The travel and hospitality sector is grappling with a rising wave of COVID-19 concerns after the federal government warned Wednesday against non-essential trips abroad.
At a news conference in Ottawa, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the Omicron variant is now spreading in Canadian communities and across the globe, prompting a new advisory less than two months after the old one was lifted.
Air Transport Association of Canada CEO John McKenna says airline customers have been cancelling bookings by the thousands.
He says a decline in international trips will prompt a slowdown in regional ones, since the two feed into each other, and that anxiety over the highly transmissible variant will further discourage domestic travel.
The Association of Canadian Travel Agencies says the new advisory will have a “devastating impact” on its 14,000 agents, who depend on holiday travel to bolster business.
The association is urging Ottawa to communicate advisories and border measures clearly and quickly on a single website and work more closely with industry.
Duclos said the situation became more complicated at a pace he “couldn’t have imagined” a few weeks earlier.
“To those who were planning to travel I say very clearly, now is not the time to travel,” he said.
“I know this is difficult for airlines, for travel agencies, for families, for people who haven’t been able to see each other for a long time,” Duclos added in French.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 15, 2021.
