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Flight woes stall aurora tourism growth
Coveted Japanese tourists deterred by lack of airline seat availability to YellowknifeThandiwe Vela Northern News Services Published Thursday, March 8, 2012
Lack of seat availability, made worse by Air Canada's discontinuation of its Yellowknife-Vancouver flight this winter, is sending tourists—especially the coveted markets from Asia—straight into the hands of the city's aurora-viewing competitors, sales agents are reporting. "They are finding that when Japanese travellers go to book a trip to see the aurora in Yellowknife, they're not able to find a seat," NWT Tourism executive director Brian Desjardins said. "And what they're saying is the Japanese consumer wants to see the aurora, and where they see the aurora is not the biggest thing for them in making the decision. So what they're seeing is if they can't get a flight to Yellowknife to see the aurora, they're going somewhere else." Competing centres that are increasingly marketing aurora viewing include Whitehorse, Fairbanks, Alaska; and Scandinavian countries, such as Finland and Norway. This season, NWT Tourism has contracted general sales agents based in Tokyo, Japan, who believe there is "big potential" to grow the market to Yellowknife, but poor flight availability is hampering their efforts. "From my understanding, all our feedback from the (Tokyo-based sales agents) is that people want to book into Canada and can't get seats on planes because they're sold out," NWT Tourism chair Jenni Bruce said. Since falling from more than 7,000 in 2007/08 to 5,460 in 2008/09, the number of aurora viewing visitors to the NWT has been climbing back up in the last two years, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment figures show 6,776 aurora viewing visitors in 2010/11. Preliminary estimates for 2011/12 are as strong as last season or better, Desjardins said, despite the cut in flights to Yellowknife. "We're not seeing a decrease in aurora tourism because of the cancellation of the Air Canada Yellowknife-Vancouver flight, but we could see way more growth if Air Canada or any other airline wants to pick up that ball and roll with it," Desjardins said. Air Canada cancelled its Vancouver-Yellowknife flight because the route did not meet set profitability targets, spokesperson Angela Mah told Yellowknifer in an e-mail. "We review all of our routes (worldwide) regularly and make changes based on commercial demand," she stated. Air Canada is currently planning its 2012/13 winter season, and is introducing non-stop flights from Tokyo to Calgary, with connections to be offered from Calgary to Yellowknife. Bruce called the Tokyo-Calgary-Yellowknife addition, in light of the Vancouver-Yellowknife discontinuation, "quiet compensation." "They did a compensation kind of - a quiet compensation," she said. "We would just like to see more flights, more capacity, instead of once a day because obviously if people can't book the flights because they're full, it means there might be room for a second flight." Air Canada has no plans to increase the number of flights as capacity between Yellowknife and Edmonton and Yellowknife and Calgary has not changed from last winter, Mah stated. "That's kind of where their internal numbers, that we do not have access to, do not match with the numbers we compile on this end," Bruce said, adding NWT Tourism will be compiling this year's numbers to convince the airlines to add more flights to Yellowknife. NWT Tourism and tourism groups in Alberta had appealed to Air Canada to add the direct flight from Japan before the Tokyo-Calgary addition. The flight was added based on "energy capital," Mah stated, or strong demand both to and from Calgary - primarily for business travel to and from Asia - as Tokyo is an international hub with connections readily available to all points including Japan, China, Korea, and India. NWT Tourism is continuing talks with other airlines to get more flights from Tokyo to Yellowknife.
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