And it’s not just businesses. The city of Blaine expects 2021 revenue from sales, fuel and lodging taxes to fall by more than $600,000 compared with 2019, thanks to travel restrictions. That’s taken a 9% bite out of the city’s operating budget and “forced us to roll back our spending on services to levels similar to 2017,” says City Manager Michael Jones.
Still, many of those border communities have found ways to cope with the restrictions.
As the streets of Blaine and other border towns have largely emptied of Canadian tourists, some restaurants and shops have used that quietness to appeal to local customers. “When there were so many Canadians here, I think a lot of the locals might have gone to Bellingham because it was so packed down here,” says Blaine resident June Auld.
At their Blaine Chevron, Michael and Skye Hill were able to make up for much of the lost fuel sales by expanding their convenience store inventory with T-shirts, fresh flowers, groceries for local boaters and other items meant to “bring a different market of people in,” says Skye.
Other border towns have shifted their marketing efforts even further afield. After the Black Ball Ferry canceled its runs between Port Angeles and Victoria in March 2020, restaurants and other local businesses saw a steep decline in ferry-related business, which ordinarily brings in nearly half a million visitors and $64 million in spending annually to the local economy, according to a study commissioned by Black Ball.
Yet even as the Canadians disappeared, Port Angeles saw a surge in Seattle-area visitors who were “getting cabin fever” in the pandemic, says Marc Abshire, executive director of the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce. So far, those feverish Seattleites have helped Clallam County avoid the steep hotel vacancy rates that have hammered downtown Seattle, Abshire says.