A new report says Ontario's tourism industry is still years away from recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Tourism Industry Association of Ontario said it will be a sluggish return to the tourism industry over the next two years.
"A number of scars are still hanging over from the pandemic,” said Jessica Ng, of the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario.
“Operators have accumulated a significant amount of debt over the pandemic to stay afloat and that cuts into the economic bottom line.”
The report said the tourism industry is only producing just more than 60 per cent of the revenue it did before the pandemic, and one of the main reasons is the labour shortage.
"We have an unprecedented labour crisis that is making it a lot more difficult for businesses to ramp up capacity,” Ng said.
“We have a number of gaps in the industry on the front line and also in management positions. So it's really difficult for businesses to hire front line positions, and really to hire any positions."
It's not all bad news as tourism companies said things have picked up again.
Rich Stivrins, Chief Commanda captain, said 2022 was a good year.
"It was in line with pre-pandemic numbers,” Stivrins said.
“Anytime to shut down an industry for a couple years it's going to take some time to get back to where you were factoring in all those losses and going forward."
"We are seeing some positives here, but are cautiously optimistic about what the future is going to hold,” said Travis Anderson of Tourism Sault Ste. Marie.
“We are trending better than we were pre-COVID. Our occupancy numbers are up just over five per cent to what they were from 2017-2019."
Anderson said one challenge the Sault continues to face is being a border city and said that they're still not seeing as many Americans as they did pre-pandemic.
"There's obviously less visitation that's occurred from the U.S. markets,” he said.
“We noticed that this year, with some of our cruise ship passengers not being able to come to Sault Ste. Marie to take part in some of the cultural attractions we have. We also noticed it on some of the bookings for the Agawa Canada tour train."
