The South Okanagan tourism sector is dealing with the fallout of a temporary travel ban brought on by the B.C. wildfire situation.
An order was issued on Aug. 19, banning non-essential stays at local hotels and campgrounds in response to a wildfire in West Kelowna. That travel ban was lifted days later.
“When the travel ban came into place, it was a bit of a shock,” said David McBean, general manager of Watermark Beach Resort.
“The well-intentioned travel ban was to make space for evacuees, but we hadn’t seen any evacuees. We were well prepared to take care of whoever we had to take care of, and we were ready to help everyone that we had to help, but nobody came. We didn’t have any evacuees.”
According to, McBean hotels in Osoyoos were already facing low occupancy rates due to a fire in late July.
In response to the travel ban, the number of hotel reservations dropped dramatically.
“People are worried about coming to the South Okanagan and we are still getting calls, even a week and a half after the travel bans were lifted, with people saying, ‘Well, I want to cancel to make space for evacuees,’ and not realizing that the town’s completely empty,” McBean said.
“There are no evacuees here and right now, if you come to Osoyoos, you have the lake to yourself, the beach to yourself. You’ve got almost a pool to your entire self. You’ve got your choice of restaurants and if you go to a winery tasting room, you have almost the entire tasting room staff to take care of your tasting.”
McBean said that it’s not just business owners who are feeling the pinch as a result of the travel ban.
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“The travel ban affected the economy here actually more than COVID. COVID at least started in a slow time of year, and we didn’t have all of our employees here yet,” McBean said.
“Now we’re in a situation where we have to figure out what do we do with all these team members who are here at a peak time of year. We’re working on a whole bunch of things like trying to find employment for them.”
Meanwhile, the South Okanagan is already expected to take a $15 million hit after the cancellation of the Ironman Triathlon.
The event usually draws in international racers, but the event was cancelled hours after the travel restrictions were announced.
“It’s not just the hotels that lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, it’s all of our tourist operators,” said Michael Magnusson, executive director of the Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s all of our restaurants and our wineries and our breweries, our cideries — everything that makes the South Okanagan a place to visit.”
There is concern now over how businesses will survive this latest hit.
“A lot of people own campgrounds, they use that revenue to pay their mortgage, they pay themselves and they pay their mortgage. I had wineries calling me to say that they are looking at bankruptcy. I have people putting specials on all their products because they can’t pay their payroll this month,” said Lyndie Hill, owner of Hoodoo Adventures.
“There has to be some accountability for that. For us just to say, well, that’s government for you, that’s not a great answer.”
Hill said Hoodoo Adventures has lost the majority of its business not just for the summer, but through till the end of the year.
“I think most of the tourism operators, whether you were an accommodator or tour operator itself, we just felt it immediately everything shut down,” Hill said.
“We were immediately dealing with that sort of fallout as well and just watching our summer disappear, essentially.”
Aside from the financial impact, the Penticton Chamber said that many businesses have faced abuse from those unable to get their non-refundable deposits back.
“I think there was a general misunderstanding from the public that the government was going to sweep in on a white horse and repay the businesses for all of the loss business, and in turn, they expected a refund,” Hill said.
“We’ve taken hit after hit after hit for years now and there’s just no fat left in the tank for these small businesses. There just isn’t. So, we’ve put policies in place to protect ourselves so that when tourists come back, we have businesses here for them to come back to.”
Moving forward tourism leaders say there needs to be better communication when decisions like this are being made.
The Chamber said it will be joining the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association and the B.C. Hotel Association in advocating for the financial support that is necessary to offset the losses incurred by the travel ban.
“Let’s work together here on these solutions and not work against each other,” Hill said. “Government and businesses need to work together to look at how to adjust what we’re doing to make sure that we’re getting through this healthier on the other side.”
Tourism operators now encouraging the public to be tourists in their own communities to help support local businesses.
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