Halifax’s Tourism Economy Lost As Much As $800-Million In 2020
HALIFAX—The full impact of Covid-19 on Halifax’s tourism economy came into clearer view today as Discover Halifax released key data on visitors to the city.
According to the destination marketing organization, visitors to Halifax dropped by more than 50 percent in 2020, with total overnight stays plunging from 1.897,933 in 2019 to 908,990 in 2021.
Traditional hotels were hit hard, selling only 636,408 rooms over the course of the year, compared to 1,464,039 in 2019.
Ross Jefferson, Discover Halifax’s president and CEO, says those numbers don’t even tell the whole story.
He says about 10 percent of the room nights booked in Halifax’s hotels weren’t visitors but people in quarantine or from vulnerable populations. That means visitation to the city was even lower than the numbers suggest.
“From the time the pandemic hit we were down 68 percent,” Jefferson says. “Hotels also have significantly large rate drops so that would be a double impact for revenue for hotels, as well.”
“Sharing economy” accommodations like Airbnb fared slightly better: their guests dipped by about 37 percent overall (from 433,894 to 272,582).
Jefferson says that’s likely because people quarantining in the province were more likely to spend their isolation in non-traditional accommodations: 14 days in a home is usually easier than 14 days in a hotel room.
Meanwhile, the cancellation of the cruise ship season meant no cruise passengers visited the city at all last year. In 2019, 323,709 passengers landed on Halifax’s shores. Before the pandemic, The Halifax Port Authority had predicted 350,000 would arrive in 2020.
Air passenger traffic in and out of Halifax also fell dramatically.
According to Discover Halifax, 995,426 passengers came through Halifax Stanfield International Airport last year, compared to 4,188,433 in 2019. That’s a drop of more than 76 percent.
The plunge in visitors to the city had significant economic consequences. According to Jefferson, the tourism industry brings about $1.3 billion into the city in a normal year.
Last year, the industry didn’t come anywhere close to that.
“We’re looking at somewhere between $700- or $800-million in loss of spending and that has a ripple effect through the entire supply chain—not just affecting those primary businesses and tourism, but many businesses downstream as well,” Jefferson says.
However dire last year’s numbers look, Jefferson, says things look better for 2021.
The continued rollout of Covid-19 vaccines is making people feel safer and he expects that feeling to grow as more people get their shots. News that the Atlantic Bubble will soon reopen is also extremely welcome.
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A full 67 percent of Halifax’s visitors each year drive in from other Maritime provinces, so unrestricted travel within the Maritimes should mean a significant boost to business.
Jefferson says he’s also hearing rumblings about the rest of Canada opening up to unrestricted travel this summer as well.
“There’s an incredible amount of pent-up demand from people that want to see their families and their friends and reconnect. And we think it is going to be a significant driver for visitation for this summer,” Jefferson says. “We are planning for a strong recovery back and we’re expecting it will be largely driven by the visiting-friends-and-family marketplace.”
In order to capitalize on those theoretical visitors, Nova Scotia will have to essentially restart its tourism economy, something Jefferson points out is not a quick or simple process.
“To restart a $1.3-billion industry, it doesn’t happen with a snap of your fingers. There’s a tremendous amount of lead time that needs to be available to businesses,” he says.
That means the “number one priority” for organizations like Discover Halifax is getting an accurate understanding of when border restrictions will be lifted so the businesses can get ready.
Jefferson says most laid-off tourism-industry employees will have moved on to other jobs so it could take businesses a while to hire back the help they need.
He says that process can take three or four months. Creating the appropriate marketing campaigns to bring people back can take just as long.
Jefferson says Discover Halifax has also been working to ensure there’s good activities and programming ready in Halifax “so that when people come here it doesn’t look like a ghost town and that no one’s open.”
That will mean helping organizers plan events that can be adapted if they have to—but in a way that’s a little more than the virtual events they might right now be planning.
Even with all this work, no one expects things to return to pre-pandemic levels soon.
Last year, the president and CEO of the Halifax Port Authority said he doesn’t expect to see cruise ship traffic return to their former highs for at least two or three years.
Earlier this year, as Halifax lost more flights amid massive Air Canada layoffs, airport spokesperson Leah Batstone said “It could take years to rebuild air access to our region” and that the layoffs would likely extend the airport’s recovery period “well beyond when the demand for travel returns.”
Trevor Nichols is a staff writer with Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].