Lower loonie drawing in more American visitors

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This article was published 23/01/2016 (3856 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The collapse of the Canadian dollar has provided a welcome boost to Manitoba’s all-important tourism industry.

Travel Manitoba CEO Colin Ferguson said an additional 40,000 U.S. tourists visited Manitoba during the first 11 months of last year compared with the same period in 2014.

That’s an increase of more than 13 per cent, he said.

During that same period, there were nearly 250,000 fewer travellers returning to Manitoba from the United States, he said, for a decline of nearly 18 per cent. “So there are a lot less people leaving Manitoba and a lot more Americans coming to Manitoba,” he said. “It’s kind of a win-win.”

Christopher Misson, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency’s chief public affairs liaison at the Pembina, N.D., port of entry confirmed automobile traffic counts were down last year — 330,996 versus 369,328 in 2014.

“Our traffic is far less than it has been in the past. In general terms, we’re seeing maybe four or five hundred cars on a weekday, and on a weekend we might push 1,000,” Misson said. “A couple of years ago on a busy weekend in the summer — a Canadian long weekend — we’d be pushing closer to 2,000 cars.”

Although the port doesn’t keep track of how many of those cars are Canadian and how many are American, his impression is the biggest drop-off has been in the number of Manitobans heading south.

With fewer Manitobans heading south and more Americans heading north to take advantage of the stronger U.S. dollar — it is currently worth about C$1.42 — tourism spending is up in Manitoba. In fact, Manitoba is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this recent currency-driven trend.

Ferguson said spending here by international tourists increased at the fastest pace in the country last year — 7.3 per cent. Spending by domestic tourists grew at the third fastest pace — just more than four per cent.

“So it’s all very encouraging. It’s kind of a perfect storm right now.”

Ferguson conceded Winnipeg hosting seven games for the FIFA Women’s World Cup helped to boost last year’s numbers. But so, too, did our world-class tourist attractions such as hunting and fishing, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Journey to Churchill exhibit at Assiniboine Park Zoo and Churchill’s polar bear and beluga whale tours.

In a bid to take full advantage of these new tourism opportunities, Manitoba will be ramping up its marketing and advertising campaigns over the next couple of years in the United States as well as elsewhere in Canada.

Ferguson said recent surveys have shown Americans aren’t as aware of the differences in the value of the Canadian and U.S. dollars as their Canadian counterparts.

“So we’ve got a little bit of work to do to educate (them), and we’ll be doing that,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we capitalize on it now, because this window of opportunity will not last forever.”

The advertising and marketing campaigns in the U.S. will target mainly the “rubber-tire markets” of Minnesota and North and South Dakota, which are within easy driving distance of Manitoba.

California is another target market because of the growing interest there in the Churchill polar bear tours, Ferguson said.

“We’re seeing more and more Californians coming in.”

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca