B.C. hotel sector bracing for challenging recovery when capacity limits lift

B.C.’s hotel sector is relieved soon-to-be lifted capacity limits lets it start selling to the world again, but it is bracing for a long and challenging recovery which could take years.

The capacity limits for public, indoor events have been “debilitating” on the hotel sector, according to Ingrid Jarrett with the BC Hotel Association. She is grateful most of B.C. gatherings will be able to go back to full capacity starting next Monday.

Changes will be applied to locations where proof of vaccination status is being checked, such as indoor sports centres, concert halls, movie theatres, dance and symphony events, and other indoor parties like weddings and funeral receptions.

Indoor mask requirements remain in effect for all indoor gatherings and events.

However, capacity limits still apply in places with regional restrictions like Northern Health, Interior Health and parts of Fraser Health.

Jarrett hopes the stain COVID-19 has put on the health-care system in these areas will soon ease and people get vaccinated so “then everywhere in the province, can get back to corporate travel, government travel, meetings, conventions, and trade shows.”

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Since B.C. entered Stage 3 of its COVID-19 restart plan earlier this year, organized indoor gatherings have been limited to 50 people or up to 50 per cent capacity, whichever is greater. The hotel industry has been able to keep running as long as vaccine passports are being checked.

Jarrett says the industry in B.C. has a brief head start because the province still allowed full events for fully vaccinated people ahead of some other Canadian convention locations.

“Our large urban centers, which are lagging behind any resort destinations, can now actively – whether that’s tourism, Vancouver tourism, Victoria tourism, Richmond, Kelowna, etc. – can go out and actually, with confidence, start selling to the corporate market both domestically in Canada but also in the U.S. and abroad,” she said.

However, she says the key is to regenerate demand as soon as possible “because it is going to be a very competitive landscape when other jurisdictions do what we’ve just been able to do in British Columbia, which is remove those barriers to numbers.”

There are still challenges like the costly COVID-19 test needed to enter Canada and many events were cancelled late summer when B.C. didn’t layout opening up plans by September.

“When we didn’t reopen in September, there were many many cancellations in the group at convention and meeting of business and that would be Whistler, Victoria Vancouver, Kelowna Kamloops. So the fall really isn’t is a time of concern for the hospitality industry for the whole province,” Jarrett said.

“We’re going into our slower season. We call it our ‘off season.’ And because there was such an impact over the summer from the wildfires, and from the heat dome, and then from the pandemic, we really have three layers of impact that have really dire effects on our fall and winter business.”