Metro Vancouver businesses grapple with drop in customers due to coronavirus fears
Credit to Author: Joanne Lee-Young| Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2020 02:11:43 +0000
B.C. public health officials are stressing there are only a small number of local cases of coronavirus, known as COVID-19, and that transmission rates are low, but concerns about spreading the illness are having an impact on local businesses.
“Nobody was walking in. We looked at the sales and were shocked,” said Nelson Lam, regional manager for Taiwanese bubble tea brand Xing Fu Tang, which has eight locations across Metro Vancouver, as well as in the U.S., the U.K. and across southeast Asia.
In Metro, business has dropped by an average of 20 per cent, with some locations seeing much steeper declines, said Lam.
“We have had to give some food rebates to franchise owners or charge them less for ingredients to help them get through this period.”
Travel agents have also been grappling. Julia Chen, manager at Nexus Holidays Vancouver, which has offices in Burnaby and Richmond, has been organizing refunds from airlines, rebooking hotels, and redirecting vacations to alternate destinations in Europe.
Some customers “are more cautious … especially those who are spending a lot of time on (Chinese-language social media platforms like) WeChat, (and there is) definitely a slowdown in new bookings.”
Lam agreed that WeChat and other sites have made it easy for messages, images and reports to circulate quickly, even though group chat members may be in either B.C. or China.
This has impacted how some people in Metro Vancouver are reacting to the coronavirus outbreak, said Lam, although he added “people have settled a little and are starting to come back.”
Business has also been down at Aberdeen Centre, a large Asian mall in Richmond, according to Joey Kwan, director of promotions. She is planning to bring in health experts for an information session at the mall in the coming weeks and hopes organizing educational programs will allay concerns and bring back customers.
Worry is being driven because the “information stored in Chinese channels is very different than in English channels,” said Kevin Huang, who is co-founder of the Vancouver-based community non-profit Hua Foundation. Huang added that “embroiled in all of this, is information we don’t have from China, and a mistrust of the information we do have.”
“When I talk to English-speaking audiences who might not know the transnational angle (of the current coronavirus outbreak) so much, I hear them saying, ‘Meh, it’s a thing.’”
But for those who have past experiences with epidemics such as SARS or who have “information channels, whether through family businesses or friends or contacts in Hong Kong, Taiwan or China, there is a lot of misinformation and rumours,” as well as higher transmission rates and infection.
“(The thinking is) ‘why put (the rest of my) family (or friends) at risk if I don’t know many things for certain.’ There are so many unknowns.”
Chen, the travel agent, said some of her managers recently returning from China have chosen to self-quarantine, which is beyond what federal and provincial health advisories are suggesting.
“They really cared because they wanted to give us peace of mind,” she said.