An Alto official says Ottawa could still see significant tourism gains, even if a high-speed rail station is not located downtown.
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An Alto official says Ottawa could still see significant tourism gains, even if a high-speed rail station is not located downtown.
Laurent Therrien, vice-president of strategy and development at Alto, told OBJ in an interview this week that Alto’s recent tourism impact report is a “call to action.” The report highlights the project's potential benefits, such as increased tourism traffic and spending, while underscoring the need for active local support.
“What international experience shows is that when you implement high-speed rail, it always acts as a strong lever for tourism development,” said Therrien. “Now the extent to which the destination will benefit depends on coordination, essentially how much the tourism sector works together on promotion, programming, destination practices and last-mile connections.”
Last-mile connections could prove especially necessary in Ottawa, as Alto CEO Martin Imbleau has expressed skepticism about the possibility of a downtown station.
Many Ottawa stakeholders, including Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, would like to see the station located in the city centre, with the former Union Station on Rideau Street as the most likely potential site. But in recent media interviews, Imbleau has cast doubt on the idea, saying the process of building underground would be costly and difficult.
Though a decision has not been finalized, the existing Via Rail station on Tremblay Road has been raised by Imbleau as the most likely contender.
Therrien said confirmation of the location is expected by the end of the year.
While outside the city centre, the Tremblay location has some benefits, including an LRT station on-site. Therrien said that kind of interconnectivity could help boost tourism impacts.
“High-speed rail is most effective when it is properly integrated with other means of transportation; light rail, but also bus systems and existing infrastructure,” he said. “Plans that are underway, like the Metrolinx expansion in Toronto, the O-Train in Ottawa and the REM in Montreal. What Alto really brings essentially is the opportunity to link them all together and really reap the benefits of an integrated public transportation system.”
Internationally, other cities have seen success with stations outside the city centre.
In France, the city of Avignon’s high-speed rail station is located six kilometres outside the city centre, an Alto spokesperson said in an email. Still, over the past 20 years, the city has seen increases in tourism traffic as. Twelve years after the station’s opening, a light rail connection to the city’s central station was added, shortening travel times from the high-speed train to the city centre. A business district developed around the station, with hotels, services and office buildings, creating a new economic hub for the city.
With the LRT already in place, Therrien said Ottawa could see significant impacts in a “high-coordination” scenario, where investments are made around a new station.
“When we look at the incremental impact, it is in Quebec City and the Ottawa region that it is the most pronounced,” he said. “You see more substantial gains in this kind of mid-market (city). Ottawa gets to gain a lot in terms of additional tourism spend relative to other cities.”
Alto’s tourism impact report, prepared by consulting firm CPCS, examined how high-speed rail could impact tourism in major centres along the proposed Alto corridor. In Ottawa-Gatineau, high-speed rail would lead to significant increases in overnight and same-day travellers, the report found.
“In absolute terms, Toronto and Montreal (census metropolitan areas) contribute the most to tourism-related GDP under all scenarios and experience the highest absolute gains,” the report said. “But relative to their baseline, Ottawa-Gatineau and Québec City may see the largest gains under the high-coordination scenario.”
Currently, the Ottawa-Gatineau region contributes $4.9 billion in tourism spending to Canada’s GDP every year, behind Toronto ($15.8 billion) and Montreal ($8.7 billion). But with high-speed rail, that spending could increase by up to $560 million for the region, the report found.
“We see increases in people visiting for one night and people visiting for the day,” said Therrien. “Ottawa is a medium-sized city in the corridor and our assumption is that we might have visitors that, because they have limited time to travel, do not choose or cannot choose to visit as many destinations as they like. If we slash travel time, we essentially enable them to visit further and maybe choose alternative destinations.”
He added that the shortened travel time might bring more daytime business travellers into the city, particularly because of the federal government's presence.
In a “high-coordination” scenario, business and personal spending could increase 13 per cent in Ottawa-Gatineau, along with a four per cent increase in length of stays. In a low-coordination scenario, if shorter stays occur, Ottawa could see a decrease in business spending.
