50 Street (Centennial Street) in Sylvan Lake (rdnewsNOW/Troy Gillard)

By Sheldon Spackman

plenty of feedback

Survey reveals COVID-19 impact on Sylvan Lake businesses

May 28, 2020 | 12:18 PM

New survey results indicate a large majority of businesses in Sylvan Lake are experiencing negative impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The survey, conducted by the Town of Sylvan Lake’s economic development department, Sylvan Lake Tourism and the Sylvan Lake Chamber of Commerce, ran from April 14-30 and yielded 133 responses. It revealed roughly 85 per cent of local businesses were experiencing a negative impact from the crisis.

The results also show nearly 78 per cent of Sylvan Lake businesses point to a sudden loss in revenue as being the biggest impact COVID-19 has had on their business.

Nearly half admitted their current business model is unable to adapt to serving customers without physically being open.

Amanda Mercer, economic development officer with the Town of Sylvan Lake, says the survey’s objective was to check in with local businesses and let them know the Town was available to support them in various ways.

mayor hopes to meet housing minister this month

Alberta demands Ottawa back off on housing funding stripped from Red Deer

23h ago

Last seen Jan. 15

Missing: Courtney Cattleman, 17, of Maskwacis

Apr 02, 2026

eyes up

Air Spray training around Red Deer Regional Airport

Apr 02, 2026

“We also wanted to collect some data to understand the challenges facing the businesses in our community right now,” she explains. “And also inform them of local economic resiliency initiatives, and educate them about supports and support organizations available to help through the federal and provincial governments.”

Mercer acknowledges that businesses have been hit hard with only 48 per cent currently serving customers, albeit on a reduced scale, and 69 per cent trimming their staff levels. Cash flow was identified as the top immediate need.

“As expected of course, when you close down any economy, there’s going to be implications,” says Mercer. “The big take-away for us, was just that we have a really strong and resilient business community here and we wanted to be able to figure out different ways we could help them. So our next steps in this process are to actually put the final touches on our Business Resilience Strategy and move forward on some initiatives with that in the coming weeks.”

Mercer points out that the Town has done some things already in that respect.

“Based on information collected, we recognized right away a few challenges that the community was facing,” adds Mercer. “So we developed the Virtual Business Resource Centre, which is an online page on our website which just overviews all of the resources available. There is a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) list for local businesses, so any of our local businesses who are supplying personal protective equipment.”

Dave Phillips, President of the Sylvan Lake Chamber of Commerce, says this is definitely a time where people have had to dig deep, get creative, and make strategic decisions for their business while they were also dealing with the impact of the pandemic on their family.

“I’m proud of the creativity and resiliency of our local businesses over-all,” says Phillips. “I’d say that the mood changes daily. Certainly when the government started to open the economy and the sun started shining again, people began to feel optimistic – but cautiously optimistic.”

Phillips highlights that one of the items on the list of “needs” is marketing.

“Recently the Chamber launched the Sylvan Lake Town App and we are using that platform to let our members market their business during Covid-19,” he explains. “We are also working with the Town and the Chamber organization on on-going surveys and the solutions that come out of them. We encourage people to download the Sylvan Lake Town App on Android/Apple Store to find out how our local businesses are doing business, specials and what is happening in Sylvan Lake.”

Mercer says the Town just wants to look for solutions that make sense for the community.

“I just want to thank all the businesses in the community who participated in the survey and those who have reached out. We’ve certainly seen the best in people through these challenging times and appreciate all that they do.”