It could be a stay-at-home winter for Canadian vacationers -- with a wealth of bargain prices, especially for weekend getaways.
Travel jitters set in after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks and are continuing now that bombing is under way in Afghanistan and Canadian forces have been deployed overseas. Osama bin Laden's network has called for more airline hijackings. And Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs is advising us to "carefully review the need" for foreign travel.
In the short run, the comfort and sense of security of Canadians abroad have been buried in the ruins of New York City's World Trade Center. Even delegates to the World Tourism Organization meeting, held in Seoul following the Sept. 11 attacks, agreed that tourists around the world would be holidaying closer to home.
And Canada's tourism industry is responding as cancellations roll in from Americans worried about foreign travel in general and border-crossing hassles in particular.
Frank Bouree, a hospitality and tourism consultant in Victoria, for example, says that city's hotel industry, heavily dependent on American visitors, has already measured the fallout: Occupancy in September fell by 19 per cent compared to the same month last year.
It's no surprise that Canadian operators are making a greater effort to attract Canadians, particularly with cut-rate deals on weekend packages.
At least one company that develops and retails unique weekend packages in Southern Ontario couldn't have picked a better year to start up.
Internet-based Weekendtrips.
com, founded by Toronto entrepreneurs Francesco Contini and Marawan El-Asfahani, is primarily aimed at offering reasonably priced mini-holidays for busy urban professionals. But it will no doubt pick up business from those seeking alternatives to longer, foreign travel. Day trips and weekend getaways include activities ranging from spelunking, rock climbing and photography workshops to skydiving, racecar driving and romance packages at country inns.
Michael Comisarow, 26, an investment banker in Toronto, is a typical Weekendtrips.com customer. He has gone dirt-biking with his brother, hang gliding with a group from work, and cycling in the Niagara region on a winery tour.
"I think it's a great service," he said. "Sure, you could organize some of these getaways yourself, but it would be a whole lot of work and time. Also, it would be tough to set up the packages."
Like most of the company's clients, Comisarow is young, single and looking to do things with others like him who have no particular expertise or skills in the activity.
Scott Duff, vice-president of franchise development for Choice Hotels, has taken several packages organized by Weekendtrips.com, including taking a date for a day at a pistol range at a private gun club.
"It's prepackaged fun," said Duff. "You go on their Web site, find what you want and then, in five minutes, everything is arranged. It's just really easy, and the selection has all sorts of things you probably wouldn't even have considered on your own. And the best part is that when you come back to work on Monday, you're a star at the morning meeting when the inevitable question 'what did you do on the weekend?' comes up."
Comisarow and Duff are typical of Canadians looking to their own back yards for short and long holidays.
David Redekop, of the Conference Board, a national non-profit research group, says that few people will want to leave the country in the coming months if the scenario is similar to that during the 1991 Gulf War and recession. It will be "a lost winter," possibly followed by "a lost summer" for Canadian airlines, tour operators and travel agencies, he says. Redekop is predicting a pickup in 2003.
