BrandUSA, which promotes travel to the United States, recently received $250 million in emergency funding, a huge boost after a couple of very difficult years.
The announcement was made at IPW in Orlando earlier this week, where a new tourism strategy to increase visitation to 90 million international visitors by 2027 was unveiled. TravelPulse Canada sat down with BrandUSA President and CEO Chris Thompson to learn how important their northern neighbour will be in that strategy.
"I love IPW, it's the one time of year where all of our stakeholders, our buyers, our suppliers, our government partners, all come to one place. It's a critically important meeting," says Thompson.
Attendees at IPW come from all over the world, and while Canada remains the number one source of visitation to the USA, it can be argued that the market is somewhat neglected in terms of trade focus. Thompson says the Canadian travel trade is important, but he feels that Canadian advisors sometimes don't recognize the full diversity of product available in the marketplace.
"The travel trade in Canada is probably one of our more established markets and is still very relevant. To the credit of the trade, I think they've evolved. When the internet first came along and challenged their abilities, they figured that out and also how to evolve the distribution channels. I think they've done a great job and we've enaged with the travel trade in Canada the entire time we've been in existence, so we have great relationships. And I like to think they feel that we are a great resource."
Thompson says Canadians always tell BrandUSA that they have strong knowledge of what the U.S. has to offer. But he believes there's much more they could learn.
"I challenge back and say, for as much as you think, you know, I think I could probably find as much that you don't know, off the beaten path. I think that's probably our biggest challenge with the Canadians, to overcome the "been there, done that mentality."
The BrandUSA leader says that through its global marketplace, digital meeting platforms, websites and Discovery inspiration programs, travel advisors can expand their knowledge of U.S. product.
Despite current hurdles such as pre-arrival testing, inflation, currency exchange and high gasoline prices, Canada is expected to play a signficant role in U.S. tourism recovery.
"We felt when we were looking at recovery and markets, we had the best shot of Canada recovering. Once the border issues got sorted out and we started to transition to how to learn to live with COVID, I thought we had the best shot with Canadians to get back to visiting pretty quickly," Thompson told TravelPulse Canada.
What remains to be seen however, is how much impact the currrent rash of gun violence and the ongoing political and racial division in the U.S. will have on Canadian travel decisions.
At a press conference Monday, the number one topic from international journalists was the safety of U.S. visitors in a country that sadly is on track to have more mass shootings in 2022 than in its history. There have been at least 246 mass shootings through June 5 this year. That's the same number the country saw through June 5 in 2021 -- the worst year on record since the Gun Violence Archive began tracking mass shootings in 2014.
Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about a potential increase in extremist violence fueled by recent mass shootings, including the massacre in Uvalde last month; an expected Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights; and November's midterm elections.
"We know these headlines are concerning to travellers," said Thompson. "Americans want this issue to be addressed. We know it's an issue and we're doing what we can."
"The statistics are harrowing," said Grant Harris, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry & Analysis. "We have a crisis in the United States. There's a lot of work to be done."
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