The head of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada says businesses are struggling to stay afloat under a pile of debt and a dearth of overseas visitors.
It is also asking Ottawa to boost the forgivable portion of fully repaid loans to 50 per cent, from up to 33 per cent, and to extend the qualifying deadline for that forgiveness to the end of 2024, rather than by the end of this year. In March, the combined number of visitors to Canada and returning residents sat at 77 per cent of March 2019 levels, according to the most recent figures from Statistics Canada.
Even in the United States, whose travel industry rebounded more quickly than Canada's, business and international travel remain below 2019 levels — "and business travel appears to have stalled at current levels," said TD Cowen analyst Helane Becker in a note to investors on May 30. The exit of many baby boomers from the workforce hasn't helped, she added: "They've said, ‘Nope, we're out, we're retiring, we're moving to the cottage.’ We have lost a huge amount of leadership within the industry.”