Business is Worse, Not Better, During Canada Games on P.E.I.
CHARLOTTETOWN — The 2023 Winter Canada Games have brought some of Canada’s best athletes to P.E.I., but some business owners have been left wondering where everyone else went.
Erica Wagner is the owner and operator of Backwoods Burger Craft Beer Cookhouse, located in Tyne Valley. She and other small business owners have been sounding off on social media about a surprising lack of business during the games.
Wagner tells Huddle it’s shocking how little an impact she’s noticed so far.
“It’s been slower than normal and we kind of expected it to be busier,” she said.
The games kicked off on February 18 and will continue until March 5. For months leading up to the events, organizers boasted about the surge they would bring to Island businesses. After the first week has come and gone, it seems that surge hasn’t arrived.
“We thought, at the very least on game days, we would see a big boon in the community and that just was not the case,” said Wagner. “It felt so eerie because it was just so quiet.”
Locals have left
While the games have brought athletes and their families to the Island, many locals seem to have taken off. The provincial government decided to give P.E.I. students an extended and early March break for the duration of the games. A significant number of islanders have used that opportunity to take extended vacations.
“I think this two-week-off deal with the schools has resulted in a lot of people going on vacation. Just from asking around, it seems like people were like, ‘oh, this is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity for my family to be able to go down to Florida,’” said Wagner.
But it’s not just the potential customers who have left the province. With the extended break comes a need for extended childcare for some residents who opted to stay on the Island. Often, that means parents working from home and having fewer opportunities to visit businesses on their way to work or during their lunch break.
The CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Prince Edward Island, Corryn Clemence, echoed Wagner’s sentiment about the extended break’s effect on island operators.
“A lot of them would draw normally from locals, and we know that a lot of islanders have gone away,” said Clemence.
Tourist attractions doing fine
Not all businesses have suffered during the games, however. Wagner noted that established tourism attractions like Cows Ice Cream and other more well-known institutions have benefitted from the games.
Clemence believes that this may be because athletes’ families didn’t have much notice to plan for their trip. She said that many of the athletes participating in the games were selected not long before the start date in mid-February.
“That didn’t necessarily give a lot of those visitors time to do research on things to see and do,” said Clemence.
The lack of business is particularly disheartening considering the extra preparations that were made to meet the supposed demand that the games would bring.
“We made sure we had extra inventory…we tried to make sure we were ready for whatever was going to come our way, and we definitely were over-prepared,” said Wagner.
The games continue throughout this week, and owners like Wagner hope things can turn around. Meanwhile, Clemence says that the games may serve as an opportunity for more visitors to be exposed to the island and plan another trip.
“Maybe these people that are here visiting for the first time start to think that this is an opportunity to come back and plan that proper vacation,” said Clemence.
In the meantime, businesses will continue to hope for the best.
Joe Thomson is a Huddle student intern, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected]