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If peak oil is the real deal, then many more of us will choose to become tourists in our own town.
Tourism B.C.
June 18, 2009
Oil prices may create more local tourism
Where do you see tourism in southwestern B.C. going during the next 10 years?
Brian White
Director, school of tourism and hotel management, Royal Roads University
“I think we are going to see an increase—despite the continued high cost of travel—in Asian travel to B.C. The difficulty we are going to run into is pandemics and the fear of travel, which we have already seen with this swine-flu thing. So predicting long-haul travel into the next 10 years is a pretty tricky business. I mean, that’s a real crapshoot.”
Sue Kaffka
Sales and marketing vice president, Capilano Suspension Bridge
“I’ve been in the business long enough to know that there are definite peaks and valleys, and right now we’re in a valley. But we’ve been in those valleys before. So it will improve, for sure, and at their AGM on Tuesday [June 9], Tourism Vancouver suggested that we probably wouldn’t get to 2008 numbers until 2012. I’m hopeful we will reach 2008 numbers in 2011.”
Joseph Lin
President and founder, Green Club
“I think Asian tourism still wants to come here. I think also because of our convention centre, more conferences will be here. For my thinking, our tourism will still play a big role in this area. Also, I don’t know if ecotourism can do the job [better] or not, because some of the Gulf Islands area, I don’t…think we have much accommodation. That’s the weak part.”
Rick Antonson
President and CEO, Tourism Vancouver
“I think we’re going to have a healthy next decade. I think our obligation is to prepare for the substantial increase in worldwide recognition and awareness of Vancouver [because of the Olympics]. And as they want to come, I think our obligation is to make sure that Vancouver and British Columbia host the world in the most environmentally responsible tourism industry that you’re going to find on the planet.”
A Royal Roads University professor says local tourism will survive a tough recession but that peak oil and localization of travel will affect the industry in coming years.
Peak oil is the point where global conventional crude-oil production peaks and goes into decline, leading to higher prices unless demand is also reduced.
“One thing that will happen is, as the cost of transportation goes up, localization will set in,” Brian White, the director of RRU’s school of tourism and hotel management, told the Georgia Straight by phone. “So you’re going to get more short vacations, short breaks, and localized travel, because you’ve got a critical mass of population now between two and three million people.
“Once you get to that [population] critical mass, a lot of the domestic tourism becomes far more important.…Of all the things that are affected by peak oil and the cost of movement, tourism gets the biggest hit. So localization is a critical factor.”
White said fallout from peak oil and more localized markets could manifest in the “demographics”. “If you take a look at the demographics of southern Vancouver Island, you will see a lot of people who are older, semiretired and retired people,” he said. “What you’re going to get…in fact, you already have got the evolution of wine tourism, culinary tourism, agrotourism, which are inherently local. They involve travel in a much smaller radius. The 100 Mile Diet, and all those sorts of social and cultural phenomena, are influencing travel choice.”
And then there is the phenomenon White refers to as “amenity migration”, where people from outside B.C. “fly in and stay”.
“You build your dream home on the waterfront and you move in,” he explained. “So where is that happening? Southern and mid Vancouver Island, Comox, Parksville, Courtenay, Duncan, Chemainus, and all through there. I live in East Sooke, and I’m surrounded by people from the oil patch.”
Veteran Vancouver tour guide Jeff Veniot said he concurs with White’s prediction of more emphasis on local travel. He said he and his wife generally stay in B.C. if they decide to take off on a road trip for a few days.
“I have some grandchildren in Calgary and I was there in February and I noticed that the Alberta ads that we were seeing here are also running there,” Veniot, secretary and information director at the Canadian Tour Guide Association of B.C., told the Straight. “It’s probably happening across the country. I think what the provincial governments and the U.S. states have figured out is, ‘Hey, you people aren’t probably going to travel too far abroad these days, so why don’t you see your own state or province, right?’ In the newspapers, you see even B.C. Ferries running those ads for Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, cheap to go to the Island, ‘$39, car and driver’.”
Tourism Vancouver president and CEO Rick Antonson said he wants to see Vancouver “mature into a world city”, like Barcelona, during the coming decade. Antonson’s optimism dims only slightly when he’s asked about peak oil and localization.
“If we come out of the current turmoil and, by 2012 or 2014, there are meaningful alternatives to vehicles that have to be petroleum-based, we could still find people doing great distances,” Antonson told the Straight.
And if there are not sufficient nonconventional fuel sources, Antonson briefly conceded: “If we can’t, there would be more localized [travel].
“But people want to go on journeys,” Antonson added. “What gets talked about now in this tight economy is a term you might have heard out there called ‘staycations’. It’s like the 100 Mile Diet, staying close to the local scene. But people like going distances and seem to want to find a way to do that. Will there be a cost inhibitor? I don’t know. In terms of when there have been high costs, it might change who travels.”
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Take a look at Christopher C. Swan's "ELECTRIC WATER" (New Society, 2007) for a compendium of renewable and railtech that fits with tourism planning very well.
Tourism in BC has priced themselves out of a local market as they have structured around US, European and Asian tourists. They complain about how bad business is, yet refuse to lower their absurd prices to accommodate locals.
This problem has and will be exacerbated by the price gouging due to the Olympics.
Want to save some serious money on your vacation this year... leave BC. You will find better value almost anywhere else, and have a great adventure in the process.
BC, the land that locals one day hope they can afford to enjoy again.
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