As Americans settle in for a day of football and feasting, some are taking a long Thanksgiving weekend trip to B.C.
The American holiday is a nice November boost for tourism in communities like Whistler, which typically sees U.S. crowds for the holiday.
“The U.S. Thanksgiving weekend is really nicely aligned with our early season, and we do see lots of U.S. visitors come up for the holiday weekend, which is great,” said Kirsten Homeniuk, the vice president of marketing at Tourism Whistler.
“We’ve had a really great start to the snow season; we’ve had new terrain open up ahead of the long weekend, so it should be a really great resort experience for our guests.”
The U.S. is Whistler’s top international market, representing 30 per cent of the resort’s overnight visitors in the winter, and Homeniuk says hotels and restaurants are busy.
“I don’t have specific stats yet — we’ll see where that nets out after the weekend — but the pace is looking good. There are lots of early season offers and lots of terrain available, so we expect it to be a great experience for guests.”
In Vancouver, it’s not hard to find Americans celebrating the holiday away from home, with some downtown hotels catering to the Thanksgiving crowd.
The Hyatt Regency’s Mosaic Grille is among a number of restaurants in the city offering a traditional turkey feast today, with the first seating sold out and just a few tables remaining for the late service.
“It’s a three-course dinner for $45,” said Richard Taylor, Director of Sales and Marketing for the Hyatt Regency.
“It starts with a butternut squash bisque with lardon bacon, caramelized apple, and sage oil. The entree is house-brined turkey breast with Brussels sprouts, maple-glazed baby carrots, buttermilk chive potato puree, with cranberry sauce and turkey gravy. The dessert is homemade pumpkin pie, torched marshmallow meringue, rum raisin gelato, and almond streusel.”
The Mosaic has offered a U.S. Thanksgiving dinner for a number of years, and Taylor says it’s typically a busy evening.
Americans make up a large part of the hotel’s business, with many travelling for the US Thanksgiving period, but he adds more than a few Canadians also make reservations for their turkey dinner.
“I would say a lot of Canadians have adopted U.S. Thanksgiving. Let’s be honest — every Canadian store is celebrating Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or ‘Cyber Weekend’ sales now. There’s definitely been a crossover with our neighbours to the south, as far as the marketing and even people celebrating,” he told 1130 News Radio.
Destination Vancouver says more than 300,000 Americans visited the city in November 2023, and more than 180,000 stayed overnight.