PORT ANGELES — Four times these summer days, the 341-foot MV Coho provides a bridge between America and Canada in an intricate choreography of loading and offloading cars, motorcycles, buses, semis and other vehicles large and small.
And following a dip in ridership — possibly economically driven — last year, 2010 has already shown a modest increase in overnight visitors in Victoria and elsewhere in the province.
According to data collected by the government agency Statistics Canada, the number of U.S. overnight visitors to British Columbia was up 0.9 percent over the first six months.
Because the numbers are being compared with 2009’s — by all accounts a weak tourism year — industry insiders are preaching caution.
“I don’t think we should be getting too excited,” said Ryan Burles, CEO of Black Ball Ferry Line, which operates the MV Coho, in an interview with the Victoria Times Colonist.
“Last year was the worst year we’ve seen, so we have to take it with a grain of salt.”
But any increase in the U.S. market — the largest international market for Victoria — is a step in the right direction, said Rob Gialloreto, CEO of Tourism Victoria.
“A local group of eight [Inner Harbour] hotels have been keeping their own stats, and year to date have seen about an 8 percent increase in U.S. travelers over 2009.
“That’s not fantastically representative, but we have seen a slight increase,” he said.
Also catching up is the number of Americans who have passports, “enhanced” driver’s licenses or similar documents required to cross the international boundary since 2008.
According to The Economist, about 34 percent of Americans older than 18 now own passports.
That’s up from an estimate of 28 percent made in February 2008 — about four months before the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requiring passports to return to the United States from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean took effect.
