Industry Committee on June 22nd, 2021

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

I have no further questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

MP May, thank you so much for being with us today. This is incredibly important legislation and we are looking forward to hearing more about it when we resume in the fall. Thank you for being very clear on the need. It is obvious that this is something that consumers need and consumers want. Given environmental concerns and given concerns of pricing, this is a really good idea.

With that, we will suspend momentarily while we allow the next panel to join us and do some sound checks, and allow Mr. May to leave.

Thank you so much.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much, everybody.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

I'll call this meeting back to order.

I won't go over the normal procedures, as I know our witnesses were with us a little earlier. This is just a gentle reminder, though, that when you see the little yellow card, that means you have 30 seconds remaining. The red card means that the time is up.

With that, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, June 3, 2021, the committee is meeting to begin a study of the order-in-council appointment of Monique Gomel, interim chair of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Today we have with us Ms. Monique Gomel, interim chair of the board of directors, and Ms. Marsha Walden, president and CEO.

We will allow you to present for five minutes, after which we will go to rounds of questions.

With that, I turn the floor over to you.

[Monique Gomel, Interim Chair of the Board of Directors, Canadian Tourism Commission]

Hello, and thank you for inviting me to speak to the committee today.

My name is Monique Gomel, and I am the interim chair of Destination Canada’s board of directors. I am joined by Marsha Walden, president and CEO of Destination Canada.

I would like to acknowledge that I am joining you from Vancouver, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples: the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam nations.

I was appointed interim chair in March of this year. However, I've been vice‑chair of the board of directors since 2017. I'm also a senior vice president at Rocky Mountaineer, where I oversee global marketing, communications, data and insights, and sales operations.

Today I would like to give you a brief overview of my role as interim chair, the state of the tourism sector in Canada and Destination Canada's near- and longer-term plans.

First, as interim chair of the board, I work collaboratively with a team of eight directors with tourism experience from small business owners to renowned entrepreneurs to former executives from multinational corporations.

The government has appointed some of Canada's best and brightest tourism business leaders to help provide strategic advice to the executive team and the president and CEO of Destination Canada. Directors are actively involved in long-term strategic planning, prioritization of objectives, financial oversight and risk management. The board assures itself that appropriate systems of governance, leadership and stewardship are in place while empowering the executive team to manage the organization.

Before I provide an overview of the state of the sector as a whole, I would like to share my perspective as an operator. In my role as senior vice president of Rocky Mountaineer, a Canadian luxury rail company, I'm seeing firsthand the devastation of the COVID‑19 pandemic on our business. We weren't able to operate in 2020, and we've delayed the start of our 2021 season.

The impact of the pandemic on tourism is greater than that experienced after 9/11, SARS and the 2008 crisis combined. Women, youth, immigrants and indigenous workers, who make up the engine of the visitor economy, have been the hardest hit by the impact of COVID-19 due to reduced operations, business closures and job losses.

We are forecasting that the sector [Technical difficulty—Editor] until 2024.

At this point in my presentation, I would like to acknowledge that the speed and scale of the government's response to the pandemic has never before been seen in times of peace.

The government has provided over $15 billion in federal government investments to support tourism in the past year. This includes important programs like the Canada emergency wage subsidy program and the highly affected sectors credit availability program. There was also robust support for Canada's tourism sector in budget 2021, which, I will note, still needs to pass the House and Senate, including an additional $100 million to Destination Canada for marketing.

While government subsidy programs are helpful for survival, recovery can only happen when revenues return.

The good news is that, although the sector is struggling now, we're seeing strong signals of future demand. Our latest research shows upward trends in feelings of safety about travel and a greater willingness of communities to welcome visitors.

With these signs of hope, Destination Canada is focusing its strategy to help revive market revenue in the near term and support a thriving and resilient industry that delivers net benefits to communities in the long term.

A key part of our plan to revive revenue is a multiphased domestic campaign that reflects the evolution of health restrictions. Recent research from Destination Canada finds that, if Canadians shift two-thirds of their typical spending on international travel towards domestic tourism this year, it will make up for the estimated $19-billion shortfall in international visitation. It will also support 150,000 jobs and help accelerate recovery by a full year. Simply put, we need Canadians to keep their holiday dollars in Canada this year to speed up our sector's recovery.

