What next – a plague of locusts? That’s what many in Canada’s tourism industry seem to be wondering. Previously on track to snag $54 billion this year, Canadian tourism is now reeling from woes of apocalyptic dimensions.

There’s war in Iraq. There’s pestilence and death in Canada with a killer pneumonia called SARS, which had killed 13 people at press time and scared the bejeebers out of would-be travellers. The no-shows in Toronto alone – the most impacted Canadian city for SARS so far – range from singer Lisa Marie Presley, who nixed a visit to promote her debut CD, to the 12,000 delegates who bowed out of a cancer conference set to yield $15 to 20 million in a city where tourism is the second-largest industry.

And, probably most crucially, there’s our suddenly shaky relationship with the United States. While Canadian tourism still hasn’t recovered since the 9/11 attacks, it did benefit to some degree because Americans saw this country as a safe and welcoming haven in an increasingly hostile world, says Margot Booth, director of communications at the Ottawa-based Tourism Industry Association of Canada. ‘That’s been a real ace-in-the-hole commodity for us.’

But anti-American slurs uttered by foot-in-mouth politicos, plus burning of the Stars and Stripes at anti-war protests and booing of the U.S. anthem at sporting events, resulted in Canada being widely denounced south of the border. Then U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci expressed official ‘disappointment’ at Ottawa’s anti-war stance, and President George W. Bush cancelled his first official visit to Canada, which had long been scheduled for May 5.

So, from being America’s best friend, Canada plummeted to ‘axis of weasels’ status and then slid even lower with the SARS epidemic.

If that sounds a bit too anecdotal, check out what was expressed in a survey conducted in the U.S. last month by Washington, D.C.-headquartered Wirthlin Worldwide.

Some 35% of respondents said they are ‘much’ or ‘somewhat’ less favorably disposed toward Canadian companies and products. And that disapproval rate rose to a whopping 49% for questions that lumped Canada in with France and Germany, which both wound up in the doghouse for trying to block U.S. war plans.

Overall, 30% of the respondents consider vacations less appealing now, while 44% turned thumbs down on flying anywhere.

If these attitudes persist after SARS and Iraq disappear from the spotlight, many Americans may reconsider the more than 28 million visits they make to Ontario alone and the billions of revenue they generate annually throughout Canada.

What might this confluence of negative factors do to Canadian tourism’s bottom line? Industry analysts say it’s too early to tell. But a report prepared for the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) on potential losses from the Iraqi war suggests a devastating $1.3 to $4.5 billion over the next four years. And that estimate was made before the arrival of SARS and Air Canada’s bankruptcy (see ‘Counter Strategy,’ p. 2).

Moreover, according to Statistics Canada, even before war was declared, travel to Canada declined 2.9% in January, the first monthly decline since June 2002, while the number of travellers from the United States fell 3.1% to an estimated 3.4 million, the result of a decrease in both same-day and overnight trips to Canada.

So what’s being done to battle this ‘perfect storm’ of negative factors? Strategy’s attempt to gauge what mid-course corrections are now in the works discovered the following.

Reconnaissance

As Canada’s chief tourism strategist, CTC (a crown corporation) is leading the charge while working with the provinces, territories and industry. ‘Sadly, the CTC learned a lot about combating the spin-off effects of catastrophe after 9/11 and that expertise is coming into play now,’ explains Toronto-based Jim Herrler, president of Palmer Jarvis DDB in Toronto, which became CTC’s AOR last December.

The first priority is gathering information to help in reassessing and, where necessary, reorienting or postponing this year’s marketing and sales programs. The critical element, says Herrler, ‘is assessing what people are thinking about traveling generally and about travel in Canada specifically.’

So CTC is conducting attitudinal surveys in the U.S. and other key markets around the world and reporting the results on a weekly basis, with major conclusions due the week of April 21.

‘We need to find out when people will feel comfortable enough to take vacations again. When we know that, we’ll determine the right time to go back into the [respective] markets.’

In the meantime, Herrler says PJDDB is helping CTC ‘ascertain which current programs need to move ahead and which can be shifted to build up a bank of funds to support the new strategies we’re working on now.’ (The probable messaging in new campaigns is discussed below.)

The results of CTC’s detective work and its ultimate ‘Recovery Plan’ will be shared with every tourism organization in Canada as well as some in the U.S., especially in border locales, explains Calgary-based Derek Coke-Kerr, managing director of Travel Alberta and a member of the coast-to-coast tourism organization he calls CTC’s ‘war committee.’

