Vancouver’s low tourism grades spur sector reassessment

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Vancouver’s low tourism grades spur sector reassessment

Greater Vancouver Board of Trade gives city D grade for international visitor counts

By Glen Korstrom | June 26, 2018

Vancouverites’ pride in their city as a desirable destination for tourists suffered a blow when the municipality ranked poorly on several tourism-related indicators in the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade’s (GVBOT) 2018 economic scorecard.

The scorecard ranked Vancouver at No. 7 out of 20 cities from around the world based on 39 different metrics, including average office rent, unemployment rate and labour productivity. But the city received a D grade on tourism indicators, such as the total number of international visitors and the number of visitors at international-association conventions.

When it came to the number of flight destinations from the region’s major airport, Vancouver ranked 14th – a C grade. Vancouver got another C grade for its number of cruise ship calls, ranking ninth.

Metro Vancouver’s status as the largest city in North America to prohibit ride-hailing services such as Uber from operating is another potential tourism deterrent.

Premier John Horgan earlier this month backed away from his government’s promise to legalize ride-hailing services in the province by year’s end.

While the city is well known for its natural beauty, beaches and proximity to hiking or ski hills, critics could point out that the city lacks a major amusement park.

Jim Pattison Group owner Jim Pattison told BIV in April 2016 that he wanted to build a Great Wolf Lodge water park and resort near Squamish if he could work out a deal with the city and First Nations.

His company then floated the idea of building the $150 million park in Surrey, before putting the brakes on those plans.

He told BIV on June 20 that he has no plans to build the resort anywhere in B.C.

The scorecard, for example, gave Vancouver a C grade because its airport’s tally of non-stop flights to 125 destinations is nearly 100 destinations short of the total for similarly sized Manchester, England.

Anne Murray, the Vancouver Airport Authority’s vice-president of airline business development and public affairs, noted Manchester has many more possible destinations within a short flying time than Vancouver does.

“If you think of Manchester, think of the population of the U.K. or the population of Europe or what the population would be within three hours’ flying time,” Murray said.

She added that international bilateral agreements can also limit which destinations certain airlines are eligible to service, and how frequently.

“[Canada’s] air agreement with China is like a trade agreement between countries,” she explained. “They allow a certain number of weekly [flight] frequencies for Chinese-based airlines to Canada, and those are all used right now. So we have [Chinese] airlines that would like to add additional frequencies and they cannot because there are no additional frequencies left on the China side.”

One metric that could have boosted Vancouver’s showing in the Scorecard was the quality of its airport.

https://biv.com/article/2018/06/vancouvers-low-tourism-grades-spur-sector-reassessment