I am responsible for the Conférence économique de l'industrie touristique québécoise, a group that brings together a dozen men and women who own businesses in the tourism sector. I will tell you that, when I ran last week's meeting, the mood wasn't exactly great. However, the government's announcements about the easing of restrictions are providing some relief.
A number of businesses are on their knees. Many once-thriving businesses have had to go millions of dollars into debt. Small businesses weren't necessarily the only ones scraping by before the pandemic. In many cases, businesses with significant strategic infrastructure, big companies and big employers are worse off than they were pre-pandemic. I won't name them, but some companies that had up to 250 employees are now down to 60 or so.
As everyone knows, last summer, businesses in some regions did quite well during that specific period of time, but overall, businesses are in worse shape financially. Since the lion's share of tourism revenue this summer will come from local tourists, we expect the fall to be tough.