In its early stages, our campaign aims to increase Canadians' understanding of the importance of travel to their communities, inspire confidence and a desire to travel domestically, and finally to reignite the welcoming spirit of Canadians from coast to coast.

While our industry is first and foremost concerned with protecting the health of our employees and guests, we are eager to welcome travellers again. When the time is right, we will start introducing more aggressive calls to action and encourage Canadians to book their travel. We are also key in our international markets, ensuring that Canada stays top of mind for business and leisure travel alike when it is safe to do so. The efforts are now intensifying.

In order to help our industry ready itself to reopen and compete in a ferocious marketplace, we are hearing three main areas of concern.

They are seeking clarity around reopening milestones—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

I'll give you a few more minutes to conclude, if you could. Thank you.

[Monique Gomel]

Thank you.

They are seeking clarity around reopening milestones, consistency in protocols between levels of government and between countries, and the need for governments to move with urgency to save the 2021 season. No business can survive two summers without revenue.

As you will appreciate, much of Destination Canada's strength is found in the relationship it has with its partners, including provincial and territorial counterparts, the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada and the private sector partners.

As the interim chair of the board of directors of Destination Canada, I am confident our work will elevate Canada's competitiveness as a tourism destination, enabling Canadian culture to thrive and place-based regenerative economies to emerge.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, Ms. Gomel.

With that, we will start our rounds of questions.

Our first round of six minutes goes to MP Baldinelli. You have the floor.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to Ms. Gomel and Ms. Walden for being here.

First of all, congratulations to you, Ms. Gomel, on your appointment as our interim chair of the board for Destination Canada. Both you and Ms. Walden have assumed your responsibilities during truly one of the most devastating times, with impacts that we've never seen on our Canadian tourism sector. I appreciate the work that you're doing and that your team is doing. I look forward to asking some questions, working with you and seeing what we can do about assisting that recovery that we all want to see in the tourism marketplace going forward.

Moving forward, you did talk about working with those eight directors. I was wondering if you could quickly just update us on the number of vacancies still on the board that need to be filled for Destination Canada.

[Monique Gomel]

Absolutely, yes. There are six vacancies to be filled. I was part of a committee of four who completed over 30 interviews during the last month. We've presented a letter to the minister with our recommendations. That's where it's currently sitting.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

That's very timely and good to know. Thank you, Ms. Gomel.

As you know, I'm from Niagara Falls and the Niagara region. Niagara is Canada's top leisure tourism destination. We have some 40,000 employees and 16,000 hotel rooms. We generate about $2.4 billion in tourism receipts alone. The government just committed $1 billion for assistance to tourism, while Niagara generates on its own $2.4 billion.

For 11 years, Niagara was proud to have a representative on that board to speak to the importance of that sector, of that [Technical difficulty—Editor] and as the number one leisure tourism destination, of having that voice on the board. I just wanted to see if I could get your opinion on whether you believe Niagara should still have a seat at the table of the Destination Canada board.

[Monique Gomel]

Thank you for the question.

With the committee, we were really looking for a diversity of representation across the country. We were looking for the most highly competent and skilled people in terms of tourism and the value they could bring.

I certainly think that Niagara is an extremely important region for tourism in Canada. I do believe that we've considered several candidates from the region.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I look forward to seeing that list submitted and those names put forward. I truly believe that if Niagara is not represented on that board, then we're doing a disservice, not only to the tourism industry in Canada but to those 40,000 hard-working people in my tourism destination.

Quickly, I want to shift to the domestic tourism funding that you had alluded to. According to the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, prior to COVID, we were a $105-billion sector, responsible for 1.8 million workers—one in 10 Canadians. That almost immediately ceased.

Can you explain how Destination Canada has been working to shift its marketing focus to our domestic travel market to try to begin the tourism recovery that's needed?

[Monique Gomel]

Certainly. You're absolutely right. We've pivoted to a mostly domestic plan, given the current times. We're very sensitive to the health restrictions and have aligned our activities with those restrictions as they unfold. The first step for us has really been to communicate the importance of tourism for communities across Canada and to increase that understanding of the visitor economy among Canadians.

