Tourist season kicks off
From the Niagara Gazette:
This weekend the prime tourist season started with most visitors likely arriving from the Canadian side of the river.
Over there, the long Victoria Day weekend celebrates the birthday of Queen Victoria of England. Banks, schools and government offices will be closed in Ontario on Monday.
Traffic should be backed up at the international bridges as Canadians hop across to shop with their higher-valued currency. On Friday, that dollar was worth $1.03 (U.S.).
That hurts, if you happened to be stuck in Canada with your American buck. Chances are an Ontario merchant smugly told you that your Yankee dollar was worth 90 cents. (It’s called payback time.)
Next weekend, many of us will be off Monday to observe our Memorial Day holiday.
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U.S.-Canada border traffic remains in decline
From Herald Net:
Stricter travel document requirements in place since 2009 haven’t meant endless waits for motorists along one of the busiest stretches of the U.S.-Canada border, as many had feared, but Americans are avoiding short trips to Canada anyway, a study released Friday found.
They seem to think there’s no reason to go.
The study looked at how the passport rule and other changes at the border since the Sept. 11 terror attacks have affected the flow of business and tourists across the four bridges between the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area and Ontario. It was commissioned by a consortium led by The Binational Economic & Tourism Alliance.
The alliance had cautioned early on that the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, with its requirement that travelers show passports or an equivalent document beginning July 1, 2009, would keep travelers at home, unwilling to bother with expensive passports and traffic backups.
Already along the border, passenger vehicle crossings have been on the decline since 2002 because of things like the SARS virus scare, the economy and gasoline prices.
But the preliminary study results showed that even travelers who have the proper identification under WHTI aren’t making as many day trips, and the perception they’ll get stuck in long lines is only part of the problem.
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How did Sept. 11 affect Falls tourism?
From WIVB Channel 4 in Buffalo:
A new study is expected to shed light on how changes along the northern border since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have affected tourism and business in the busy Niagara Falls corridor.
The study was commissioned by a consortium led by the Binational Economic & Tourism Alliance. Preliminary findings are being released during a conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario, on Friday.
Also see US-Canada tourism partners examine border issues from the Oklahoman
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‘Our interests are … closely aligned:’ Nicholson
From the Niagara Falls Review:
The new agreement on border co-operation between Canada and the U.S., announced Friday by the two countries’ leaders, is a continuation of the existing relationship rather than the start of something radically new, says Canada’s Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, the MP for Niagara Falls.
“Some of that process has already begun,” Nicholson said Saturday, the day after Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama announced the creation of a new body aimed at cutting red tape and making it easier to move people and goods across the border.
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Steering in the right direction
From the Niagara Falls Review:
A Niagara Falls councillor wants to steer visitors in the right … or left direction.
Coun. Wayne Thomson wants the city, the Region, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission and the Ministry of Transportation to work together to allow motorists who cross the Rainbow Bridge to be able to make left hand turns onto Falls Ave.
As it stands now, motorists leaving the bridge are forced onto Roberts St. and Highway 420.
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EDITORIAL — Reducing passport prices would aid tourism industry
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Ontario’s tourism industry, particularly in Niagara, has been in one long struggle for the better part of the last decade.
Ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, border security in the United States has been an ongoing concern; a byproduct of that has been fewer American visitors heading north.
That scenario was magnified last year when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security implemented its Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, making a passport a necessity if you plan on crossing the border — or more to the point, if you want to enter the United States.
That means any American without a passport can get out of their homeland, but they can’t get back in.
And because fewer than one in three Americans owns a passport, that has manifested in plummeting tourism numbers.
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The awesome power of Niagara Falls (photos)
From CNet News:
Even if you’ve never been here, you almost certainly can recognize Niagara Falls with just a glance. At once massive, majestic, awe-inspiring, and thunderously loud–not to mention the “wettest place on Earth”–this famous waterfall is also one of the largest power generators on the planet.
As part of Road Trip 2010, CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman crossed the Rainbow Bridge and took in the falls from the Canadian side. What he saw, and what millions of others see every year, is truly one of Earth’s most impressive natural features and among the most productive.
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More US visitors in Niagara Falls, Ontario?
Yesterday I linked to a Niagara Falls Review article where there seemed to be some optimism for the summer business. I wanted to add my 2¢…
Last year when June came around, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) came into effect, and all travelers going across the border needed a passport or some other type of secure document. It hit the city hard.
The first thing I noticed last year was that there seemed to be very few students around. Each year previously, you’d see huge groups of kids visiting on school trips. I don’t know for sure where they came from in previous years, but they weren’t anywhere last year. I assume that the US schools didn’t bother with the trip. Now, a year later, there have been lots of kids again. I’m not sure if it is back where it was, but it’s more than last year for sure. I’m sure there are a lot of Canadian schools, but there were t-shirts around from US schools as well. Part of the reason will be that many more people have passports. Another will be that it turns out that school groups where kids are under 18 don’t need passports.
I tweeted last July that Quebec license plates were everywhere. On the other hand, there were very few US license plates to be seen. Anecdotally, there are a lot more licenses plates from US states this year. I mean A LOT more. It isn’t back to the pre-9-11 days, but it is way higher than last year.
I know that the tourism industry is a lot more complicated than this, but based on these two simple observations, business should be better this year. Let’s hope so!
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Final bridge approval nears
From the Niagara Falls Review:
After nearly 20 years of often acrimonious debate, final approval for a new bridge across the upper Niagara River is just around the corner.
But there are a few more steps that need to be completed.
Ron Rienas, general manager of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, says he believes the agency will be in a position to submit a final environmental impact statement on the expansion project to U.S. regulatory authorities for approval by year’s end.
Before that happens, the same document will be submitted to the project’s partners, the Town of Fort Erie and the City of Buffalo, for their consideration.
“We’re hoping to have the (final environmental impact statement) in to the (municipalities) in September and a record of decision by the end of the year,” said Rienas.
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Clinics needed to beat border confusion
From the Niagara Falls Review:
There’s still so much confusion about what travel documents are required for entering the United States from Canada, government agencies on both sides of the border should sponsor “clinics” to help people decide which type of identification meets their needs and even to help fill out application forms, the head of a tourism lobby group says.
“People are still confused. They want to know what they need. We think there’s a way to do that with community partners,” said Arlene White, director of the Binational Tourism Alliance, a lobby group focusing on issues that affect the tourism industry in Niagara and western New York.
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