Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce adds its voice to calls for hospitality industry help

The Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce is asking the City of Saskatoon to extend a property tax and utility payment deferral program that ended in September.

A letter written by Chamber CEO Jason Aebig was presented to the city’s finance committee Tuesday.

In it, Aebig says while many businesses have demonstrated incredible resilience, creativity and capacity to adapt, many local hotels haven’t been able to shift their business models.

Speaking with 650 CKOM, he says downtown hotels in particular have reached a point where occupancy is in the single digits.

“(And) that’s not surprising given the COVID restrictions on gatherings and of course ongoing warnings about travel, interprovincial travel, and even travel within the province,” Aebig said.

He says hoteliers simply won’t be able to sustain their businesses, adding he believes there’s a “great deal” of sensitivity and awareness around the issue.

“I think city council is quite clear that this sector is hardest hit and that the impact of hotels effectively having to close their operations or curtail them significantly would be detrimental to Saskatoon’s ability to recover,” he said.

He explained there are so many economic spinoffs and other businesses and operations tied to the operation of those facilities that if any one of them were to go down, it would have a ripple effect in the local economy.

When asked about other business operators who may also be struggling but must continue to pay their utility bills and property taxes, Aebig said there wasn’t a business in the city that hasn’t been affected by COVID.

“This (hotel) sector has been the hardest hit,” he said. “There’s just no question given the restrictions on gatherings, on events, and then of course the ongoing warnings about travel, there really aren’t a lot of tools for these operators to use or strategies they can use to pivot in the same way that a lot of other businesses have.”

The chamber has helped put together a round table made up of its organization, Tourism Saskatoon, Hospitality Saskatchewan and Downtown Saskatoon along with officials from the City of Saskatoon. That group is to meet Friday.

“We’ve pulled together all of the relevant stakeholders here to try and kickstart a conversation on this to try and see what options and strategies there might be,” he added.

Aebig is hoping if a continuation of the deferral program isn’t a possibility, then perhaps there will be another program or way to help out the industry.

The goal, he says, isn’t tax forgiveness but flexibility to help the industry recover from the effects of the pandemic.