By John Francis
Things were different during the pandemic. Most of our community’s public events dried up for two-plus years. And with no public events in the GTA either, a lot of their folk came up here. Many didn’t know why they were here exactly, they just hoped it would be better than sitting around in their apartment.
This year seems to be a lot like “the old days” — you know, 2019 and before. I wondered if it’s just me or if it’s really happening. So I asked a few people.
Carla Hellyer at Scott’s PRO Hardware in Lion’s Head says that there’s a lot less foot traffic through her store this year but she’s definitely not complaining. It means she’s got time to give her regular customers the service they deserve. She says total sales volume might be down a tiny bit, but definitely not enough to be concerned about. Is there a pattern in this? She thought about that and decided that there have been fewer impulse buys of things that daytrippers would pick up for a day at the beach or on the trail — pool noodles, towels, bug repellant, sun block.
Marydale Ashcroft and Sarah Perrault of The Shops at 84 Main in Lion’s Head have noticed a similar pattern. There is less foot traffic through their store but it definitely hasn’t affected sales. This year they are mostly seeing their regular customers — cottagers and locals — and fewer transients. It’s much more manageable around town this year, Perrault tells me.
But Ashcroft is still not entirely happy. She feels a lot of her regular customers were driven away by paid parking. MNBP residents could park free, but a lot of people used to come to Lion’s Head from South Bruce Peninsula — Oliphant, Howdenvale, Red Bay, Pike Bay, Hope Bay and so forth. She says many of them got parking tickets in 2021 and vowed they would never come back.
The free parking on Main and Webster Streets has solved the problem going forward, but it doesn’t erase the sting of those parking tickets from 2021.
Ashcroft feels the municipality needs to reach out to those people somehow, tell them “it’s not stupid in town this year, come back!”
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The accommodation side of tourism has changed too. The motels are mostly doing well — the operators I spoke to tell of 100% occupancy on weekends, 90% or 95% through the week. There might be fewer stays booked months in advance but the rooms still fill up and it hasn’t affected the bottom line at all.
The accommodators I spoke to stressed that they have a lot of repeat customers – people who love the peninsula and come back every year.
But they all suggested that the STA (Short-Term Accommodation — that is, houses and cottages being rented out to short-term visitors) sector might be seeing reduced occupancy levels this year.
Hotel/motel owners aren’t the only ones who noticed this; it’s hard to generalize on a small sample size of personal observations, but many people have told me the same story — there seem to be an awful lot of empty STAs in their neighbourhoods. That adds up to a lot of neighbourhoods. And it’s the fourth week of July — traditionally one of the busiest weeks of the year.
If this really is happening, the big question is whether it is caused by reduced demand or over-supply.
There are a lot more STAs than there were a few years ago. Is there enough demand out there to fill them every week? If not, can the owners make their mortgage payments or are they going to have to sell?
Could it be that there really are fewer “one-and-done” visitors and that they were mostly staying in STAs? It’s a plausible story but it’s hard to know for sure.
I guess we’ll find out when the municipality releases information on MAT revenues for the year.
A couple of savvy investors I spoke to found themselves doing the arithmetic. If you paid for a place on the assumption that you could rent it twelve or twenty weeks a year and you’re only getting five or six weeks, can you keep making the payments?
I would take that arithmetic one step further: who’s going to pay top dollar for a property when they can only rent it out five or six weeks a year? If you’re going to pay 6% interest on the mortgage, wouldn’t you want a guaranteed revenue stream?
Would that arithmetic be enough to squeeze the investors out of our housing market? So that maybe carpenters, personal care workers and waiters could afford to live here again?
Because we are running short of carpenters, personal care workers and waiters. We’re also running short of young families whose children will be the next generation of carpenters, personal care workers and waiters (and doctors, nurses, teachers, child care workers, chefs and entrepreneurs).
Affordablility was already a problem in 2019, yet now that seems like “the good old days”. Go figger.
