By Doug Draper
A combination of recession, gridlock and heightened demands for identification at the border crossings is costing the economies of communities in the Greater Niagara Region thousands of jobs and countless lost dollars, says a representative for a not-for-profit organization promoting tourism in the region.
“We need a remedial action plan to fix this because it is affecting us dramatically,” Arlene White, the director of the Binational Tourism Alliance representing about 140 public- and private-sector tourist and business interests in Niagara, Ont. and Niagara and Erie Counties, N.Y. told members of the regional council on the Ontario side of the border recently.
White, who plans to make similar presentations to municipal governments on the New York side of the border in the weeks ahead, asked the regional council to help contribute to a $50,000 request the not-for-profit alliance is making to municipal governments and private municipalities in the region to develop and launch a plan for increasing the flow of visitors on both sides of the border.
The organization is also asking senior levels of government to contribute at least $600,000 to building a plan that would include studying the reasons people are not crossing the borders as frequently as they once did, holding clinics and offering rebates to residents to identify and purchase passports or equivalent identification (i.e. – an enhanced driver’s license or NEXUS card) they need to cross the border and better marketing events and travel destinations on both sides.
Since this spring, when the U.S. government imposed the passport requirement on cross-border travelers, tourism operations on the U.S. side and Canadian side have reported 20 per cent and 40 per cent decreases in business respectively, said White. This, along with delays and inconsistent rules around crossing the border bridges, has resulted in significant losses of jobs and revenue for border area residents and businesses.
“We need to find out why people (aren’t crossing the border as much to shop, attend concerts, festivals, etc. on both sides) and we need to get them back,” White said.
For more information on the Binational Tourism Alliance and its efforts to promote tourism in the region visit www.btapartners.com
