Tourism PG ready for rubber-tire traffic

This is Highway 97 North. Every year, it is the route US traveller take to get to Alaska every spring and back again in the fall. But this highway has been much quieter in the past couple of years, with the border closed to US travellers. And yesterday, the Government of Canada announced new rules around COVID testing for travellers. For Prince George Tourism that is fantastic news. It was only in November travellers from outside Canada were allowed into the country. It meant, for nearly two years, Tourism Prince George was not seeing the rubber-tire traffic it relies on so heavily. It’s defintely realoly important and we see it a lot in the spring and summer and into the fall as well. A lot of those Americans travelling north heading up to the Alaska Highway, we see of that traffic.” Local campsites are a mainstay for the RV travellers from the United States. Colin Carsen says, with Tuesday’s news, many will have to switch into high gears as the busy camping season is not that far off. “We’re constantly in communication with those stakeholders and they’re obviously targetting some different demographic of people. So the cross-border travel will defintely be mportant for those folks.” The Visitor Information Centre had been closed for several months but re-opened in June of last year. However, it was not business as usual. Plexiglass was installed, there was limited capacity inside the centre, staff hours were rotated to reduce the number of people in the centre at any given time. And, while restrictions are loosening, Carson says there will stil be COVID safety measures in place.