Industry Committee on Dec. 7th, 2009

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Can I have order, please?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It is kind of serious. We invite witnesses to come from across this country and give testimony here. It's not to have bantering among ourselves about previous questions. They've spent their time and energy to come here. We're here to receive their expert testimony, not to hear the Conservatives try to once again--

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

We'll let Mr. Lake continue.

Just keep to the facts. Thank you.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

On that point of order, I want to make sure my time was stopped for this. Good. Thank you.

There is a relevant point here to be made. The fact of the matter is that inaction by the previous government had a tremendous negative impact on legitimate potential visitors to Canada. Nobody is disadvantaged more than constituents in areas like mine--and those of other honourable members--where there are significant populations of first-generation Canadians whose family members have difficulty coming here because of the bad apples who abuse the system. Of course, Minister Kenney has taken significant measures to address this issue, and there will be long-term benefits to those who wish to visit Canada and spend money in our country. So I've said my piece on that.

On some of the testimony, the Canadian Tourism Commission talked about the Olympics in their opening statement. I want to focus on not only the short-term impact of the Olympics on visitors to Canada, but the long-term impact.

I had an opportunity to do an interview on a Chinese television station. They're going to run a promotional piece during the Olympics to focus on Canada as a tourist destination for the long term. Stephen Colbert, on his show yesterday, talked about coming to Canada and kind of made light of a situation involving American athletes. But it could do wonders to have him come here and talk about Canada as a place to visit.

Maybe you can talk about the long-term impact of an event like the Olympics on the Canadian tourism industry.

[Michele McKenzie]

Thank you.

The long term is really the focus of the CTC's strategy for the Olympics, working with the industry. We've learned a lot from other countries that have hosted the Olympics before us, especially Australia. They felt their strategy had really worked well to deepen travellers' understanding of the types of experiences they could have in Australia, but they stopped at the games. They failed to convert that increased interest into more visitors and more sales. So we've learned from that.

The strategy we have goes right through to 2012. It starts on the day the games end and implements a sales strategy. So all of the experiences we'll be highlighting during the coverage of the games are ones that people can have here in Canada and buy on our website. All of the industry has been very engaged in that work.

We are not marketing the games themselves. VANOC is marketing the games. We're taking advantage of the fact that far fewer than 1% of the people who will be watching the games will be doing so in British Columbia. The other more than 99% will be watching the games through some kind of media. That's where our influence will be.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

All right.

Christopher, do you want to comment on that at all?

[Christopher Jones]

In a more general sense, this touches on the issue of Canada's hosting policy for large events. The members will know that Toronto has just been awarded the Pan-American Games, which is a real feather in our cap. My colleague in the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance is fond of saying that this is an industry that's growing; it's almost counter-cyclical to the rest of the tourism industry, the holding of major sporting events, and then the associated economic activity that comes from visitors, athletes, and their families spending money.

So I would strongly encourage the government to look at building on the Olympics and moving out towards the Pan-Am Games make sure that in our hosting policy they--the federal government--work through Canadian Sport Tourism and Sport Canada, and with different communities and provinces, to make sure that more of these kinds of games and events are held in Canada, because they are very beneficial to the local economic development.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lake. Now we'll continue with Mr. Vincent.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We know that the Olympic Games are about to start. I would like to know what kind of activities each of your associations will be carrying out to promote Canada's other provinces during the Olympic Games and during the program held in Vancouver.

Do you have the resources or have you set up anything to say that, since many people are coming from a number of countries, it is time to promote Canada's attractions? Vancouver is very nice and the Olympic Games as well, but there are other things elsewhere, and I'd like to know what you've done about that and what you intend to do.

[Michele McKenzie]

Thank you.

The strategy during the games is to feature all of Canada. So we are taking advantage of the fact that the media will be shining their light on Canada and they'll be looking for stories about Canada. The world's in love with the idea of Canada, but they don't really understand all the experiences you can have here from a tourism point of view. So this is our opportunity to tell the world those stories.

We've developed partnerships with all the provinces and territories. Every single province and territory has put money on the table to buy into our program. We've been out with teams shooting stories, shooting new high definition footage, shooting new still shots, shooting social media stories, and we have all of those stories ready to give to the official broadcasters. So we're working with all the official broadcasters in all the countries to tell all of Canada's story. I have to say that at the CTC we're very focused on this being Canada's games. We want to deliver on the promise that this was bid as Canada's games, and that this will be delivered as Canada's games, and the tourism impacts will be for all of Canada.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Pollard, would you have anything to add?

[Anthony Pollard]

I don't have any further comment. I leave all the promotion in that area to Ms. Mackenzie and her CTC team.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

All right.

It's the same for you? Perfect. Then I'll continue in the same vein.

Mr. Jones, earlier you spoke about labour and Mexican labour for your industry. You said that there was a problem in getting those people back.

Can you tell me why that is such a problem? Why do Canadian or Quebec workers avoid those jobs and why do you favour Mexicans for those jobs? Why do Quebeckers and Canadians avoid those jobs?

[Anthony Pollard]

It's interesting. Under the temporary foreign worker program, you have to demonstrate to the bureaucrats that you've gone out and tried to hire a Canadian. You have to show an advertisement to prove that you've actually advertised in the media. The problem we have is that we do not have sufficient numbers of people, particularly in the resort areas.

