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Tourism figures raise hope for rebound
Posted By JENNIFER PELLEGRINI
If the traffic jam that clogged Niagara Falls Tourism’s website in recent weeks is any indication, the 2008 season might not be as bad as originally feared.
“We had 7,000 unique visits in a day,” executive director Anna Pierce said Tuesday. “We’ve never had that.”
Pierce made the observation the day after the tourist season was ushered in with wind, lashing rain and temperatures more befitting the March Break than the Victoria Day weekend.
Despite the foul weather that put a wet blanket on dreams of picnics and fireworks, Pierce said some Niagara Falls hotels fared better than expected.
“It wasn’t the best (Victoria Day weekend) we’ve had. But it wasn’t the worst,” Pierce said. “A lot of places were out with their packages, so they did OK with the Toronto market, but others are worried.
“There were people who didn’t cancel their reservations because they didn’t care (about the weather). They just wanted to be away and the weather was lousy wherever they were from, anyway.”
Anecdotally, she said, hotels with big names on the tower did better than smaller ones, “and the water parks were really busy,” she said. “The people who are out there marketing are doing well.”
Pierce said with an advertising blitz set to begin, there’s hope Americans will rediscover Niagara Falls and that Ontario residents – who traditionally stay for shorter periods and spend less than their American cousins – will take their cues from south of the border and look at Niagara Falls as more than just a day trip.
Already, that seems to be happening, she said.
Niagara Falls Tourism’s website, niagarafallstourism.com, tracks the cities where visitors are from and six of the top 10 are Canadian: Weston (near Toronto), East York, Ottawa, London, Toronto and Montreal. The three American cities in the top 10 are all from the metropolitan New York area – Brooklyn, Long Island City and New York City. Rounding out the list is London, England which finished ahead of Montreal.
“There are a lot of Brits in town right now,” she said. “A lot of tour buses are coming back and the helicopters are going crazy. We’re getting a lot of Canadians coming around and from the U.S., we’re getting a lot more out of New York.”
But while Niagara Falls operators are cautiously optimistic, the news from Statistics Canada Tuesday was as gloomy as the wet weekend.
In March, travel to Canada from the United States and beyond hit an all-time low with just 2.3 million international visitors, a 12.4 per cent drop over the year before.
Americans comprised just 730,000 trips, a 2.5 per cent decline over March 2007, while Canadians flocked south of the border in their highest numbers since 1998.
On the upside, the number of Indian, Dutch and Italian visitors increased slightly in March.
Pierce said she hopes that trend will reverse as the mercury climbs, particularly given the number of people who are at least considering Niagara Falls as a summer vacation.
“They’re out there,” she said. “We just have to seal the deal. We’re doing better than expected, but not as well as we’d like.”
jpellegrini@nfreview.com
Article ID# 1035376
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