Destination report
Postcard from St John’ s
SIMON GEORGE REPORTS FROM ST JOHN’ S, CANADA ON IMPROVED DIRECT AIR ACCESS FROM EUROPE AND GROWING MICE DEMAND
Gulf stream to jet stream Visit St John’ s in Canada in late May and it is clear that nature is on the move. Migrating humpback whales are returning to the cold waters around Newfoundland and Labrador, icebergs drift serenely south en route from Greenland, while whirling seabirds such as puffins and guillemots fill the air in their constant lookout for fish. The skies to the north-west of the city by the airport are also busy – in fact, busier of late. WestJet has recently added an extra flight to its London Gatwick service, which now runs four times a week from April to October, and it has resumed flights twice a week to Dublin and launched a once-a-week service to Paris.
The improvement in direct air access from Europe to St John’ s is welcome news in terms of hosting meetings. As Paul Bugge, CEO of Destination St John’ s( DSJ), told CMW:“ In terms of bringing delegates to Newfoundland and Labrador, the value proposition of having them fly over us, to fly back to us is a hard one. However, now that you are able to fly direct to St John’ s from London, Dublin or Paris in generally about 4.5-5 hours, means it’ s a game changer.”
Keeping events local As well as the importance of accessibility, CMW was keen to hear Bugge’ s thoughts on whether DSJ might be benefitting from a‘ MICE dividend’ – namely increased interest from associations or companies to hold meetings or conferences in Canada rather than the US( which accounts for 14 % of total visitors to St John’ s) due to a backlash against President Trump’ s trade tariff policy.
While acknowledging that the situation is being monitored closely, Bugge thought it was too early to determine a clear trend, but he did say that evidence was emerging that some companies are looking at other destinations to put on meetings and that leisure tourism in Canada was benefitting in terms of visitor numbers and staycations. He added that the latest statistics showed no corresponding drop-off in US visitors to Canada.
Booking visibility healthy MICE booking visibility is looking positive, too, said Bugge, a view shared by Larry Laite, corporate director at the JAG, a boutique, rock n’ roll hotel which has just opened a new tower which adds 85 guest rooms.
Amy Kavanagh, sales manager at St John’ s Convention Centre, which is hosting the Canada Games in August, and Marlene Slaney, director of group sales at the Sheraton, also told CMW that their venues were showing decent event pipelines.
“ Canada’ s business events market is not forecast to come back to pre-Covid levels until 2028 or 2029. However, we( a partner of Destination Canada) are ahead of the national average in both booked and future booked business, and are outperforming the rest of Canada,” Bugge added who’ s wish list includes further European airlift expansion.“ We would love to get to a point – at least a couple of times a week – where there is a direct service to London rather than just April to October,” he said.“ That is important not just for our tourists, our guests and our business events but for our business community. Certainly for all our oil and gas and natural energy industries, where there is a lot of crossthe-sea traffic.” n
ISSUE 137 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / 43