Tourism spending in Manitoba rises

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This article was published 19/10/2023 (744 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tourism spending in Manitoba hit a new high, but not because of a return to pre-pandemic tourist traffic.

Manitoba tourists spent a forecasted $1.8 billion last year, surpassing the previous record of $1.6 billion in 2019.

Meantime, the number of people visiting the keystone province lags significantly behind 2019 counts. Nearly nine in 10 Manitoba tourists last year — 87 per cent — lived in Manitoba.

Visitation from the United States roughly halved, when comparing 2022 to 2019, while overseas travellers marked roughly one-third of pre-pandemic levels.

Combined, the two markets covered less than three per cent of Manitoba tourists.

“It is going to take us some time to get all of those internationals back,” said Colin Ferguson, Travel Manitoba’s president.

Still, he’s being “cautiously optimistic.”

“We’re seeing good recovery,” he said after Travel Manitoba’s annual general meeting Thursday.

The Crown corporation shared its 2022 data during the meeting; industry members filled a room at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Manitoba saw 8.7 million tourists last year, including Manitobans visiting tourist attractions. In 2019, the number was 10.5 million.

“It’s very clear that Manitoba’s tourism industry does, indeed, have a way to go from a recovery perspective,” Jackie Tenuta, Travel Manitoba’s vice-president of destination management, told the crowd.

She called the tourism spending milestone “positive news” — 2022 surpassed 2019 by more than $160 million — but attributed a large portion of the gain to inflation.

Despite inflation, spending from international travellers didn’t reach 2019 levels, Tenuta noted. It dropped 39 per cent.

United States travellers spent a forecasted $108.9 million last year, down from $158.6 million in 2019. Statistics Canada estimates tourists from overseas spent $80.5 million in Manitoba in 2022; three years earlier, they spent $150 million.

“Manitoba appears to be recovering more quickly than many other provinces across Canada,” Tenuta said, attributing it to, partly, less reliance on international travel.

Manitoba’s overall visitor spending increased more than the national average, when comparing 2022 to 2019.

Manitobans spent $1.1 billion on tourism in their home province last year — a 21 per cent increase from 2019, when the number hovered around $993 million.

Across Canada, tourism dollars from international travellers declined 39 per cent from 2019, according to Statistics Canada data.

“People just aren’t travelling as much,” Ferguson said.

He called air access “a challenge and an issue.”

There are fewer routes to Winnipeg than pre-pandemic, and airlines continue to face labour shortages, Ferguson exclaimed.

“I’m not blaming the airline industry — they’re staffing up as fast as they can, but… training pilots takes time,” he said.

Inflation and a higher cost of travel has stopped many people from taking trips, Ferguson continued.

“(It) makes travelling within your own province more attractive,” he said, adding he hopes the uptick in Manitobans travelling within Manitoba sticks.

Travel Manitoba’s rebrand — unveiled earlier this year — and hosting events in the province are spreading the word about Manitoba, Ferguson stated.

Meanwhile, many tourism operators are facing higher costs and debt levels, Tenuta reminded the crowd.

Frontiers North Adventures typically plans its rates two years in advance. For the first time, it repriced the upcoming year — a necessity due to inflation, said CEO John Gunter.

“I was really worried about how… those rate increases may have been perceived by the market, but it was a non-issue,” he stated. “I think there’s a, ‘Yeah, OK, I get it,’ (from customers).”

The Churchill tour business deferred its 2020 bookings, hitting a “high water mark” for customers in 2022.

“I think this idea of revenge travel has sort of waned… but we’re still having a great year,” said Gunter, who’s also on the Tourism Industry Association of Manitoba’s board.

Tourism demand is seemingly back, but filling labour gaps is difficult, he mentioned.

Manitoba hotels surpassed 2019’s occupancy and revenue levels last year, according to Travel Manitoba.

The Crown corporation noted housing challenges — people displaced from fire, flood and war — contributed to the occupancy increase.

“We had two years of close to nothing, so it’s going to take a while to make that back, but things have been good,” said Michael Juce, president of the Manitoba Hotel Association.

Business has generally rebounded faster for Winnipeg hotels than rural counterparts, Juce added.

“We’re starting to see more U.S. and international (travellers), but I think that’s the story everywhere — it’s been a little slower to recover that international traffic,” he said.

Southport Aerospace’s hotel saw a decrease in traffic during the pandemic; staff are now working on getting its “name back out there,” said employee Anyssa Gates.

“We can only go up from here, right?” added co-worker Cindy McDonald.

The Southport Aerospace employees are preparing for the Manitoba Airshow next year — Southport’s first event of the kind since 2018.

McDonald expects 10,000 people daily.

Projections from Tourism Economics, a company Travel Manitoba hired, show 2019-level international tourist traffic in Manitoba to return in 2026.

Factors like a recession and labour challenges could affect the timeline, Tenuta said.

Tourism spending in Manitoba last year exceeded Tourism Economics’ “upside scenario” predictions last summer, Tenuta noted Thursday.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com