Montreal-area high school trips to Europe cancelled over coronavirus fears

Students at two English-language high schools in the greater Montreal region should have been packing their bags and checking in online for their long-awaited graduation trip to Europe by now.

They were set to depart Thursday, but because of concerns about the coronavirus outbreak in Italy, their trips have been called off or postponed.

'We couldn't ensure the safety of our students and our staff," said Maxeen Jolin, who works for the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board.

Parents of Secondary 5 students at the Laurier board's Laval Senior Academy started calling the board  as soon as the news broke about the spread of the virus in Italy, she said. The board decided to cancel the trip Tuesday.

The English Montreal School Board decided not to cancel, but to postpone a trip by 40 Westmount High School students to Greece and Italy that was also set for Thursday. 

"We felt it was the prudent thing to do," said Michael Cohen, spokesperson for the English Montreal school board.

"It's no doubt a tough decision. Kids were looking forward to this trip." 

They will go in June, instead, after high school exams.

No travel advisory issued

The government of Canada has not issued an advisory warning against travel to Italy due to the coronavirus, telling Canadians simply to take normal safety precautions, while exercising a high degree of caution in northern Italy.

Still, the Sir Wilfrid Laurier board decided not to take the risk, even if the majority of the trip was to be outside of Italy, Jolin said.

"There had been a flurry of emails from parents on a group email chat," Pamela Burke, a Laval resident whose son was supposed to go on the trip, told CBC Montreal's Daybreak. 

"There was a lot of concern, a lot of panic." 

However, once the decision was made to cancel, a lot more emails came in from parents who wanted the trip to go ahead, Burke said. Their main concern is how they're going to be reimbursed.

The travel agency responsible for both boards' trips, EF Educational Tours, said in a statement it has rerouted groups that were scheduled to travel to or near the quarantined towns.

The EMSB's Cohen said Laurier MacDonald High School in Saint-Léonard, whose students are already on a trip to France and Italy, was able to work with the company to switch out the Italy portion of the planned trip for Switzerland, instead.

EF Educational tours said it's allowing groups that were scheduled to travel to the most impacted regions through March 31 to rebook without penalty.

Burke said she was told if parents had bought cancellation insurance from the tour group, then they would be entitled to all but the $200 deposit.

"They sent me just the forms this morning," Burke said. "It's a little odd because they say it has to be from illness or death, and I don't really see the checkbox for school board cancellation, but I'll have to look into that."

Parents don't want travel vouchers

EF Educational Tours said its policy allows groups to be refunded in the form of a travel voucher, right up to the day of departure.

"A lot of parents are saying 'it wasn't my decision, and I don't want a voucher because I will never use this voucher,'" said Burke. She said they're disappointed, because they weren't given much information about their options.

"People were saying 'why couldn't we just remove Italy from the trip and see other parts?'" 

Jolin said two other Europe trips organized by the Laurier board's schools that do not have a stop in Italy remain scheduled, but the board will be monitoring the situation in Europe to see how it evolves.

Burke says her son is disappointed.

"His two older brothers have done a similar trip in their senior year," she said. "They were telling him 'too bad, because it was a great trip. So you're missing out on a lot.'"

"I don't think that helped."

Tourism concerns

The impact of fears about the spread of the coronavirus in Italy is already being felt in the tourism industry there, Paula Papini Cook told Daybreak.

Papini Cook, who is originally from Saint-Bruno, Que., now runs a vacation rental and boutique winery in Tuscany.

"People are still reacting quite strongly because of misinformation, or they don't quite understand how the virus is spreading and how concerned they should be about it," she said.

Papina Cook said it's low season right now, and most of her bookings are from April onwards, but she's still worried about the impact of fears over the virus.

Tuscany is hundreds of kilometres from Italy's most affected regions, but she says people are simply concerned about the unknown.

"People are starting to be afraid of Italy," she said.

"At present, even the information that we receive is that there's no reason to panic."