The CEO of Tourism Kamloops says the easing of border restrictions in August to allow fully vaccinated American citizens and permanent residents into Canada in good news for the area.

Bev DeSantis says it is because American visitors are a big part of the Kamloops tourism economy.

“We have to measure that and balance that with resident’s sentiments. Our surveys have traditionally said ‘no, no, no.’ but now that we can hear the vaccination rates and the protocols for coming into the country, the sentiment is definitely shifting,” she said on the NL Morning News.

“So our residents are far more open to having our US visitors come back.”

DeSantis believes it could take as many as five years for things to fully recover after last year’s slowdowns due to COVID-19.

“Our industry is very excited to have them back but this isn’t an overnight fix,” she added. “We look forward to having those folks from our border states such as Washington travel through our great country and I know down in the eastern part of Canada – same thing.”

“We have always missed our US visitors. They are a big part of our tourism economy so this is very much a welcome step to start to rebuild the industry that’s been devastated by COVID.”

As it stands, fully vaccinated people from the rest of the world will be allowed to enter Canada on September 7.

Non-essential travel into Canada has been banned since March 2020, something the Canadian government said was necessary to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.