“Right now, we can save some business, but the summer is going to very, very challenging.”
Tourism Richmond CEO Nancy Small is under no illusion how vital the next three months are going to be for her organization and the local businesses she serves.
Small and her team are waiting patiently to launch a new marketing strategy, targeting an audience they’ve never had to before, as soon as the province declares its going into “phase 3” of the pandemic recovery plan.
Small, like many in B.C., hopes that announcement is imminent and, with that in mind, Tourism Richmond recently conducted a survey asking, among other things, residents’ appetite to receive visitors to the city.
“It’s not like, whenever the announcement’s made, there’s going to a thousand visitors waiting to come into the Sheraton,” said Small.
“When we do move to phase 3, it may move back to the mindset people wanting to travel again and we’re hoping that will be to Richmond.
“We feel Richmond can check those boxes for wide open spaces and lots of things to do.
“We’ve had to really re-think everything, we’ve never marketed to the (Fraser) Valley before or even to our own residents. Those are the shifts we need to look at to generate business for our stakeholders.”
Small said the organization decided to survey people to first find out where their heads are at, both in traveling around the area to receiving visitors.
“A year ago, if you’d asked me what kind of people come to Richmond, Metro Vancouver, B.C. and why do they come, I could give a full length paper on it,” she said.
“Right now, when marketing to potential travellers, we have to factor in how they feel the world is looking. From the information we’re getting, we can then build out our marketing accordingly.”
According to the survey – where 48 per cent of the 494 respondents were from Richmond - open spaces and being able to physically distance were top priorities for getting out and about in their own city.
Most of the residents – 61 per cent – were happy to welcome visitors to Richmond from neighbouring communities in July, rising to 68 per cent for August.
But when asked about visitors from other provinces, that number fell dramatically to 31 per cent for July and 36 per cent for August.
“Now is going to be different than August, at least we hope anyway,” explained Small.
“I think when the province goes to phase 3 and we’re able to travel round more, that’s when it will be easier. We seem to be very in tune with what our provincial health authorities are saying.
“I think (reaction to other provinces) has to do with the number of (covid) cases we see published every day. It’s a direct result of the news we’re getting and a feeling of protecting what we’ve been able to weather here.
“When we look further down the summer, that I’m sure will shift again as the numbers continue to drop.”
As for the devastating 60 per cent loss of footfall in Richmond from international visitors, Small hopes some of that void will be mitigated by tourists from Richmond, the Lower Mainland and across B.C.
But she’s realistic enough to know it won’t be enough to temper the absence of tourists from around the world.
“The international aspect is totally different, of course, it’s a much longer term prospect to look at. That’s a bigger challenge,” she said.
“The reality is, it will never be made up. No matter how you or I travel around the province, the numbers will never be the same.
“It’s the yield, the amount of money an international visitor would spend compared to a resident of B.C.”