We don't have a major problem here, for example, in Ottawa, or in Toronto or Vancouver. Yes, there is a little bit of a problem, but where is the biggest problem? You can go to Mont Tremblant, for example, or the Muskokas, or the Jasper/Lake Louise/Banff area, or Whistler. In those places you've got 4,000 or 5,000 hotel bedrooms, and how many people live in Saint Jovite? There aren't very many; it's maybe 3,000 or 4,000 people. The Fairmont hotel group literally buses people in every day from Montreal. They drive up the Laurentian Autoroute to bring housekeepers to make up rooms at the Fairmont Tremblant.

We would be delighted to be able to have Canadians doing these jobs, and it's not a matter of benefits or salaries or all of those things; there just aren't the numbers. We opened a JW Marriott resort in Muskoka last spring, but we had to keep two floors closed. Why? Because we didn't have people to make up the rooms. We don't have sufficient numbers of people in the right places at any given time, Monsieur Vincent. That's what it comes down to, and it's going to get worse again.

Is it Mexicans? I was talking to a chap today out at Lake Louise. When I mentioned to him that he seemed to have a lot of people from the Philippines there, he said that in fact they were doing very well right now with people from Brazil. So what part of the world it is doesn't really matter; we just need to be able to keep the service levels up.

Michele McKenzie is talking about the experience here in Canada. Well, if we don't have the people to be able to take care of the rooms, we have a big problem.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Thank you very much, Mr. Vincent.

We'll now continue with Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for coming this afternoon. This is proving to be a very interesting discussion again, and one that never ceases to amaze me in terms of some of the facts I'm hearing.

Joyce, you were saying that for every million dollars, how many employees are generally hired?

[Joyce Reynolds]

There will be 27.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

There are 27 for every million dollars in sales. That's significant. I hope we've caught that. I think we probably have, Mr. Shaw. That's a number I think we definitely need to put into our records.

I know tourism has many facets. It's not just the people who come down and take pictures; tourism includes conferences and a number of other areas. However, I think we all have to agree that although we're excited about broadening our scope--the government brochure shows how many countries we're attracting tourism from and where our main groups are--the American is still our biggest tourist.

Can you tell me what percentage of tourism comes from the U.S.A.?

[Michele McKenzie]

It's about 75% of visitation, and almost 50% of our revenue.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

It's 50% of our revenue. Is that because the others we've targeted are big-ticket tourists and are spending more money?

[Michele McKenzie]

No. Primarily it's because we have a larger number of short-term stays coming from the U.S. People who are coming from markets further away are coming for longer periods of time. That's the primary dynamic in that number.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I'm curious. When I was a youngster, I lived in southwestern Ontario. That was many years ago. Southwestern Ontario is where the busiest border is. Mr. Masse is in Windsor, and I lived just down the road from that. As a matter of fact, my dad had a gas station, and I can remember that when I was a kid we lived off the American tourists in the summertime. They would come in in droves to camp.

How much of that have we lost? Is it because of the thickening of the border? What else is it? Is there another reason?

[Michele McKenzie]

We see all kinds of dynamics at play there, but that is the market that has been hardest hit. It's the drive market closest to the border coming to Canada. So you feel that, especially in that Golden Horseshoe and Windsor area and certainly coming up into Quebec and Montreal. All of those areas have felt that.

The traffic that is off the most is same-day travel, people who come to Canada for the day and go back home. That business is off by more than 50% when you compare it to the early 2000s. When you start to look at overnight travel and the folks who are more the traditional tourists, the numbers tend to get better, and the further you get away from the border, they're better yet. So we've had the most trouble closest to the border.

What we've seen in that number is that primarily, fewer of those folks were international travellers. Maybe Canada was the only place they ever travelled to internationally. They're the folks who are not as inclined to want to get a passport, and they also saw that there were alternatives to the types of experiences they could have in Canada closer to home. The U.S. was marketing very aggressively for that business as well. Combine that with some of the economic situations in those markets and it kind of conspires to create a difficult situation.

We've been fighting the passport issue for some years now. To the extent that people have heard the word “passport” in the media, they thought you already needed a passport to come to Canada. So it has been a difficulty for us for some long period of time, and we've been responding to that by moving a bit further away from the border in terms of our marketing effort and targeting air travellers, who tend to have passports and tend to travel more internationally.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I was in the car business before I did this, and we learned really quickly that it was great to do the repairs, the big repairs, but if you weren't getting the oil changes and the grease jobs and the tire changes, you would slowly lose that crowd. I'm thinking that possibly the same thing would be true in the tourist industry, that if you aren't getting those people who just come across for the day trip, you're not going to get them for the long trip.

Are we focusing enough attention to help to remedy that and zeroing in on problems that are causing the shrinkage in those areas? Are we doing enough work there?

[Michele McKenzie]

In September 2009 the automobile traffic was up 14% year over year, from September 2008, so that was a very positive sign. And air travel was down for that month. So we think that we've hit the bottom in terms of where automobile travel will go, and we'll grow back now. We think we have great destinations just across the border, and as Americans become more accustomed to the idea of a passport and they have passports, we think that traffic will come back to some extent. Some of it will be gone. We think that's probably a structural change, but with smart marketing, I think we could bring some of that market back.