Unlike some other jurisdictions, he says Alberta – where tourism brings in $5 billion annually – ‘isn’t pulling back any of our advertising or marketing. But, like others, we’re re-examining it all very carefully to make sure our messages are still appropriate. We’re staying in our primary markets, which are the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Japan, but probably only at maintenance levels until we see the CTC report.’

Others are already reining in their ad dollars. Both Tourism Quebec’s and Tourism Montreal’s forecasts for this summer’s visitors are currently being revised downwards, says Jane Williams, VP of tourism for Montreal-based agency Marketel, which handles both accounts.

‘The U.S. remains our most important market and, though it’s difficult to get a good handle [on the probable impact of war, SARS and anti-Canadianism], we know that many Americans don’t plan to travel any time soon. So we’re modifying our communications strategies and, in some cases, deferring monies to later in the year,’ when things will presumably settle down.

British Columbia suspended much of its spring ad campaign, which rolled out in late February, as soon as the attack on Iraq began, says Carol Nelson, director of marketing for Tourism B.C. While banner ads in primarily North American newspapers are now resuming, she says ‘the CNN effect is making it complicated to gauge when there’ll be a receptive audience for communication about travel.’

In the meantime, B.C. is doing what most other tourism organizations are doing: facilitating travel planning by frequently updating their Web sites to give consumers information about border-crossing and other issues, as well as links to official sites for information about SARS.

Messaging

While it’s still too soon to disclose specifics, PJDDB’s Herrler says CTC’s primary messaging ‘will very likely incorporate the existing theme of ‘Canada: Discover Our True Nature,’ but with a different spin.’

That spin isn’t likely to be blatancy about Canada being a safe haven in a dangerous world, says Alberta’s Coke-Kerr, ‘although that approach was briefly attempted soon after 9/11. But injecting the spectre of violence doesn’t work. What we can do is subtly imply the element of security with the effective use of copy and images.’

But, with a bracing whiff of bravado, CTC’s official position is that ‘a vigorous promotion by Canada to raise our profile right now is the best opportunity we may ever have to improve Canada’s ranking and visitations from the U.S.’

Short-term strategies to accomplish this include: kick-starting air travel by dropping the $24 per round trip security tax, at least temporarily; working to ease border crossings; offering deep discounts on travel packages; and participating in a media blitz to promote Canada that’s scheduled for New York City in late May and has already signed up about 200 tourism reps.

Some organizations even see an opportunity to capitalize on the current mind-set down the road. In Ontario, while there are no hard numbers yet, Bill Kenny, CEO of the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership (OTMP) says it’s obvious that his province is taking the greatest hit, mostly because the majority of SARS cases are occurring in Toronto.

But Kenny believes there’s actually a silver lining hidden in the dark clouds, which is ‘a lot of pent-up desire for travel,’ and his team has been authorized to pull about $2 million from its current budget to exploit it. Promotions to restore Ontario to top of mind will likely be a high priority, as will leveraging ‘some pretty positive bi-national relationships’ with U.S. tourism organizations.

One example Kenny says may happen in some border cities is the replication of OTMP’s March 27 ‘Union Station Domination’ event in Toronto, during which rail commuters were handed tulips and copies of a new spring activities guide. ‘But we can’t do that kind of thing until there’s some confidence that SARS is under control.’

Long-term, one controversial strategy is to simply accept that international markets may never resume their pre-9/11 travel patterns, so domestic travel within Canadian borders should become a top priority. This is being at least considered by some marketers.

Greyhound Canada, for one, is already acting on that assumption, says Toronto-based SVP Dave Leach. Since 9/11, especially because of a decline in visitors from Asia and Europe, he says annual revenues have declined from $40 million to a projected $31 million to $33 million for this year. Greyhound has plans to shift its marketing away from the sightseeing tourist sector toward more domestic intercity travel, as well as into express courier services.

While it’s entirely possible that Canadian tourism will recover nicely from the current knockout punches, Kenny points out that ‘tourism has never before faced a triple or quadruple whammy of factors like we’ve got now. And what makes it all the more complicated is that the rebuilding we have to do isn’t like, say, a destination that’s suffered a hurricane or typhoon. Our hotels are all still standing, but the psychological damage is tremendous.’

Marketel’s Williams is more optimistic than some of her colleagues, believing ‘that the Canadian tourism destinations that hold the course now and continue to be visible in the U.S. markets over this difficult time are the ones that will emerge as winners…when the situations normalize.’

However, what won’t be tried by savvy tourism organizations, she says, is any kind of personality switching. ‘When times are difficult, it’s wise to modify your plans. It’s not wise to change the soul of your brand and try to be something other than what you’ve built your platform on.’