Latest cancellations another hit to struggling travel industry

What's the travel future look like? More travel restrictions announced Friday are expected to put pressure on an industry that's already devastated.

VANCOUVER — After nearly a year of cancelled trips, and now even more restrictions, many Canadians are itching to travel. But it’s going to be a long time before that’s possible again, and the travel industry has a long way to go to recover.

According to a new report from the World Tourism Organization, 2020 was tourism’s worst year on record, plummeting 74 per cent. And 2021 may not be much better. The federal government announced Friday that Canadian airlines had agreed to stop flights to more than 20 sun destinations in Mexico and the Caribbean, in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.

While it is a blow, Flight Centre’s Allison Wallace says for the travel industry, it wasn’t a total surprise. And the goal is something she supports.

“I think there’s some relief in the fact that it’s not going to be piecemeal – they’ve pretty much ripped the Band-Aid off,” Wallace said. “It makes it a little bit easier for us, but it’s tough news to take in the travel industry right now.”

Flight Centre closed 50 offices during the pandemic and laid off a third of its staff. Now, it’s cancelling more bookings and contacting clients abroad to help them get home. And while Wallace says very few people are travelling at the moment, there is pent-up demand.

“Some of the most loyal travellers in the industry are cruisers,” she said. “It would probably surprise a lot of people to know there’s a lot of interest in getting on cruises towards the end of 2021 and certainly into 2022.”

But a recent survey found that even with companies offering free COVID travel insurance, most travellers wouldn’t go to the United States. Some Canadians are even getting skittish about talk of possible provincial travel restrictions.

“We were doing a job in Prince George and once we heard wind of that we actually packed up and left,” said Jack Kujawa, who spoke to McLaughlin On Your Side at Vancouver airport while making his way back to Toronto. “I’d rather not put business before family.”