Vancouver businesses gearing up for return of cruise ship season
CTV
Following a two-year hiatus, cruise season is about to get underway in Vancouver with the first ship scheduled to arrive Sunday.
Following a two-year hiatus, cruise season is about to get underway in Vancouver with the first ship scheduled to arrive Sunday.
Many downtown businesses are counting on a busy season to make up for the COVID-19 pandemic, when tourism numbers dropped dramatically.
"We've finally turned the long corner and we're eagerly awaiting the first cruise ship," Royce Chwin, CEO of Destination Vancouver, told CTV Morning Live Thursday.
Chwin said the impact from the cruise ship shutdown was "significant" for local businesses, especially since one season amounts to about $2.2 billion for Vancouver's local visitor economy. The industry also impacts about 14,000 jobs, Chwin added.
While downtown businesses like stores, restaurants and hotels are all impacted, Chwin said communities as a whole were affected too.
"You think about the travellers coming off the cruise ships and starting to explore Vancouver in particular Gastown and areas of downtown, English Bay and those types of places, it makes a significant impact when you pull that level of visitorship out of our local economy," he said.
Even though cruise ships are returning, they won't bring the same crowds as they used to. Ships won't be full, Chwin explained, because they're running at 70 to 80 per cent capacity for safety reasons.
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