A last-minute season bodes well

Starting with pancakes and ending with fireworks, Jasper’s Canada Day celebrations were an overwhelming success that helped usher in some extra business to kick-start the summer season for Jasper with last minute bookings very popular.

However, some businesses are still feeling the economic crunch.

Averaging about three pancakes each, 1,400 people enjoyed an early morning waste-free pancake breakfast in Centennial Park on Canada Day, which is the most that’s ever attended.

According to George Krefting, Municipal manager of Jasper, the event “should be considered an overwhelming success.”

This sentiment was echoed by Herb Robinson, from the Jasper-Yellowhead Historical Society Canada Day Committee, who said people stayed around the park all day in various quantities enjoying live music, kids activities and a beer garden in the evening.

Robinson said the event is expected to raise twice as much money as it did last year, totaling about $6,000.

Despite these encouraging numbers, tour operators such as Rocky Mountaineer continue to feel the crunch of the economic downturn.

Ian Robertson, executive director of communications for Rocky Mountaineer, said there are about five to 10 per cent less visitors coming to Jasper onboard their trains which equates to about 1,500 people.

“It is significant however it’s very much in line with what other tour operators are doing.” he said.

The decline in tourists is not just limited to Jasper, said Robertson, who explained there was a similar decline across all of the companies’ routes.

According to Robertson, Rocky Mountaineer released a reduced departure schedule at the end of 2008 in anticipation of a slower season, but has seen business “pick up considerably” due to last minute bookings.

“People are still wanting to travel,” he said, “they just hold off until that very last minute.”

The drop is affecting several business. Attractions such as white water rafting have had a slower than usual start to the season.

Kevin Henderson, assistant general manager of Mountain Park Lodges, predicts his company has seen a loss of about 10,000 room nights because of the drop in tour company bookings, which meant May and June were slower than he’d hoped.
“July is starting off a lot stronger,” he said, “we’re slightly off being full... we have a few rooms left here and there.”

Henderson, like other companies such as Raven Adventures, said there were “a lot more last minute bookings, a lot more walk ins... people are booking one day our or two days out.”

For Darren Grab, manager for Maligne Rafting Adventures, this is the slowest season of the last decade.

While Grab said his numbers were probably down about 30 per cent, he also said business had picked up significantly since the end of June when he was only running trips every other day.

“You can definitely tell the kids are out,” he said, noting that although they were back running their five trips a day, trips were still only half full.

Chris Sorenson, manager of Raven Adventures, said they were “definitely down a little” but were maintaining their regular trips with a family-orientated product.

Other business owners, such as Dong Han from Grandma’s convenience said business picked up on Canada Day, but was still only making one-third the revenue they did this time last year.

“Today we’re just down because it’s raining,” he said, as the rain poured down on Monday afternoon, noting that ice-cream sales were heavily impacted by the weather.

“We hope things get better, it just depends how things go,” he added.

For Wild Mountain/North Face store owner, Dave MacDowell, it’s important to look at a bigger picture and said looking at the last several years he’s “quite happy” with business thus far.

A similar sentiment came from Henderson, who said numbers were “fairly close to where we were two years ago”.

All seem to agree there is a mix of international and regional tourists in Jasper, but Henderson did suggest “we’re seeing more regional traffic” which is also due to the lack of large tour companies, who normally serve an international audience.

MacDowell said he was seeing a lot of “independent travelers” and was getting a lot of regional business, but the international traveller was still prevalent along Patricia Street.

International tourists were also rafting with Grab, but he did note that the majority of his guests were regional visitors.