Hello, everyone.
Thank you for inviting me to speak to the committee today.
I'd like to acknowledge that I'm joining you from the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples today—the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam nations.
I'll be providing today's remarks primarily in English, but I'll also say a few words in French.
French is my second language. As part of my appointment, I have committed to improving upon my French skills—it's a commitment that I take very seriously.
Both official languages are spoken widely throughout the organization. I am exceptionally proud of the team, 35% of whom are bilingual.
I have spent seven years, so far, serving the tourism sector, first at a provincial level and now federally.
Never has our country or the world faced such a dire situation across a sector, a sector that employs 1 in 10 Canadians or 1.9 million people in all corners of our country, contributing $44 billion in annual GDP.
While I recognize that my invitation today is to introduce myself and to address my recent appointment as Destination Canada's president and CEO, I feel it is important that I share some of the background of our sector as a whole because it's why, in part, I chose to serve this sector and what compelled me to apply for this position.
My career spans executive leadership roles in strategy and organizational renewal, marketing and communications, corporate social responsibility, operations management and business innovation. I've worked with enterprises in many of Canada's flagship industries, but I found my true calling in tourism.
I joined Destination British Columbia as president and CEO in 2013. At that time, it was a newly formed provincial Crown corporation. I led ground-breaking strategies for tourism development and nationally recognized data-driven performance-marketing programs.
These efforts were done very much in collaboration with Destination Canada, as well as our provincial, regional and city partners, all of us part of team Canada in the tourism space.
When the position of president and CEO came up at Destination Canada, I was compelled to put my name forward, knowing the challenges that lie ahead for the sector. But I would say an even greater motivator are the opportunities at hand.
I genuinely believe that tourism improves the quality of life for all Canadians. It supports the restaurants and the entertainment we enjoy, the art galleries and museums we visit, the festivals and aquariums we take our kids to, and a huge diversity of local jobs that cannot be exported. From hotel workers to helicopter pilots, tourism is Canada’s biggest employer of young people and women.
Right now the sector is at risk of losing more than half of the jobs in the visitor economy. After five years of growth—and having been poised for a decade more of strong growth—we are forecasting that the sector will not recover to 2019 levels until 2024.
Tourism revenues are uniquely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The summer season represents the core revenue generator for the industry, and it was devastated. The impacts are extremely far-reaching. Consider wonderful events in our social sphere, such as the Calgary Stampede, the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, the Sunrise Festival in Inuvik and so many others that have been cancelled.
Consider the wider set of sectors that are integral to tourism, including airlines, cruises and hospitality. Those are largely closed or operating at huge losses. These sectors fuel the florist, the farmer, the fisher and the festival-goer. Tourism creates a ripple of economic, socio-cultural and environmental benefits, in communities big and small, all across our nation.
Since the onset of the pandemic, the work at Destination Canada has evolved very quickly. Normally, it is our role to focus primarily on the export side of tourism’s service economy, to lead international marketing, to drive demand and to provide research for industry and government intelligence.
We immediately realized that recovery would begin at a very hyper-local level and made $30 million available for domestic marketing by providing funds to our provincial and territorial partners—who matched it dollar-for-dollar—to maintain our presence and support of local communities.
We have also shifted focus domestically working with our partners.
We know that, in 2019, Canadian travellers injected $40 billion abroad. Our current environment presents a huge opportunity to capture what is typically taken offshore.
We've continued to supply our industry and our government with timely data and forecasts to support their decision-making and policy-making. Internationally, we are now focused on maintaining our key account relationships to ensure that Canada remains top of mind in our supply chain when international travel can safely resume.
For tourism, recovery presents a national challenge that calls for deep collaboration at all levels of industry and government to fully realize and regain its future potential. Today we can reimagine our industry to be a more competitive sector in future, one that can be an even more powerful force for good for communities and people across our nation.
Thank you.