Originally seen HERE.
Canadian and Mexican Borders Slated To Welcome Travelers on Nov. 8
Hoteliers in U.S. markets that have traditionally been heavily reliant on land travel from Canada and Mexico are excited about plans to reopen the borders of those countries to tourists, but they still believe it’s too early to say just how significant the resulting demand will be.
President Biden announced on Friday that America’s land borders will reopen Nov. 8 to fully vaccinated travelers even for non-essential travel, which includes tourism and visiting friends and family.
The move was immediately lauded by travel industry groups, which say it gives both travelers and businesses a sense of clarity and a path forward to normalized travel that has been missing since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.
“The date is critically important for planning — for airlines, for travel-supported businesses, and for millions of travelers worldwide who will now advance plans to visit the United States once again. Reopening to international visitors will provide a jolt to the economy and accelerate the return of travel-related jobs that were lost due to travel restrictions,” U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow said in a statement. “We applaud the administration for recognizing the value of international travel to our economy and our country, and for working to safely reopen our borders and reconnect America to the world.”
American Hotel & Lodging Association President and CEO Chip Rogers similarly praised the move while simultaneously noting the hotel industry is still in dire need of help.
“We applaud President Biden’s move to reopen America’s doors to international, fully vaccinated visitors from around the globe. It’s a step in the right direction; however, our industry remains at a pivotal point,” Rogers said in a statement. “The pandemic wiped out 10 years of job growth in the hotel industry, and unless Congress passes common-sense relief for hotel employees like the Save Hotel Jobs Act, COVID-related travel reductions will continue to threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of hotel workers.”
Hoteliers affected by the move similarly praised the plan, although they were reluctant to guess just how significant the demand boost from Canadian and Mexican travelers will be.
Raul Moronta, chief commercial officer for Remington Hotels, said the Dallas-based third-party management company has several properties that will be affected by both borders reopening, including a concentration of properties around San Diego and others in Minneapolis and Detroit. He said he expects a “pretty immediate impact” from the borders reopening, although it will likely initially be restricted to the markets closest to the border.
“I think it will be those states that are near the border — within 100 miles of it or a day’s drive,” he said.
Moronta believes the next areas that will see a boost from the change will be the “cheaper fly-to destinations” that have traditionally been popular with Canadian travelers, including Orlando and New York, which still are seeing relatively affordable hotel rates.
“There’s a massive amount of business that comes in from Canada to Orlando,” he said. “So I do believe, for example, that Disney family vacations and things like that would have a big pop.”
The big initial push will likely be around holiday travel, Moronta said, both related to visiting friends and family and to shopping around the holiday season.
Chris Scott, vice president of Erie, Pennsylvania-based Scott Enterprises, which owns a portfolio of hotels, resorts and restaurants across Western Pennsylvania and Western New York, agreed that Canadian retail shoppers will likely return soon, inducing a noticeable amount of hotel demand.
“I think if they have the same amount of extra money that we have here, I think they will come here and spend it because our goods are so much cheaper,” he said, referencing how buses of Canadian shoppers come down to Erie, where his company has its highest concentration of properties to take advantage of cheaper goods and lower taxes.
In terms of travel demand, though, Scott expects to see a bigger impact at his company’s properties near the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, which saw nearly half of travelers for its departing flights come from across the Canadian border prior to the pandemic.
“It’s really, really big for us,” he said.
The one thing that does give Scott some concern and pause is his wife’s recent trip to Canada — Canadian borders reopened for U.S. travelers in September— and the fact she saw relatively few American travelers making that trip.
“My wife is from Montreal,” Scott said. “She went there twice since they opened it up, and the border was dead.”
Carol Lobaito, vice president of sales and marketing for The Hotel Group — a third-party manager based in the Seattle suburb of Edmonds, Washington with a concentration of properties in Washington state — said members of her team have already begun noticing bookings coming in from Canadian travelers.
“We anticipate there’s been pent-up demand both from the leisure market and the group market,” she said. “I was talking to one of my [team members] down in Seattle just this morning, and she was saying, ‘Look, Carol, there’s AAA reservations coming down from Canada in the next month.’ That’s all exciting, and we’re definitely starting to see that demand.”
Lobaito said group demand in Seattle is coming — at least initially — from Canadian youth hockey groups that are looking to take advantage of the entertainment complex around the newly opened Climate Pledge Arena, which is home for the expansion Seattle Kraken in the NHL. The Hotel Group operates the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Seattle/Northgate that is poised to benefit from that demand, she said.
“We’ve been very busy at that hotel booking hockey tournaments, and now that Canadians can come down and participate, we expect that to get stronger over the course of the next couple of months,” she said.
It’s hard to gauge exactly how significant the demand boost from reopening the U.S. border will be in comparison to the demand lost from the summer leisure travel season and still lagging business and group demand.
“There’s going to be supplemental business that never would have come, and in other words, something is better than nothing,” Scott said. “But I don’t know just how big it’s going to be.”
Moronta said he’s still interested to see how travel patterns might change compared to before the pandemic.
“I think [demand] is going to be mild, and the other thing you’re going to have is that most of the trips are going to be shorter,” he said, adding he doesn’t expect to see a boost that matches the heights of a particularly strong summer season.
Lobaito said if anything she’s being extra cautious about her expectations.
“I think any channel reopening is helpful right now,” she said. “It will be significant, but I don’t know how much for sure. I’ve definitely learned over the past 20 months or however long to be cautiously optimistic, and I am.”
One thing that seemed to spark hope universally is the message sent by reopening borders.
“I think with having the border open, it’s clear that we’re back,” Lobaito said. “It’s hopefully going to send that message of ‘Hey, lets just get back to it, and we’re open for business.'”
“I think that messaging is extremely important,” Moronta said. “This is about public relations as much as anything. People have been vaccinated, and as the vaccinations rates go up, I think people kind of need to be given permission to go out. As government institutions continue to signal that things are getting back to normal, this is going to give consumers more confidence.”
