Come on up!

Last week’s column talked about the opportunities the low dollar provided to Canadians seeking to start businesses in the US. This week, we’re going to look at the opportunities here in Canada. The County in particular. We’re going to talk tourism.

When the loonie is laid low, Canadians are more inclined to stay home, because their dollar doesn’t go as far outside the country. So a desirable destination such as ours has Canadian visitors over a barrel. We should continue to welcome them with affection, of course, because you never know what will happen with the currency, and you wouldn’t want them to get out of the habit of coming here. But we should consider hedging our visitor signage by saying things like “ Canadians, welcome to the County—If you can afford it,” or “Canadians welcomed, space permitting,” or “Canadian dollars accepted at par.”

Because the real lustre lies with American tourists coming into the County. They haven’t been coming in big numbers, recently. The peak year for American visits into Canada was 2002, back when the Shawinigan Strangler had the country by the throat. Last year visits were off that level by 25 per cent. But now that an American dollar is worth 125 per cent of a Canadian buck, Americans are ready to take a fresh look at travel to Canada.

Indeed, the president of Brand USA, the American tourism marketing association, acknowledges “this is a perfect opportunity for Canada to reach out to Americans and say: ‘Come on up.’”

Unfortunately, our national travel marketer has been caught playing catch-up: the Canadian Tourism Commission got right out of promoting leisure travel from the States in 2012, and is only now in the process of getting back into the US market, in, one hopes, a co-ordinated push with the provinces and the travel industry.

But how do we get Americans to actually come to the County and part with their money here, as opposed to, say, Flin Flon or Abbotsford? Obviously, the fact that we have been named one of the world’s—and Canada’s only representative in—”Best places to travel in 2015” by Travel and Leisure magazine helps add to our standing.

But there are problems even if the County is the destination our putative visitors have in mind. Let’s assume they are coming from northern New York State—say, Rochester. There are two routes by car: the eastern circuit, a 270-mile drive, and the western circuit, a 290- mile trip. By the time they make it to the County, they will have been exposed to the likes of Gananoque and Napanee to the east or Hamilton and Mississauga to the west. Just because their dollars will go further doesn’t mean it will last longer: it will just buy more. By the time our friends reach the County, they may be so emboldened by the spending power of their money that it will be spent recklessly and there’ll be nothing left for us. “Call me a fool,” I can hear one visitor say, “but I bought five donuts in Napanee when four would have done me quite nicely. And now I have to ask which wineries specialize in free samples, and can I sleep on your floor tonight?”

The trick, it seems to me, to taking full advantage of the power of the American dollar is to become the first place our American friend has the opportunity to spend it.

The obvious-in-hindsight solution came to me while catching up on the weather news. At the time of writing, 80 per cent of Lake Ontario has frozen over: it may be even more frozen by now. That means an American has an 80 per cent chance of making it to the County right now over the ice. And the distance? Under 50 miles as the crow flies, skates or snowmobiles—way shorter than the drive, and with hardly any place to part with his or her money in between Rochester and Wellington.

I can hear your objection already: the lake isn’t always frozen over, you idiot. But who says the trip has to be made over ice? What about a boat trip in the summertime, or a trip by helicopter any time of year? Visitors are likely to arrive in such numbers that we needn’t worry about dredging Wellington Harbour to accommodate the traffic. Instead, we should commission a flotilla of pedal boats and hire summer students to ferry passengers from the large cruise ships mooring just offshore to the dock and back. And helicopters could easily land just up the road at our baseball diamond, and refuel at our new gas station with gas bought 125 per cent cheaper than it is in Rochester.

All in all, it’s an opportunity just waiting to be exploited. So I say to the would-be American tourist, “come on up: let us show you how much we care about having the first chance to separate you from your money.”

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca