Tourists rolling with 2017 construction punches in Ottawa

Canada 150 is talked up as a tourism extravaganza for Ottawa, but Canada 149 is a different story.

Ongoing construction expected to be done by or in 2017 for Canada's 150th birthday includes landmarks such as the National War Memorial, the outside of the National Arts Centre and the West Block of Parliament Hill.

• Bulk of National Arts Centre renovation work starting in December
• National War Memorial to close to public during restoration
• Construction 'crunch' coming for Ottawa roads, transit, city warns

Many tourists said Monday they definitely notice the scaffolding, fencing and banging around these sites but they understand why and aren't too annoyed.

"We gather you've got your 150th birthday coming and you want to look nice, and also I presume you can't do too much in the winter. It's a tad cold," said Margaret Davidson from Australia, who stopped in Ottawa as part of a cross-country train trip.

"It doesn't bother us," said Kevin Gillis, who was visiting from Toronto.

"You have to make a mess before you make it beautiful."

Another Torontonian pointed out changes to roads and sidewalks do make it harder for people with mobility issues.

"I'm a bit of a guide for a couple of my friends who are visually impaired, some of the streets have been a little challenging with the uneven pavement and having to switch from one side of the road and back but we just kind of roll with it," said Michael Street.

Construction 'havoc'

Tour guides and companies said they're having to adjust their routes and routines this summer.

Etienne Cameron works for Lady Dive Tours, which takes tourists around on double-decker and amphibious buses, and described this summer as construction "havoc" that many visitors weren't expecting.

"I can tell a lot of tourists are a bit concerned — especially once they're on the double-deckers — when they go see the city," he said.

"Here (in Confederation Square) they kind of see it but once they go around the city they really see wow, everything is under construction."

"We think the proper time (for all the work) would be the off-season, now it's the busy season," said Zengxiang "Lucky" Lu as he took a group of Chinese classmates around Parliament Hill (but not around back to the view of the Ottawa River, because of construction).

Lu too said he and his tour group understand the reason for all the construction and are still having a good visit.

All part of tourism plan

The president and CEO of Ottawa Tourism said many projects were "accelerated" to be done in time for 2017.

"There are some projects that are causing some changes in traffic patterns and views and things like that but we know the long-term gain from all these projects is going to be fantastic for our community," said Michael Crockatt.

"We understand it can be an inconvenience sometimes but it's worth it."

Crockatt said the city has enough to offer that tourists will have plenty to see and do.

"There are some things that they won't be able to access at certain times this year but there's enough other things going on… this is a big enough tourism destination with enough variety of product on both sides of the river that there's always attractive things to do no matter what time of year it is and no matter what things might be under construction," he said

Ottawa 2017, the group co-ordinating the city's events next year, said Ottawa gets seven to eight million visitors per year on average and they want to boost that by 1.75 million in 2017.