Canada's tourism sector is hopeful it can weather the storm that's battering global economies and threatens to see consumers pull back on vacation spending.

Officials expect 2009 to be a challenging year even though Canada has marketable tourism attractions and this country is in the spotlight with the coming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

The wild card, however, will be the tourists. Will they come?

"The biggest concern we have is to keep telling the public that vacations are important, that travelling is fun," says Ken Fiske, vice-president of tourism and marketing for Edmonton Economic Development Corp.

Photo courtesy of Travel Manitoba
Travel Manitoba's PR campaign includes giving Americans a look at these 'Manitoba Monsters' at tradeshows.

"That mindset is going to be our biggest challenge; to change people's thinking of: 'Oh we can't travel, we can't afford to.' We have to encourage people to travel."

A weak U.S. economy and a further drop in Americans visiting Canada could become a major issue as well.

"It's so difficult to say what's going to happen down there right now. There's no question their economy is in trouble," adds Fiske. "The other biggest concern I have is that the United States hunkers downs, shuts down their doors and everybody stays home."

According to Statistics Canada, U.S. residents made about 13.4 million overnight trips to Canada in 2007 - the last year figures were available - down 3.5 percent from 2006 and the lowest level since 1996.

Same-day car travel fell to 11.2 million trips, down 18.8 percent from 2006 and the lowest level since record- keeping started in 1972.

2007 was the eighth consecutive decline in same-day car travel from the United States.

But Tourism Toronto says it's still premature to write an obituary for the U.S. tourist in 2009.

"At the peak in 2000, we had 2.4 million visitors from the United States," says Andrew Weir, vice-president of communications for the destination marketing group.

"Last year we had two million - most of the decline was in same-day visitors and was more attributable to (large fluctuations in) currency values. Americans do continue to come to Toronto."

Calgary-based Anderson Vacations, a tour company that operates across Canada and in the U.S., says it has noticed a decline in U.S. interest.

"Last year around November, December we really noticed the phone calls from the United States dropping off," says Seth Downs, director of sales and marketing for Anderson. "We've had many conversations about why that could have been - the economy, the uncertainty with the new presidential situation and that type of thing.

"But we have started to see the Americans start calling again, so we're happy with that."

However, even with fewer American tourists heading north - officials in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario all point to varying degrees of a drop in American visitors - the tourism sector believes 2009 is not a lost cause.

"We anticipate that visitors are going to be travelling closer to home and probably staying a lot within the province, so we are really focusing our campaigns more regionally and certainly within the province," says Shelley Grollmuss, in-province portfolio manager for Travel Alberta.

"We're predicting a positive year. We're hearing positive things from our industry when we talk to them about what's happening with their businesses. We're looking forward hopefully to a very busy spring and summer season and definitely hoping to hold our own, if not able to increase our numbers," says Grollmuss.

"It's not a time for us to change our marketing programs or move out of certain markets, it's really a time for us to maintain a presence and work with our industry so consumers think of us first."\ Similar viewpoints are being echoed in other provinces.

Manitoba, for example, will aggressively market in its key travel markets: Saskatchewan, northwestern Ontario, Minnesota and North Dakota, as well as a separate campaign to encourage Manitobans to see other parts of their province.

But the province is also stepping up its marketing efforts in one of its most important travel segments - fishing and hunting.

It redirected money from print advertising to spend more at tradeshows, where it could deal with the travelling public firsthand in vital U.S. Midwest markets.

A new promotional theme, "Manitoba Monsters" - a reference to the abundance of trophy-sized northern pike and large game — made its debut at those shows, underscored by an imposing 20-ft. inflatable replica of a northern pike tethered beside an all-new Travel Manitoba booth.

Visitors swallowed the bait, says Linda Whitfield, vice-president of advertising and communications for Travel Manitoba.

"We had 22 Manitoba lodges and outfitters (at shows) in Minneapolis and 35 in Chicago and their feedback was very positive. They were taking bookings at the shows," says Whitfield.

Manitoba is even more optimistic about the outlook with Homecoming 2010, a year-long experience geared to getting former Manitobans to come back and rediscover what the province has to offer.

In Saskatchewan, a reasonably strong economy is expected to help buffer the tourism sector there, says Bonnie Baird, manager of first impressions and research for Tourism Saskatchewan.

"Actually, our outlook is positive and the Conference Board of Canada is projecting overall growth of 3.1 per- cent in visits and five percent in traveller expenditures (for 2009)," she says.

Even though those numbers are from last fall, Baird says the operators in the key niche markets of hunting and fishing remain optimistic about their U.S. clientele.

"We feel we can come through this year at a stable level or even slightly up," says Baird.

In Ontario, tourism is projected to grow by 1.1 percent, says provincial Tourism Minister Monique Smith.

"That (number) is changing every day," says Smith.

"We are not immune to the economic downturn occurring worldwide, but we remain optimistic that Canadians and Ontarians are still going to want to travel - so we're working very hard to make sure they vacation in their own backyard."

A recent tourism report by former Ontario finance minister Greg Sorbara focuses on four strategies: Changing how the Ontario government and tourism operators work together; establishing new globally competitive standards for success; maximizing investment in tourism products and attractions; and revitalizing tourism marketing with a regional focus.

Smith says she has no intention of letting the report gather dust on a shelf and looks forward to working with stakeholders to move forward on a number of the recommendations.

B.C., however, is dealing with mixed signals on the tourism scene.

"It's definitely going to be a challenging year. We are anticipating some slippage in our key international markets, in particular the U.S.," says Rod Harris, president and CEO of Tourism British Columbia. "But we are seeing some positive trends coming from markets such as Mexico and China."

Harris says benefits from the coming Olympics should become evident as early as this fall and run into first- quarter 2010.

"Following that, due to the incredible visibility of having hosted the Olympic Games, we are expecting a return to the aggressive rates of growth that we experienced in the preceding years," says Harris, referring to an average seven-percent growth rate from 2005 to 2008.

"While the Olympics will provide a temporary positive influx, the real gain will come to showcasing B.C. to three billion people worldwide. The real growth will come after the Olympics."

(Laura Severs can be reached at laura@businessedge.ca)