Old Orchard Beach, Maine – With Canada’s currency at a 28-year high against the U.S. dollar, business owners on this side of the border are getting ready for an influx of tourists from the north.
The Canadian dollar has jumped more than 40 percent in the past four years and reached heights this month not seen since 1978, giving visitors more bang for the loonie, the popular name of Canada’s $1 coin that features a loon.
Old Orchard Beach has been a popular vacation spot for French-speaking Canadians for decades, but business dropped off with the Canadian dollar on the skids. Now, it’s coming back.
Pierre Janelle, a third-generation motel owner, remembers when Canadians accounted for 80 percent of the customers during the peak months of July and August. In recent years, Canadians have made up barely 5 percent of his clientele.
“Now we’re hearing from people who say, ‘We haven’t been there in 10 or 12 years and we’re coming back,”‘ said Janelle, owner of The Edgewater motel.
In the 1950s and briefly in the ’70s, the Canadian dollar was worth more than its American counterpart. But it has been in the dumps for nearly three decades, giving Canadians diminished buying power when they visit the United States. It bottomed out in 2002, when it was worth just 62 U.S. cents, meaning it took $1.60 in Canadian money to buy $1 in greenbacks.
Since then, the Canadian dollar has been growing; in May it broke the 90-cent level for the first time since 1978. Economists say the loonie is getting stronger because of a solid Canadian economy and high prices for oil, gas, lumber and other commodities from Canada.
That’s good news for resort towns such as Old Orchard Beach. Here, Canadian flags fly outside many businesses, French-language Canadian newspapers are found in motel lobbies, and fries with gravy and cheese – a Canadian favorite – are served up alongside fried dough and fried clam strips. For people in Quebec, Old Orchard offers the closest sand beaches a half day’s drive away.
When the loonie was weak – it was worth less than 70 U.S. cents from 1998 into 2003 – a lot of Quebecers who previously came to Maine for vacation opted instead to go to New Brunswick or Ontario, said Guy Dagenais of Beloeil, Quebec. Others switched to cheaper motels or came in the offseason when the rates were lower.
Canadians’ travel patterns are now changing, Dagenais said as he ate a slice of pizza in Old Orchard Beach last week with his girlfriend.
“After visiting there for a few years, people are coming back to the United States with the stronger dollar,” he said.
Crossborder shopping and travel is up along the entire U.S.-Canada border, said Manny Witt, director of the New England Tourism Office in Montreal, which promotes tourism to the six-state region.
Retailers from Maine to Washington state are reporting strong sales to Canadians because of the favorable exchange rate, he said.
“People are saying they haven’t seen this happening since the early ’70s,” Witt said.
Visits have slowly increased the past few years in tandem with the dollar’s rise.
In the first three months of the year, the number of Canadians traveling to the United States rose more than 5 percent from 2005, according to Statistics Canada.
In 2004, 113,200 Canadians visited Colorado, spending $59 million in U.S. dollars.
A couple of weeks ago, Witt’s local bank ran out of U.S. currency because so many people had bought it up for trips across the border.
