With an increasing trade war between Canada and the United States, some Canadians are increasingly interested in taking their vacation at the national level.
This has drawn calls from certain districts so that Canadian airlines reduce prices, but according to an expert, it’s easier to say.
There is already a lot of interest in stimulating inner tourism.
Kelowna’s big white ski resort says it has noticed an important bump in people who register for the past season much earlier than in the years.
“What we discovered, the reason they came to Big White earlier is that they could not afford to return to the United States,” said Michael J. Balllingall, main vice-president of the Marketing at Big White Ski Resort.
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With a small Canadian dollar and, in some cases, a boycott from the United States in the midst of imminent tariff destinations like Big White seem more attractive for many Canadians who seek to travel to the country.
But it’s not cheap. In fact, traveling across Canada can be much more expensive than traveling outside the country.
According to the expert in airlines Jim Scott, this is not the fault of airlines.
“Government policy has a lot to do with the reasons why the air rates are more expensive in Canada,” he told Global News.
“The government has made a policy that they will recover all their costs and they do it through subsidiaries like Nav Canada which are their air traffic control agency.”
It is a very different model from that of other countries, like the United States, where plane trips are considered to be part of the transport infrastructure and in many ways subsidized.
“Like roads and bridges, and the government has a role to play for certain aspects of this, where in Canada, it is simply on a basis of cost recovery,” said Scott. “The passenger will therefore pay each part of this flight.”
According to Scott, lowering these costs will suffer public pressure.
“It will be the consumer who will have enough and it is those who go, you know, ask that some of their taxes go to the flight transport network.”
This is something that, in the tourism sector, like Ballingal which also sits on the board of directors of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association, wants to see.
“If we can reduce the price of the ticket by lowering these regulations, Canada will absolutely benefit from it because we have proven that seats sales will be activated, we travel to Canada.”
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