N.W.T. distant tourism operators can host out-of-territory guests this summer time. Here is the way it works

Remote operators in the Northwest Territories can now accept visitors outside the Territory this summer.

Officials announced the change on Wednesday during a COVID-19 update. They said operators can request to house the visitors by creating a COVID-19 operations plan for long-distance tourism. When approved and in place, customers can self-isolate isolation nodes at the remote tourism location rather than at one of the NWTs.

There are some strict rules for doing this, however.

Gord Gin, owner and operator of Yellow Dog Lodge, is one of the remote tourism companies that worked with NWT Tourism and the Office of the Chief Public Health Officer to get to this point. He said he made a pilot application back in March.

“There’s a lengthy process that you have to go through to apply to allow domestic guests to be accepted from outside the NWT,” said Gin.

But he says that as long as his plan is accepted by the Territory, this update will make a difference, if only a minor one, to his bottom line.

“It’s not 100 percent because our revenue came from outside Canada, but it at least helps … keep us afloat for another year,” he said, adding that domestic tourism is only about 20 percent of his business .

What are the rules Here is a breakdown and things you should know as a resident.

Enter

For one thing, visitors must still meet existing criteria in order to enter the area.

For the past year, the area has only been granted to people who have an exemption under public health regulations, such as: B. Returning residents and essential workers, or persons who have an exception permit under exceptional conditions, allowed to travel within the NWT submit a self-isolation plan with an application for exemption from travel.

Now the same goes for customers outside of the territory, but the difference is that they are self-isolating in the remote tourist location rather than an isolation center. The same rules apply to foreigners as long as federal rules allow them to travel within Canada.

Operators must also ensure that customers have little or no contact with NWT residents or communities.

That means they also cannot rely on “commercial accommodation or catering services within an NWT community except during transportation and in compliance with proper social distancing protocols,” as stated on the area’s question and answer sheet.

For NWT-linked flights, the Territory states that the interaction between customers outside the Territory and residents on flights is the responsibility of Transport Canada. However, there are measures to reduce the spread of the virus, such as: B. wearing masks on flights and banning people with flight symptoms from a flight.

Air Tindi president Chris Reynolds says it is not uncommon to keep some passengers out of the public eye.

“It has been very common over the past year for … people to go to mining or exploration areas to bypass Yellowknife entirely. Sometimes they get off one plane to another without any interaction,” he said.

“It has also been quite common to arrange medevacs for COVID from a private site. And there are definitely robust procedures in place to ensure this is done with as little interaction as possible with the NWT.”

Chris Reynolds is the President of Air Tindi. He says the NWT aviation industry is prepared for the relaxed travel restrictions surrounding COVID-19 in the NWT, which are designed to help remote-controlled tourism businesses. (Sidney Cohen / CBC)

Stay

There, all customers and employees at the remote location must be self-contained. The management of customer and employee interactions from their arrival in the area to their departure must be detailed in their plan.

“The OCPHO will work with operators to ensure that these plans are well understood and followed,” the sheet said.

According to Gin, operators must demonstrate in their plan that facilities are available on site to separate a person who becomes symptomatic from staff as well as other cohort groups who may be there. And they have to prove that in this case there is a way to evacuate severe COVID-19 patients.

“We don’t want to have any influence on NWT’s health services. So much of it will be a private service to ensure that the COVID[-19] The patient is taken care of, “said Gin.

Once the tourists isolate themselves, depending on the area, they may be able to stop in nearby communities for supplies or services.

Cabin or cottages isolation for residents

The chief public health officer’s office has stated that it will also consider allowing residents who have traveled outside of NWT to be isolated in remote cubicles or locations.

This does not include NWT campsites.

The CPHO office says it will weigh several factors first before allowing this type of self-isolation.

This includes vaccination status, whether the location allows symptom testing and whether there is access to health services if necessary.

Not enough planning time

According to official figures, the change is now being announced to give tourism companies time to deal with logistics before taking on customers this summer. This includes submitting their application packages and providing any other information required for the plan’s approval by the Chief Public Health Officer’s office.

But Gin says the Territory should have made the announcement earlier and says he’s disappointed with what he calls a “late start in the process”.

“We were hoping to have this process and announcement by February so that the outfitters and large owners would have ample opportunity to finalize their planning, contact their existing customers and prepare the summer plan,” he said.

“With this compressed schedule, it will be very difficult to contact our guests – some guests have already canceled for 2021 … hopefully this [announcement] will also attract some new guests. “