A closed road to a recreation area due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Banff National Park, Alta., on April 13, 2020.Todd Korol/The Globe and Mail
The mayors of Banff and Canmore are urging tourists to stay away from their communities after Alberta’s top physician changed her advice to allow travellers to visit summer homes and cabins, as long as they stay within the province.
Tourist towns in Alberta and across Canada have been pleading with outsiders to stay away, warning that people travelling to seasonal residences could overwhelm smaller communities or risk spreading the virus. That had been the advice of Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, but last week she updated her recommendations to allow non-essential travel within the province as part of a larger relaunch strategy.
Private and municipal campgrounds were permitted to open on Thursday as part of the first phase of Alberta’s reopening strategy. Provincial campgrounds are scheduled to open on June 1 and boat launches and other facilities are already open.
National parks are scheduled to open trails and day-use spaces on June 1, but camping will not be allowed for another three weeks, at the earliest.
Canmore Mayor John Borrowman said that while he takes pride in the town being a place that has “always been very welcoming to visitors,” the conflicting messages have forced the community to temporarily request that visitors stay home.
Mr. Borrowman said the town had attempted to balance personal rights with public health in deciding to urge visitors to stay away.
Trying to fight the COVID-19 pandemic has unique challenges in tourism-based communities like Canmore, he added, “particularly those who have a significant number of second homes as part of their regular district population.” Canmore is home to 13,077 permanent and 3,890 non-permanent residents.
Banff has also decided it is not yet ready to open its gates.
“I would suggest that Banff needs more time to prepare to welcome visitors back,” said Banff Mayor Karen Sorensen.
“We just want to make sure we do this right, because, doing it too quickly, or without [health] protocols in place, or without a plan for physical distancing … that would be a mistake.”
She added that Banff, which is just four square kilometres, welcomes four million visitors a year and it will take time to develop the physical distancing controls necessary to prevent crowding in public spaces. Many businesses had lost employees, and the mayor said they would need more time to hire back staff and provide updated safety and health training while operating at a reduced capacity.
Ms. Sorensen said that while businesses wanted to open, there was a significant cost to doing so, and that some may be forced to shutter if they needed to reopen more than once. If there was a second wave of the virus, the province could have to re-institute restrictions.
She said that some businesses had told her they would be able to get through this period, but that “to reopen, and then have to close again, would make it much more difficult to survive.”
Banff has to weigh the financial and health risks with welcoming visitors now against the financial risks of continuing to stay closed.
“The town has been economically devastated by the COVID pandemic," she said. "Ninety per cent-plus of our economy is directly or indirectly supported by tourism. In very few days, that just came to a screeching halt.”
The Bow Valley Chamber of Commerce, which comprises businesses throughout Banff, Canmore, Lake Louise and other surrounding communities, said the region depended heavily on tourism.
Anything non-essential was shut down, and “businesses that are reliant on the tourists are the ones that are definitely struggling the most,” said Dr. Cheryl Cooper, chamber president and Canmore business owner.
The area does not have a large enough population to keep many businesses viable without outside visitors, she added, and businesses need to “develop a new way of doing business that doesn’t rely on tourism.”
While Dr. Cooper said the government programs in place to provide relief to small businesses were a significant help for the time being, she worried about the long-term viability of the local economy.
“These loans and financial support programs, they have to pay them back,” she said. “There’s going to be a bit of a reality check in six months or a year.”
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