There is no sugar coating the situation the resource based tourism industry is in. COVID-19 is the biggest thing the Canadian Lodge and resort industry has ever faced, especially for those lodges and resorts that rely upon international markets.
Hopefully the timeline of major events above serves as a reminder that this is a resilient industry and its participants will march on. As tiring as operating one of these businesses can be, the owners of lodges and resorts bought in because of their passion for the outdoors and hospitality. Where there’s passion, there’s creativity, and where there’s creativity, solutions are found.
One of the biggest advantages lodges and resorts have now is time. But they have to approach this opportunity as a new game. It’s critical that anyone who runs a resource based tourism business creates a recovery plan and does their best to understand how their key markets will react once things – and people – start moving again.
What tactics can these businesses embrace now to emerge strong this time?
- Dispose of any real estate assets and equipment that are not 100% essential and apply the resulting capital availability to improve the quality of your core assets.
- Focus on retaining your most valuable guests – provide them with frequent updates helping them maintain their connection with you.
- Setup your expenses to be as elastic as possible so that you can quickly respond to industry fluctuations. An elastic expense is one which will increase or decrease proportionally to changes in demand.
- Upskill yourself to better meet tomorrows demands. The first travellers back might skew younger. The risk of COVID-19 seems minimal for younger people, so millennials might be the first to return. Take this time to learn more about digital marketing and content creation to improve your marketing.
Working in concert, these actions can strengthen any lodge or resort. Oxford Economics estimates the global tourism industry will fully return to normal by 2023.
Regional tourism will be the first thing to come back, as frustrated travellers take baby steps and explore areas near home. That doesn’t help more remote lodges and resort but it might help the operations nearer to large city centres.
Luckily, Canada’s biggest customer (Americans) can drive to our country. So we have that advantage, along with the value of the dollar and the perception (and indeed the reality) that Canada is one of the safest countries in the world. So we have a lot going for us.