Ontario tourist hotspot readying for busy summer, hoping to attract more visitors in off-season

PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, Ont. -- Prince Edward County has long been an Ontario summer tourist hotspot, but the push to buy and travel local led to a banner year for some businesses last year, and 2026 is shaping up to potentially be even better.

“Right now, our bookings are averaging about 10 to 20 per cent higher than they were in 2025 for July and August of this year,” said Visit the County Executive Director Sarah Fox.

Tourism is the biggest driver of the local economy, and so this pre-peak travel season indicator is giving local businesses hope that Canadians will still be getting in the cars and coming to the County from Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and beyond.

“I think even though gas prices are higher, it’s still less expensive to travel within the province, and we have so many beautiful destinations to visit,” Fox said. “So, we’re looking forward to a busy summer season.”

Home to Sandbanks Provincial Park, the Millennium Trail, a number of thriving wineries, and a growing ecotourism movement, trips to the region surged in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic as a doable destination.

In the years since, a number of new businesses have opened, including just this past November, the Claramount Club. A fully restored estate on Picton Bay, the 21-room boutique hotel is getting ready for their first ever summer season.

“We’ve seen like a really exciting uptick in guest bookings. It’s just been building month after month,” said Molly McCrea hotel manager at Claramount Club.

“We’re looking at upwards of 70 to 80 per cent occupancy over those summer months. So that’s really exciting for a new property. We wouldn’t hope to see that until our sort of second season,” McCrea said. “So yeah, the trend is looking really good for us.”

Banner year for tourism in Canada?

What businesses are seeing in Prince Edward County may be a harbinger for what Destination Canada is forecasting to be a Canada-wide trend in 2026.

Nationally, the tourism-centric Crown Corporation estimates $140.9 billion in visitor spending this year, up six per cent from 2025.

“The Canadian tourism sector celebrated a record 2025 summer, and this momentum looks set to continue through 2026 and beyond,” reads a recent release.

Mayor Steve Ferguson said city staff are gearing up to make the most of what could be a record season for the region.

“Making sure all our facilities are in order and are capable of handling the rush that we’re expecting to arrive in Prince Edward County,” he said.

Trying to become four-season hotspot

Area winery Closson Chase has been open for nearly 30 years, but buoyed by more Canadians buying Canadian, they had their best year to-date in 2025.

But, as is the case for many businesses in the region, much of the money they make in a year comes in during the summer months.

“I would say probably 50 per cent of our sales are between June … and September,” said Erin MacInnis, manager at Closson Chase Winery, “And our staff goes from about six full time year-round people to about 25 people in the summertime.”

And so, there’s a push underway to pitch Prince Edward County as a four-season destination.

“We’ve taken a lot of time and made a lot of effort to try to get events to occur through what we call the shoulder seasons,” Mayor Ferguson said.

Visit the County – the official destination marketing organization – has been working with other local organizations including the Chamber of Commerce and Picton Business Improvement Association to create a year-round visitor economy that would make it feasible for more businesses to keep their doors open longer, according to Fox.

“We’re hoping to expand the tourism season year-round to create a sustainable lifestyle for everybody who lives here,” she said. “It would be great if we could have an average number of visitors throughout the year, as opposed to just one big burst throughout the summer.”

In a bid to keep guests coming in the off-season, Closson Chase turned their old barrel cellar into a year-round tasting room.

“We decided to remodel that over this winter so that we can keep it open all year round and be able to host people all year round,” MacInnis said. “It’s just a great way to, you know, keep people visiting the county, and keep people visiting us.”

Labour, housing shortage a factor

Though, building a feasible four-season economy would require hiring more staff, and those CTV News spoke with said attracting enough workers is a major challenge.

“There’s so many wonderful businesses that everybody wants to work for, and we all sort of have to scramble to get the best people throughout the summer months,” McCrea said.

“We’re really lucky to have a really great university population of students here that come in the summer and often come back to the properties that they worked with before,” she said.

Though, the recent suspension of some programs at Loyalist College has meant fewer skilled workers, particularly impacting the hospitality sector.

And even if the business was there all year long to support summer-level staffing, there’s a shortage of places for workers to live.

“Housing affordability is a chronic problem everywhere, not just here,” the mayor said when asked about the impact housing costs are having on worker retention. “That’s something we’re spending an awful lot of time and effort on.”