On Wednesday, November 10, the Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable hosted a press conference at the Fairmont Pacific Rim, high above Burrard Inlet and iconic Canada Place in Vancouver, to call out for immediate change to Canada’s complicated travel rules, which the Roundtable says are decimating business travel and stifling Vancouver’s tourism industry.

Four local business leaders came together to call on the federal government to remove unnecessary and non-science-based obstacles to international travel, such as the pre-departure PCR test for fully vaccinated travellers, which are threatening the survival of Vancouver businesses and killing business travel.

Tourism and business travel has been an economic pillar of the Greater Vancouver area, which enjoys an international reputation as one of Canada’s prime destinations for leisure, meetings and events travellers.

“Business travel from the US, Asia and around the world has pretty much come to a complete halt, and that is hurting our cities, especially Vancouver’s downtown core,” said Bridgitte Anderson, President & CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.

“We represent a bridge between the hospitality sector and BC’s broader business community, and we are committed to restoring BC’s $13.8+ billion tourism sector,” said Mike Macleod, Director of the British Columbia Hotel Association, which represents more than 600 hotel members and 200 associate members. “In 2019, Vancouver welcomed eleven million overnight visitors in 2019, contributing $14 billion in total revenue to the Metro Vancouver economy and supporting more than 104,000 full-time jobs. By comparison, revenues fell by 70% in 2020.”

“Despite high vaccination rates and stable case counts, our collective return to normal is proving more difficult than it needs to be,” he said, mostly because of leftover travel rules from the start of the pandemic, before mass vaccination and low case counts. “We need the federal government to make common-sense changes to the rules so British Columbia’s hotels, and the families and communities they support, can get back to welcoming the international visitors who sustain our businesses and our communities,” Macleod said.

Karen Soyka, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Destination Vancouver, said Vancouver gets international visitors all year long. “This summer, international visitors were prohibited from travelling to Canada and as a result, we lost the summer travel season. We were promised things would get better, and they have not gotten better. Vancouver is now bracing for the winter season too. And this time, it’s not for public health reasons. Instead, it’s irrational leftover rules from the height of the pandemic that are no longer science-based that are keeping the world away from our city,” she said.

“The PCR test signals to international business travellers that Canada is not open for business,” said Claire Newell, President of Travel Best Bets, expressing most independent travel agents’ point of view. It also takes longer to get back PCR test results, which presents logistical challenges for short business trips and trips with a packed agenda. If we continue down this path, we will be at a severe disadvantage to our peers in the U.S. and Europe.”

“After the 19 months that we’ve all experienced, our businesses depend on international travel more than ever. What has already proven to be a difficult two summer seasons is evolving into an even more dire winter season. Many small businesses may not survive the winter, and it really doesn’t have to be this way,” she said, and fervently called for change.

“We need the federal government to make common-sense changes to the rules so our businesses can stand a chance.”