Tourism

Small businesses and tourism operators in Ottawa are seeing visitors cancel tours and avoid sightseeing around the city amid lingering clouds of smoke and poor air quality from wildfires burning in Ontario and Quebec. 

Ross Meredith, the general manager of the Westin Ottawa and the Delta Ottawa City Centre hotels, said he thinks it will “probably take a few years” for the Ottawa tourism sector to see pre-COVID levels of overseas visitor spending.

As director of communications for Ottawa Tourism, Jantine Van Kregten spent 20 years showing off the best of the capital city.

In an email to OBJ on Monday, Group Germain’s vice-president of operations, Hugo Germain, said the Quebec-based hotel chain is still working with the Ottawa International Airport Authority on a proposal to build a 180-room Alt Hotel that would be attached to the airport terminal.

Ottawa's airport authority is projecting that 5.6 million passengers will use the city's international terminal by 2030, up from three million last year.

With union members still out on picket lines in full force, Bar Robo owner Scott May says he’s currently enjoying “far and away” the busiest week at his downtown coffee, cocktail and live music venue since the pandemic began more than three years ago.

A week into the federal public service strike, the owner of a small tourism company on Sparks Street says the picketing currently underway downtown will be “devastating” to his business if it continues.

Spending on tourism continued to grow last year as travellers returned to planes and patios, but it remained well below pre-pandemic levels, according to Statistics Canada.

At least one rural town in Eastern Ontario is showing its true colours – and it’s a full rainbow.

The visit of U.S. President Joe Biden to Ottawa could bring an increase in tourists coming to Canada’s capital to explore the city for themselves.