Cool weather and rain brought hope to the Alberta town of Jasper that the wildfire there could be brought under control soon and the recovery for the iconic tourist hub could begin.
But as Canada faces another year of above-normal wildfire activity, many working in the tourism industry are asking if it’s worth it.
“It’s a real gamble being in the tourism industry right now,” said Mandy Nordahn, owner of Mearas Vista Inn in Tofino, B.C.
Nordahn said the wildfire season of 2023 was like no other, and government data backs her up.
With roughly 18.5 million hectares of Canadian land burned, 2023 was the worst wildfire season ever recorded. It surpassed the previous record of 7.6 million hectares scorched in 1989.
Tofino, a major tourist destination in British Columbia, saw the effects of the fires on Vancouver Island last month as well, though wasn’t hit directly.
“Nobody came,” Nordahn said. “All our bookings in June were cancelled.”
Nordahn thought the worst was behind her when she learnt that the news of the devastation in Jasper was spooking potential visitors again.
“I already have people calling me saying they can’t come. It hurts business, but you can’t really blame people,” she said.
The full extent of the damage in Jasper won’t be known for some time, but officials estimate somewhere between 30 and 50 per cent of all structures in the townsite may have been destroyed in the blaze.
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This could include hotels, lodges, inns, restaurants and cafes that have stood for years.
Beth Potter, CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, said climate change and the increase in the frequency of extreme weather events is now being factored into business.
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“As an industry, we’ve spent a lot of time and effort over the past couple of years putting together emergency preparedness plans so that we can be there to ensure that visitors feel safe,” she told Global News.
“That’s now part of our standard course of business.”
And the stakes are high. According to the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, the tourism industry raked in $113 billion in 2023 and supported one in 10 jobs in Canada.
“We’re in every part of the country, in every riding,” Potter said.
Wildfires have already cost Canadians hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Some of the costliest weather events in Canada’s history have been wildfires. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the Okanagan and Shuswap wildfires that burnt from August to September last year in British Columbia caused $720 million in damage.
The Tantallon, N.S., wildfires last year cost over $165 million.
“The cost of these events is huge and it will have a big impact on everything from the cost of rebuilding … (to) the cost of insuring these businesses, in light of the extreme events that are taking place,” Potter said.
However, she added that in addition to the cost of such weather events, the industry also takes a hit as news of extreme events makes headlines around the world. Such headlines, she says, can have ripple effects beyond just the affected areas.
“They (international tourists) don’t understand that if there’s a fire in one part of our country, that the rest of our country is still open for business,” she said.
“We’ve got some work to do to make sure that the world knows that Canada is still a destination for their summer vacations this year and business events and business travel in the summer months.”
It’s not just wildfires, a warming climate means Canada’s winter sports industry too faces an uncertain future. A report in June last year predicted that ski resorts in Canada would have to rely more and more on machine-made snow.
“The results demonstrate an increase in snowmaking requirements (depth of machine-made snow) from baseline levels across all regional markets and under all climate change scenarios for the 2050s,” the report read.
Potter said the warming weather has forced the industry to diversify.
“What it’s making the industry do is look at our product offerings, our experience offerings, looking at the seasonality of our industry over the course of a full year and doing things differently,” she said.
This could mean taking advantage of Canada’s geographic diversity and augmenting tourist hubs outside of especially vulnerable regions. But it could also mean diversifying the products or services the industry offers.
“We can look at our winter product a little differently. We can attract visitors at different times of the year and disperse the tourism across more months of the year,” she said.
Nordahn in Tofino hopes tourist hubs, like her town, can build more resilience.
“You want people to enjoy their vacation, not worry about being stranded,” she said.
This is a conversation that Potter said needs to be had at all levels of government. And while there are things that governments can do to help, there are also steps that the industry can take.
“We can make changes. We can adapt,” she said.
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