past international travel was reserved for adventurers and the very rich. That didn’t mean that the rest of us didn’t travel, just not as far. If we don’t see a return to the very cheap and easy plane travel that we have had for the last twenty years, we all might need to look for destinations a little closer to home. While this may sound like a limitation on all of us, it will also be an opportunity for Victoria’s tourism industry.
One of the things about Victoria, I have always wondered, when you meet tourists you almost never talk to any from Seattle or Vancouver. Between the two cities we have a direct market of over 8 million people and yet they rarely choose Victoria as a place to visit. If in a post-COVID world, we see the travel distances shrink, Victoria has an opportunity to showcase the amazing city that so many people have been missing out on right next door to them. Many other tourist focused cities do not have the benefit of such large markets on its door. And when we also offer so much that those cities don’t have, like good weather it should be an easy sell.
Over the longer term we may see the return of global tourism but we shouldn’t bank on it coming back soon, yet we will want tourists to be here in the short term so a focus on nearby markets makes a lot of sense.
How do you see the tourism market shifting over the next few years?
Also while I have you, I still have space for ads for any restaurant in the city that would like a little freebie. The deal remains, six months free advertising on the site, no strings attached.
