ShareThisBy TAVIA GRANT
Canada has an image problem south of the border. It's not that Americans have a bad impression of their northern neighbour _ it's that they have no impression at all.
It's little wonder, then, that U.S. visits to Canada are sitting at a record low. Same-day car visits have almost halved over the past six years, while overall visits have plunged 30 percent.
Reasons for the drop are well-documented _ rising gasoline prices, a strong Canadian dollar and fears of increased security at the border.
The underlying factor though, say tourism experts on both sides of the border, is that Canada has simply fallen off the radar of most Americans.
"It's not a disinterest in Canada," said Darrell Bryan, general manager of a ferry service between Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia.
"You're just seeing very little to promote Canada in those marketplaces," he said. "... It's taken for granted that the great northland is known to all Americans."
American spending on Canadian excursions picked up a bit in the second quarter, although visits hit an eight-year low in the first three months of the year, the federal agency Statistics Canada said Tuesday.
Experts don't expect any imminent recovery in the number of U.S. visitors, which accounts for four-fifths of Canada's international tourism market.
Bryan, whose company Victoria Clipper carries about 300,000 people to Victoria every year, has seen American business drift away in recent years, and he's frustrated.
Bryan believes the Canadian Tourism Commission, the government corporation tasked with marketing the country, needs to do more.
"A bunch of this (problem) is self-inflicted wounds, as far as I'm concerned," he said. "The Canadian Tourism Commission is asleep at the switch. ... They're not doing anything to aggressively promote awareness of Canada as a safe, secure and affordable destination."
Tourism commission officials weren't available to comment.
Funding may be part of the problem. The commission's budget has shrunk by almost a quarter since 2000. Worldwide government investment in tourism promotion, by contrast, jumped 11 percent last year from 2004, according to a U.N. study.
"We're really fighting in a globally competitive marketplace, in the fastest-growing industry in the world, with two hands tied behind our backs," said Randy Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. "That's the No. 1 reason why the U.S. market is slipping."
That lack of promotion comes as other countries, including Turkey and Ireland as well as Australia, are stepping up marketing, said Jennifer Halboth, marketing manager at Littleton, Colo.-based Globus, the world largest guided travel service.
"Canada is losing out to more economical European destinations," she said.
But not everything can be resolved with more money. The No. 1 reason Americans stay away is bad weather, a Canadian Tourism Commission study showed in February. The No. 2 reason, though, is the sense there are other, more exotic places to go. Sociopolitical factors, such as trade disputes and Canada's position on Iraq, play a small role, too.
