At Ruthcliffe Lodge in Isle La Motte, the six lakeside rooms are booking up faster than owners Mark and Kathy Infante have seen in years.
“There’s a lot of built-up demand out there,” said Mark, who has owned the bed-and-breakfast since 1985. “It’s going to be a good summer.”
The Infantes and others who work in the Lake Champlain Islands’ tourism industry say they expect a busy summer season. That’s due in no small part to the influx of visitors they’re expecting from Canada, who largely couldn’t cross the border the last two summers because of Covid-19 restrictions. The border reopened to non-essential travel in the fall of 2021.
Passenger traffic into the U.S. across five major Vermont land ports decreased by almost 85% from 2019 to 2020, and about 45% from 2020 to 2021, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data.
That same data shows cross-border passenger traffic has increased significantly since: Between January and April 2021, about 25,500 people crossed into Vermont, while more than 175,000 people made that trip in the first four months of 2022.
At Shore Acres Inn and Restaurant in North Hero — where Canadians have historically accounted for as much as a third of annual business — the increase in cross-border traffic has been welcome news, reports general manager Jason Hanny.
“We’re starting to see our rooms booking out, big time,” Hanny said.
Andy Julow, executive director of the Lake Champlain Islands Economic Development Corp., said he’s heard the same story from many local businesses that he heard last year: Bookings abound, yet concerns linger over hiring enough staff.
Mark Infante said Ruthcliffe Lodge reduced the number of days a week it’s open from seven to five during the pandemic, which has allowed it to operate even with some positions vacant, including a line cook to help out in the kitchen.
The bed-and-breakfast has more staff today than it has had in several years, Infante said. But he will still need to train some younger workers to help out in new roles.
Infante said he does not expect to pay any staff members less than $15 an hour this summer, which he feels is competitive with other small businesses in the state.
He and his wife have discussed raising staff salaries, perhaps to $20 an hour to match what Vail Resorts recently announced it will pay at its Vermont facilities. But they’re worried that would further increase costs to their customers.
The Infantes have already raised their room rates “probably as high as we can go right now,” Infante said. The minimum wage in Vermont is $12.55 per hour.
He also noted that the inn’s Isle La Motte location may be too remote for some workers to consider.
Another challenge for attracting employees to Grand Isle County, according to Julow, is the lack of rental housing in its five towns. As someone who grew up on the islands, Julow has seen affordable summer rentals converted into year-round housing, or short-term rentals to be listed on websites such as Airbnb.
In Grand Isle County, less than 15% of housing units are renter-occupied, according to 2020 American Community Survey data. The statewide average is almost double that.
What’s more, about 85% of housing on the islands consists of only a single unit, the 2020 survey data shows.
This lack of rental housing, coupled with few transportation options for getting on and off the islands, is “a huge challenge” for attracting a summer workforce, said Catherine Dimitruk, executive director of the Northwest Regional Planning Commission.
The only public transportation serving the islands, she noted, is a Green Mountain Transit bus route that has one daily route each way, Monday through Friday, between Alburgh and St. Albans.
Dimitruk added that one barrier to building new housing on the Champlain Islands is a lack of municipal sewer service. New projects, such as the 30 units of senior housing currently under construction in South Hero, often require their own septic systems.
South Hero, for its part, is in the early stages of studying the feasibility of building a community wastewater system in its two village zoning districts along Route 2.
However, not all island businesses are struggling to find staff. Hanny, the Shore Acres Inn manager, said he’s received far more applications for the summer than he has positions to fill. That was hardly the case last June, when he told VTDigger that he was surprised at how few inquiries he had gotten for vacant positions.
Other venues, such as Champlain Adult Campground in the town of Grand Isle, are small enough to be run by family members and so haven’t felt a staffing crunch.
Owner Emma Rancoud-Guillon said bookings at the campground have been steady throughout the pandemic, and she expects a strong summer this year.
That’s also how Julie Lane, who owns Snow Farm Vineyard in South Hero and the nearby Snow Farm Inn, is feeling about the months to come.
Lane has fielded a record number of calls seeking bookings this year, she said, and the venue is slated to host more weddings this summer than in any previous year.
After two years of the pandemic, people in Vermont’s wedding industry have told VTDigger it’s shaping up to be a busy year for couples to tie the knot.
“We’re having a boom,” Lane said.
