Driving home to Colorado from his trip to Canada, Jim Payson decided to stop at the Emerson Duty Free Shop to buy some gifts and a bottle of Crown Royal. “This was the first time post-COVID that we met, so it was probably four years ago that I last met,” Payson said. Michael Resch, owner of the Emerson Duty Free Shop, said business was the worst it’s been in decades since it opened. “The last two years have been absolutely devastating with COVID and the borders being closed, so we’ve had almost no work,” he said. While the borders have reopened, tourism has not returned to normal. Resch said that on a Sunday before COVID-19 in the summer, his parking lot would be nearly full — a much different situation than now. “Well, you can see the odd car coming in. Most of them are American travelers. There are very few Canadians going out.” Resch said his sales are only a quarter of what they should be in a normal summer. The Frontier Duty Free Association (FDFA) says duty free shops across the country are hurting. In a recent report, its 17 members reported a 44.82 percent drop in sales in July compared to July 2019. An alarming number as July is the top month for sales. The report also found that peak holidays such as Independence Day and the August weekend were about the same. The association believes government barriers such as the ArriveCan application and vaccination requirements are preventing more tourists from crossing the border. “It’s only hurting tourism businesses, it’s hurting border towns and border community businesses more, so it’s doing more harm than good,” said Barbara Barrett, FDFA executive director. The FDFA is now calling on the feds to scrap the app, hoping it will encourage people to travel. “It’s important not only to myself,” Resch said, “It’s important to the workers. It’s important to the economy.”
