(Quebec) The requirement of PCR tests for foreign visitors is causing “irreparable” harm to the tourism industry, which asks Ottawa to drop this measure for doubly vaccinated tourists.
“The PCR test causes irreparable harm to Quebec businesses, local businesses and to major Quebec events,” said the general manager of the Association hôtelière de la région de Quebec, Marjolaine De Sa.
Several important players met Wednesday morning at the Château Frontenac, emblem of tourism in Quebec, to launch an appeal to the federal government. They claim that their industry is suffocating and struggling to attract visitors from abroad because of the overly strict rules imposed by Ottawa.
For months, anyone entering Canada has had to show a recent molecular test (PCR) that shows a negative result for COVID-19. But this test is expensive and would have the effect of discouraging travelers from coming to the country.
The Canadian Roundtable on Travel and Tourism is therefore calling on the government to drop this requirement for fully vaccinated travelers.
Several players in the Quebec region have said they fear a catastrophic winter tourist season if the rules are not relaxed.
“It struck me to see teams that we were used to seeing here, not coming. Clearly, the brake is the PCR test. They say to themselves you can come to us without a PCR test, we have to do this expensive test to come to you, ”notes the general manager of the Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament, Patrick Dom.
He notes that his famous tournament usually attracts around fifty teams from the United States. There will be at most forty of them this year. The European and Asian teams have meanwhile halved, from 30 to 15.
According to Mr. Dom, the obligation of this test is the main culprit. “For 90% of those who don’t come, the PCR test is to blame,” he says.
Marjolaine De Sa notes that the number of “hospitalizations is very low”.
But in Europe – a continent that has often given a glimpse of things to come in Quebec since the start of the pandemic – several countries are seeing an outbreak of cases, and even re-containments.
France, for example, announced on Wednesday the return of COVID-19 tests before boarding flights from France to all overseas territories.
In Canada, the Trudeau government has just announced some relief: the PCR test will no longer be mandatory for Canadians who travel 72 hours or less to the United States and who have received their two doses of the vaccine.
The tourism industry sees this as yet another obstacle, as it makes travel outside of Canada easier without making it easier to travel to the country.
“These changes open a one-way door for Canadians to leave the country, while discouraging international visitors from coming here,” the Canadian Roundtable on Travel and Tourism said in a statement.
In Ottawa, the Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, said he understood the impatience of the tourism industry. But he argued that the pandemic is far from over, as the rising number of cases in some countries demonstrates, and that caution is in order.
“I fully understand their concerns. I understand them in particular because I am a member of Parliament for the riding of Quebec, which is one of the major places for tourism in the restaurant and accommodation industry in the country. That said, we are still in a pandemic and the pandemic is much more serious outside Canada and Quebec than it is found here at home. In the United States, as a proportion of the population, it is four times more serious. In the United Kingdom, 10 times more serious and in Belgium, 20 times more serious, ”said the Minister.
With Joël-Denis Bellavance in Ottawa