Fingers crossed after a near-catastrophic 2003, travel industry leaders in B.C. and Alberta are preparing to roll out the welcome mat as they prepare for several major tourist events in the coming year.

Canadians are expected to play a big part in the anticipated upswing in the tourist trade, while Asia Pacific and European travellers will also make healthy contributions to the travel sector’s economy, experts predict.

But the U.S. market – the largest – is expected to increase only slightly next year, as Alberta promotes its centennial celebration and B.C. bangs the drum for the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympics, the world junior hockey championships and major conventions.

“This year has been a year for the industry, exceeding expectations,” says Tourism Vancouver executive vice-president Paul Vallee. August visitor numbers were not as strong as last year, when there were more conventions in town, but the number of travellers to Vancouver increased by about five per cent in July over the same period last year, he says.

A number of events tested Canada’s travel industry in 2003 – SARS, the war in Iraq, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad-cow disease), the restructuring of Air Canada, a stronger Canadian dollar and forest fires.

“The market that is not coming back to the extent that we wanted it to . . . is the U.S. market,” says Vallee.

“It’s a bit of a challenge.”

In addition to last year’s crises, this year’s U.S. election may also explain why there has not been a surge of American visitors, says Vallee.

“It’s one of those tourism (industry) beliefs that during election years, Americans stay closer to home and they don’t travel as much – they get wrapped up in what’s going on,” says Vallee.

Mary Mahon-Jones, CEO of the B.C. Council of Tourism Associations (COTA), says B.C. cities are booming when it comes to tourism, but rural areas have been slower to recover.

She adds B.C.’s tourism industry has been growing steadily since 2001, a benchmark year for the industry. In 2002, according to a draft report on a proposed provincial transportation strategy prepared by COTA, tourists contributed $9.34 billion – or $25.6 million per day – to the B.C. economy, and just under $1 billion in tax revenue to the provincial government.

But then disaster struck in 2003.

“SARS was definitely the biggest issue for us,” says Mahon-Jones. “Even though it didn’t happen for us in B.C., and the apex was in Toronto, we felt it for sure. The biggest issue was Asians not wanting to travel here – at all.”

Among several recommendations in its 90-page report, COTA calls for more public-private partnerships on transportation projects, as long as they create a level playing field for business, a loosening of foreign ownership restrictions on airlines that provide overseas service, and multiple transportation modes into communities that have high tourism activity.

“If we continue to market our product well, we’ll grow,” says Mahon-Jones.

She says B.C. tourism operators have learned that they must plan ahead and be organized, but they also know that they can get through difficult times.

According to Tourism Vancouver’s latest research statistics, the number of overnight visitors to Greater Vancouver in the first six months of the year jumped 8.3 per cent over the same period in 2003. Tourism Vancouver attributed most of the increase to a 7.7-per-cent rise in Canadian travellers and a 37.8-per-cent boost from the Asia Pacific region.

Tourism B.C. statistics, meanwhile, show in the first six months of this year the total number of visitors to B.C. rose six per cent from last year to just over two million. The total number of U.S. visitors dipped 1.4 per cent to 2.6 million, while the number of Americans who stayed overnight remained on par with 2003 at slightly more than 1.4 million.

Visits from Asia Pacific-based tourists rose 38 per cent to 390,510 and the number of travellers from Europe went up 6.2 per cent to 184,892.

Tourism Vancouver, meanwhile, says air traffic through June at Vancouver International Airport climbed 11.7 per cent above 2003 figures.

The number of visitors arriving by air from the Asia Pacific region soared by 30.1 per cent above the previous year, while domestic passenger volumes went up 11.7 per cent over the previous year.

Aviation industry analyst Rick Erickson says the trend lines are all pointing in the right direction when it comes to air travel growth in Alberta and B.C.

“I think we’re seeing a lot of Canadian travellers choosing to come out to Western Canada,” says Erickson, adding Alberta and B.C. are attracting a lot of visitors from Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes who have decided to holiday in their home country rather than go to the U.S.

Erickson says B.C.’s growth will hinge largely on an increase in the number of Asian travellers and the strength of the Asian economy. The Olympics, as happened in Calgary, will also generate tourism for many years afterward.

Barring another crisis, Erickson expects the prediction of slow, steady growth to become reality.

One of the big issues affecting the industry is air access, notes Vallee.

He says the federal government’s “archaic” policies and legislation restrict foreign airlines’ ability to fly in Canada and pick up passengers in Vancouver during stopovers.

“Toronto’s airport gets more attention (from the federal government) than Vancouver does,” says Vallee.

“That’s a concern of ours.”

In the hospitality sector, Tourism Vancouver reports that hotel room demand rose 12 per cent in the first six months of this year – a positive sign as demand was down for all of 2003.

Hotel room occupancy in downtown Vancouver went up 6.9 per cent over the same period last year, with an average daily rate of $130.07. Across the Greater Vancouver Regional District, occupancy climbed 6.5 per cent, with an average daily rate of $111.71.

Throughout B.C., the average daily hotel rate was $114.67 in the first two quarters, while hotel revenues increased 4.7 per cent to $578.32 million between January and May from the same period last year.

BC Ferries ridership also climbed – 2.5 per cent to 12.3 million passengers in the first six months.

Vallee says Vancouver’s new convention centre and major events such as the 2006 world junior hockey championships, 2009 World Police and Fire Games, and four pre-Olympic test events that are designed to assess venues before the 2010 Winter Games will help boost tourism in coming years.

He adds the city will play a big part in overall B.C. tourism, accounting for 35 per cent of visitors.

“People may come here but they very often go elsewhere as well . . . Tourists, generally speaking, don’t stay in one spot.”

Meanwhile, Alberta tourism industry officials are also optimistic over what the future holds for their province.

“We’re pretty confident that we’re going to continue to grow the market the way we think we can,” says Derek Coke-Kerr, managing director of Travel Alberta, the provincial government’s tourism marketing agency.

As part of a three-year marketing strategy dubbed The Road to Recovery, accompanied by a report by the same name, Alberta aims to increase total tourism revenue to $5.9 billion by Dec. 31, 2006 from $5.4 billion in 2002.

Coke-Kerr says 2005 will be a “milestone year” because it will determine whether Alberta is coming out of the doldrums.

Coke-Kerr stresses that travellers from Saskatchewan and the B.C. Interior are significant to Alberta’s industry and Travel Alberta will cater campaigns toward them.

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)