Yes, it was a late night, and it's a good morning.
It's a pleasure to be here. We're finally recognizing tourism as an economic driver and hence making the strategic investments.
For every dollar we invest in Destination Canada, the crown corporation leverages $1.10 from partner co-investments, resulting in $1.5 billion in attributable tourism export revenue in 2016 alone. We know that the tourism industry is 2% of GDP, supporting 200,000 businesses and over 1.7 million jobs in Canada from coast to coast to coast.
The revenues are there. What's not happened in the past is investment in the tourism industry. Destination Canada had some cuts to it.
Budget 2017 gives it basically long-term funding, $37.5 million a year, and then the other money is from programs like connecting America, the millennial travel program, and so forth.