The Yukon’s border will open to B.C. residents on July 1, but the lack of marketing by the Tourism department means local operators likely won’t see the boost in visitation they’d hoped for.

“If you’re going to make it available for B.C. residents to come up to the Yukon, you’ve got to be telling them the borders are opening, you’ve got to be advertising to them and be providing packages so they can book with some certainty,” Rich Thompson, chair of the Yukon’s Business Advisory Council, told the Star this morning.

“As long as there aren’t formal plans in place, it’s very difficult for operators to plan and make bookings; in fact, it’s impossible.”

The Yukon border will open to B.C. residents on Canada Day as the territory launches stage two of its reopening plan.

The border opening provided some hope to tourism operators that they might see some visitor traffic in the latter half of this summer.

Neil Hartling, chair of the Tourism Industry Association of Yukon, told the Star the Yukon government still hasn’t launched a marketing plan directed to southern markets.

The Travel Yukon website still directs visitors to the current travel restrictions on yukon.ca – without giving any indication that the border will open next week.

Hartling said there’s been a delay in launching a marketing campaign to attract B.C. visitors.

“There’s an excellent tourism marketing plan loaded and ready to go, but for some reason they’ve been told to hold off,” Hartling told the Star this morning.

“In a perfect world, it would have gone out immediately, as it was ready.”

Hartling said tourism operators depend on the Tourism department to inform B.C. residents they can safely and legally visit the Yukon.

Tourism operators can’t individually advertise to B.C. residents unless it’s clear that the government is on board, he explained.

When potential visitors see restrictions on the government website, it leads to confusion about why Yukon operators are advertising.

“If the government website says we’re locked down, heavily restricted and doesn’t have any inviting wording … they’ll question the integrity or the honesty of the operator,” Hartling said.

“They’ll assume that if the government isn’t inviting people, the operator is out of touch.”

Hartling said he recently received a call from a tourism operator who wondered if B.C. residents who recently immigrated to Canada would be able to cross the Yukon border.

Those are the types of questions that are still unanswered by the Yukon government, Hartling said.

With only a week before the border opens, tourism operators are still unsure of what the rules will be for B.C. visitors.

This has dashed hopes for seeing tourist traffic in July, causing many operators to plan for August instead.

“It’s quickly passing through their fingers,” Hartling said.

“Normally, we look at August as the tail-end of the season.”

Thompson told the Star that the delay in marketing has presented a challenge to tourism operators trying to make plans for this summer.

“That challenge means we’re squandering opportunity to actually make bookings in early July,” Thompson said.

“There’s an understandable level of anxiety in tourism operators who are seeing their life savings go up in smoke.”

Thompson called the opening of the B.C. border a “ray of hope” for tourism operators who previously thought there would be no chance of reopening this summer.

That optimism has dissipated substantially since the announcement of the border opening – and many operators feel that the rug has been pulled from under them.

Hartling said that the lack of action this month has harmed many operators’ faith in the Tourism department, though he noted he doesn’t believe the delay is the fault of department staff who have worked hard to get the industry going again.

“If you have your life savings on the line, and someone leads you to believe there’s an opportunity coming up to invest in that may help you in some measure, and then, at the 11th hour pull the pins out from underneath that, it’s devastating,” Hartling said.

“I’m at a loss of words to convey just how devastating that is.”

Going forward, Hartling said, he hopes these conversations will help to prevent further delays in marketing as the Yukon inevitably opens the borders further.

The Star made inquiries as to why a tourism marketing plan aimed at B.C. residents hasn’t been implemented with the border set to open in just eight days.

Jeanie Dendys, the minister of Tourism, provided an emailed statement this morning.

“We recognize that this year is presenting immense challenges for Yukon’s tourism operators and we hear the frustrations of our Yukon tourism sector partners,” the minister wrote. 

“I was in Dawson City this weekend to meet with the Klondike Visitors Association, which has made great efforts to attract visitors to the Klondike this year. We all are working hard to salvage as much of the tourism season as possible. 

“Tourism and Culture has been actively developing a campaign directed specifically at the BC market and we look forwarding (sic) to launching it very soon.”