Yukon tourism bracing for one more poor season due to pandemic

At this time of year, Teena Dickson is usually busy transporting cruise passengers between Alaska and the Yukon.

But COVID-19 has turned their business upside down.

“I’ve done three tours since last March and an average of three to ten tours a day.”

Dickson is Chipewyan and is the owner of Who what where tours (WWWT) in Whitehorse, which offers a range of travel services including disruptive day tours and transportation to and from Southeast Alaska and the Kluane region of the Yukon.

Their business relies heavily on Alaska cruise ship passengers docking in Skagway, Alaska and traveling inland into the Yukon.

According to the Yukon government, around 80,000 cruise ship passengers in Alaska travel to the Yukon each year, accounting for about 16 percent of the territory’s visitor numbers.

“Cruise ship numbers bring larger groups, and if you pick up a group of nine, ten (people) at a hotel, that’s amazing revenue for a day tour,” says Dickson.

“There is not only an opportunity for me, but also for many operators, restaurants and hotels to start cruise traffic.”

Due to travel restrictions caused by pandemics, only small cruise ships with fewer than 100 passengers were allowed to dock in Alaskan ports last year.

To make matters worse, almost all Alaska cruises scheduled for 2021 have been postponed until at least the end of this spring.

A recent decision by the federal government doesn’t help.

“I’ve done three tours since last March and an average of three to ten tours a day,” says Teena Dickson. Photo: Sara Connors / APTN.

Transport Canada earlier this month announced The ban on cruise ships entering Canadian ports would be extended to February 28, 2022. The ban applies to all cruise ships with more than 100 people. This ban was first issued in March 2020 and expired on February 28, 2021.

This ban is likely to further harm the Alaskan cruise industry as U.S. maritime regulations require all foreign and U.S. cruise ships operating between U.S. ports to stop immediately in a foreign country like Canada.

Alaskan cruises usually stop in BC when heading north towards Alaska. Since cruise ships with more than 100 people are still not allowed to operate in Canadian waters, large cruise ships heading for Alaska cannot dock there.

Now tourism companies like Dickson are forced to make massive cuts and rely on grants to survive.

“We’re used to staff and guides in our house, we feed them in the back yard, they become part of your family, and now we’ve basically fired them all. I’m back to what I was when I started the company, ”she says.

According to Dickson, the cruise line ban is also having a negative impact on indigenous tourism companies that rely on cruise passengers as they are often looking for cultural experiences.

“As indigenous people, we talk about so much connection with land and wildlife and our people that we hope we paid them a little attention and that they will come back,” she says.

“It gives local indigenous operators the opportunity to work with other operators and expand their range of services.”

Gift shops also affected

It was also a difficult eleven months for Crystal Isaac, director of Bearpaw Gifts, which has two locations in Whitehorse and Carcross.

“Our Carcross store saw a 100 percent drop in sales because it didn’t even open this year,” she says.

Isaac is from the Okanagan Indian Bandand her mother owns and operates the two businesses, both of which are heavily dependent on cruise ship tourists.

“It was difficult for us because we also had to maintain the building, whether we were going to make money or not,” she says.

She says the Whitehorse site has suffered as well.

“Since we’re on Main Street and have more tourist hotels, we just didn’t have a lot of flow this year.”

According to Isaac, the stores have been fortunate to have no layoffs for the time being, although the Carcross location may not survive long if COVID travel restrictions persist.

“I think unfortunately for our business in Carcross we will have to close this location that is half of our business so we would essentially lose half of our business due to COVID.”

Help is available

Jeanie Mclean, Yukon Minister for Tourism and Culture, says, “Our industry was doing very, very well until 2019, and then the bottom fell away. Everything has failed completely. “

“There is a lot of emotion and there is a lot, I think, a huge grief process that really happened to our companies.”

According to McLean, around 500,000 people visit the Yukon each year and generate sales of $ 357,000,000.

She couldn’t say how much tourism revenue was lost to COVID-19 or when the territory is expected to recover.

However, Mclean said the government is working hard to help tourism operators prepare for reopening, such as the recently released $ 15 million tourism aid and reconstruction plan that will expire over the next three years.

The to plan Includes standardized secure travel logs to protect visitors and residents, and a concierge service to help tourism companies navigate and maximize COVID-19 business support to the Yukon government, as well as developing and implementing a placemark for the entire Yukon.

There are also grants and funding available for tourism companies, including the Yukon Business Relief (YBR). program with a maximum of $ 100,000; the tourism industry accommodations complementThis is a complement to the YBR and can offer break even operators up to $ 400 per room per room. and, ELEVATE, a program In collaboration with Yukon University and other partnerships, tourism companies are to be encouraged to focus their business on something more sustainable in the long term.

“We were able to help companies stay whole and get through and survive. Right now these are absolutely vital partnerships to help companies cope with this, ”says Mclean.

On the “panning” side, Bearpaw Gifts has re-focused on selling pearl accessories, while WWWT has “focused” on shuttling locals between Yukon communities, although Dickson says it is far less than the predictability of cruise passengers Brings profit.

While tourism in Yukon 2021 looks grim at the moment, Dickson is hoping it can return to serving the international market.

“Tourism is my life, that’s what I do, I live and breathe it. I’ve worked way too hard to give up so quickly. “

Sara Connors is originally from Nova Scotia and graduated from the University of King’s College in Halifax as a journalist. After graduating, she worked in South Korea as an English teacher and freelance journalist for two years. After returning home in 2019, she worked behind the scenes at CTV Atlantic in Halifax before moving to APTN’s Yukon office in July 2020.

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