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Derwin Gowan
Telegraph-Journal

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ST. STEPHEN - The need to show detailed identification at U.S. border crossings will not stop Americans from visiting Canada, Réal Robichaud, executive director of the Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick, said Tuesday.

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Derwin Gowan/Telegraph-Journal

Traffic from Calais, Maine, drives into St. Stephen on Tuesday. Tourism industry official Réal Robichaud predicts that the number of Americans visiting Canada will begin to increase next year as the economy improves.

The price of gasoline, the value of the American dollar, the economy, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other factors explain the drop in the number of people from the United States visiting Canada for the past four years, he said.

Industry watchers believe American tourists will start to return to Canada next year when the economy improves, despite the new rules requiring them to present passports or other documents sanctioned under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative to return to the United States.

"It's supposed to rebound, that seems to be what all the experts are predicting," Robichaud said, referring to the recession. "We're certainly hoping that the economy is going to start rebounding."

"The passport rule, it was a long time coming," Robichaud said.

The new requirement went into effect June 1. Even though only 34 per cent of Americans have passports, compared to a bit more than half of Canadians, people who travel on their vacations will get the documents they need, Robichaud said.

The number of people crossing from Calais, Maine, to St. Stephen dropped to 1,182,455 in the 2007-2008 fiscal year from 1,288,255 in 2006-2007, according to the Canada Border Services Agency.

At the Milltown bridge in St. Stephen numbers dropped to 615,389 in 2007-2008 from 648,010 in 2006-2007.

At Edmundston, the numbers of people entering Canada dropped to 957,515 in 2007-2008, compared to 1,020,705 in 2006-2007.

Woodstock bucked the trend, with 650,866 people crossing into Canada from Houlton, Maine, in 2007-2008, up from 615,389 in 2006-2007.

Neither the CBSA nor Statistics Canada had numbers readily available for April 1, 2008, to March 31, 2009.

However, Statistics Canada reports few vehicles crossing into Canada at St. Stephen, Woodstock and Edmundston for the first three months of 2009 compared to 2008. For the first three months of this year, Canadians returning home accounted for a far larger proportion of vehicles crossing into Canada than visiting Americans at all three major New Brunswick crossings.

The regional market has sustained the New Brunswick tourism business through the recession, Robichaud said.

The high price of gasoline and economic uncertainty prompts people to spend their vacations closer to home - and stay at one spot longer.

Season leases at campgrounds become fashionable in hard times and the province gets more visitors from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Maine.

This helps tourist operators survive better here than elsewhere.

"Niagara Falls, for example, the decline is worse," Robichaud said.

"We're still cautiously optimistic about the regional market," he said. "This year, the reports we're getting from our operations, it seems to be pretty good."