Bounceback is happening but not without struggles, particularly in more remote regions
Maureen Gordon has weathered hard times before.
She and her husband began running ecotourism outfit Maple Leaf Adventures out of Vancouver about a month before the 9/11 terrorist attacks devastated international travel in 2001.
The rebound was relatively quick. Fallout from COVID-19 has proven much more prolonged.
“The pandemic of course was incredibly tumultuous and scary, as it was, I think, for most tour businesses in Canada,” said Gordon, who runs week-long sojourns on a schooner, converted tug boat and catamaran along the Pacific coast.
“It was a really traumatic time. We couldn’t operate at all through various government shutdowns,” she recalled. “We were scared, our bank was scared.”
While 2022 was “incredible,” as Canadians looking to expend pent-up energy surged back to domestic travel, 2023 saw a “hiccup” amid rising interest rates that dampened some…
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