Second, we've begun to do more work towards inspiring confidence in travel as restrictions open up, by communicating all of the safety measures that our operators have taken across the country.

Third, we are working to reignite that welcoming spirit for visitors among Canadians. The second stage, as restrictions start to open up, will be to be more aggressive in terms of offers that we put out there for Canadians to increase conversion and to really get them to book trips across the country.

Fourth, we are still keeping a presence in international markets to ensure that we remain top of mind during this time, and that our brand remains strong among those international guests when the time is right for them to travel back.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you for going on that one point, about keeping Canada and the notion of Canada alive in the international marketplace. I was looking at your 2020 annual report. You mentioned you'd quickly pivoted last year because of COVID and took about $31.4 million towards national, which [Technical difficulty—Editor] market dollars. Then you took that and put it into the domestic marketplace.

I'm wondering. This year, in terms of your investments and so on, how much is Destination Canada putting into its whole domestic marketing campaign?

[Monique Gomel]

I don't have all of the numbers in front of me. If Marsha would like to weigh in with the specific numbers, I would pass it to her, or we could get the information to the clerk.

[Marsha Walden, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Tourism Commission]

Certainly, I'd be happy to answer that.

Our commitment to the domestic market this year will be about $35 million. What we are doing is supplementing the activity of the provinces, which are focusing primarily on intraprovincial travel. Destination Canada's role is to promote interprovincial travel, to get Canadians travelling between our provinces again.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

There's that nasty stop sign.

Thank you, Ms. Walden.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you so much, MP Baldinelli.

We'll now go to MP Jaczek. You have the floor for six minutes.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses, Ms. Gomel and Ms. Walden, for being with us today.

I think we're probably all feeling that pent-up demand to get travelling. For most of us, that will probably mean Canada this year. It might also mean the opportunity, potentially, for international travel as well.

Turning to our domestic market, Ms. Gomel, you referenced your work with Rocky Mountaineer. I think we've all seen those very intriguing ads for that particular tourist product. Could you give us a bit of your background in terms of your experience in the various jobs you've had through the years and how you bring that expertise in marketing to Destination Canada?

[Monique Gomel]

Absolutely. Since completing my MBA, I have had more than 20 years of experience in marketing, working with consumer-driven industries. I started my career in consumer package goods with Johnson & Johnson in Toronto. From there, I moved over to L'Oréal Canada in Montreal, and then I returned to Vancouver, where I worked with Electronic Arts before moving into the hospitality industry. I was with Earls restaurants for five years. I've now been at Rocky Mountaineer for six years.

I've been in the hospitality business for more than 11 years. I would say that having a diverse experience in industry has been extremely helpful for me in terms of bringing that lens to Destination Canada. I have worked on global businesses where I was doing marketing across the globe, and I have gained a real understanding of the different motivations of different consumer groups and of marketing research, which is a key mandate of Destination Canada. That's what I bring to the experience.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you very much. It certainly sounds like you will be a great asset in your role as interim chair of the board.

Given Canada's size and diversity, it's really hard to understand how one central organization can really effectively promote experiences across the country. Obviously there's so much to offer.

Could you tell us a little more about how Destination Canada works with different regional and provincial organizations to support tourism across Canada?

[Monique Gomel]

Absolutely. I think one of our key advantages is our team Canada approach, which has really shone in the past year and a half. We work very closely with all of our counterparts at the provincial and territorial destination marketing organizations. We communicate regularly, and we create alignment among our plans. It's a very cohesive and close working relationship.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you.

Actually, I was intrigued about the relationship with Parks Canada. How does Destination Canada partner with Parks Canada?

We know that we have tremendous assets, whether they be wilderness areas or heritage sites. I'm pretty aware that a lot of visitors from the U.S. are particularly intrigued to visit those destinations. I was wondering if there is any specific partnership going on there.

[Monique Gomel]

We work very closely with different partners across government. Certainly, the parks are of key interest to visitors. I can attest to that from working on the Rocky Mountaineer, where Banff, Jasper and Lake Louise are key assets for us.

If you would like more details on those partnerships with Parks Canada, I would ask my colleague Ms. Walden to weigh in on that.