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Tourism above pre-pandemic levels for Fernie

Summer was good season for the sector, and there’s optimism for winter
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The Fernie Alpine Resort is almost ready for the coming 2022-2023 season. (Scott Tibballs / The Free Press)

The tourism sector has weathered it’s third summer season of COVID effects, though in 2022 the public health edicts are receding in the rear view mirror and the visitors are returning in droves.

“We’re above pre-COVID levels (of visitors)” said Jikke Gyorki of Tourism Fernie.

“In conversation with the accommodators, visitation is back up to pre-COVID levels and then some,” she said, explaining that the sector was humming along at numbers of visitors above 2019, which was itself a bumper year for the town.

She said that it wasn’t a surprise though: The sector overall had been forecasting a return to pre-pandemic visitation in 2022.

“With the return of leisure travel and continued demand for the small mountain town experiences, and increasing corporate business and construction in the area, many of the accommodators were seeing much more full nights, and having to turn away reservations consistently.”

Like all other sectors, staffing remains a problem for the sector in 2022, with many businesses having to reduce hours or limit availability.

Gyorki said that visitors to Fernie had been understanding of what limits there had been to dining or shopping, but businesses themselves were feeling the challenges anyway.

At the same time, many businesses didn’t see increased visitation to town translate into a season as good as they would have liked, given many overnight stays were by pipeline workers who did not have the spending habits of tourists.

“There were some businesses faring very well, and some that were not faring as well as they would have liked to.”

Looking forward to winter, the Fernie Alpine Resort is scheduled to open for the season of December 3 in the first winter season of no locally applied COVID-rules.

“Everybody is feeling very optimistic about the season ahead,” said Gyorki.

“With the growing return of the long-haul market from areas such as Ontario and Quebec, to overseas … we’ll definitely start seeing a lot more of that market coming back this season and even more the season after that.”

In other tourism news, the Fernie Ski Shuttle will be returning this year in a new guise, thanks to three new buses making up the fleet. The new buses are smaller, but there’s more of them (they were only two previously). The routes around town will begin in mid-December, with a schedule to be released soon.

The winter trail grooming collaborative will also be returning for a third year, with announcements pending, and a new map on the way.

READ MORE: Big turnout for Fernie Tourism social event



scott.tibballs@thefreepress.ca
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