Thunder Bay could see as many as 5,700 cruise passengers starting in April.
The federal government rolled out its new public health plan for cruise ships as the COVID-19 pandemic stretches into year three.
Paul Pepe, the Manager of Tourism, in an email statement to Acadia News, noted that the expectation is seven turnaround cruises with the Viking Octantis and two day stops from the Ocean Navigator.
“Overall, we do anticipate the beginning of tourism sector recovery this year with the easing of restrictions and capacity limits for meetings and sport events in particular. Tourism recovery to pre COVID levels will take 2-4 years. We anticipate a healthy domestic travel market this summer as Canadians keep exploring Canada but any prolonged environment that sees fuel prices remain high to where they have in the past week will impact travel as people may stay closer to home and opt for shorter trips. It will also impact the cost of air fares as well. The American market will not return to pre COVID travel levels until the vaccine and testing requirement to enter Canada are eliminated. The best case scenario is 65% of return to normal in line with the percentage of Americans who are vaccinated but we only saw about 25% of normal traffic once the border re opened last summer so we don’t see that number changing much under the current entry requirements.”
Pepe added that the meetings and sport tourism markets will take 2-4 years to fully rebound but there has been an increase in convention inquiries over the past two weeks.
