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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1425269
where Lundin Gold has 1,800 employees, or to various Lundin offices around the world— it was simply the business norm. "You needed to meet and greet the inves- tors," he says of the global conferences. "That was the whole reason for going: for investors to be able to come to somewhere like Denver and meet with several mining companies, the CEOs and senior leadership team, all within a two- or three-day period. But now we realize that there's no reason why it can't be done virtually." Hochstein says that, going forward, attendance at conferences will be much more limited—he says that he sent one per- son to the MINExpo conference in Las Vegas in September, instead of the typical four or five—and those trips will be clearly tied to business objectives. In 2022, Hochstein expects Lundin Gold to resume quarterly meetings in Ecuador. And he expects that many of the analysts who cover the company, along with the big investors, will want to get back to Fruta del Norte for a site visit as well—given that many have only seen the project under construc- tion, if at all. As for whether he'll miss all that time in the air, Hochstein pauses before answer- ing. "It felt so weird returning to an airport last year," he says. "The Air Canada flight attendants used to know my name by heart. I had Super Elite status by the end of Febru- ary one year; that was my life. But would I go back to that life? No." Hochstein's travel agent, Grant Hurrle, has seen the writing on the wall. "Business travel has always been highly susceptible to changes, but it was always coming from the traveller's side. Now the majority of changes that occur are coming from the operations side—airlines cancelling flights or changing itineraries. And that's really time-consum- ing for us." While this new era of travel, with vaccine passports and COVID testing, is no less daunt- ing for leisure travel, Hurrle sees greater prospects in the resurgent tourist market. Even before COVID, Forbes Travel was shift- ing its focus onto the leisure traveller, and it'll continue to do so in 2022, he says. "That market is ripe for the picking, and now there's the added pent-up travel demand that has occurred because no one got to do anything that they wanted to do for the last year and a half. There's money to be spent." After a gloomy year of lock- downs, business disruptions and endless Zoom meetings, the winds seem to be point- ing toward...more time on a beach. n 66 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 SOURCE: GVBOT TOURISM ROADMAP: COVID-19 POST-PANDEMIC SCENARIO PLANNING FOR GREATER VANCOUVER TOURISM Long Journey Back In the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade's recent roadmap for local tourism's recovery from COVID-19, consulting firm InterVistas projected that overnight visitor travel won't return to 2019 levels until 2025 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Canada Domestic Overnight Visitor Outlook, 2021-25 Domestic overnight visitors to Greater Vancouver (millions) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Total Overnight Visitor Recovery vs. 2019, 2021-2025 % of overnight visitors recovered vs. 2019 0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120% 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 International Overnight Visitor Outlook, 2021-25 Int'l overnight visitors to Greater Vancouver (millions) 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 U.S. Overnight Visitor Outlook, 2021-25 U.S. overnight visitors to Greater Van- couver (millions) 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 HISTORICAL (U.S.) PESSIMISTIC BASE CASE OPTIMISTIC HISTORICAL (DOMESTIC) PESSIMISTIC BASE CASE OPTIMISTIC HISTORICAL (INT'L) PESSIMISTIC BASE CASE OPTIMISTIC HISTORICAL (INT'L) PESSIMISTIC BASE CASE OPTIMISTIC DESTINATION CANADA (NOV '20)