COVID-19 has caused an abrupt and deep shock to society and the global economy. The tourism sector is profoundly impacted, with significant disruption to businesses, trade channels, and DMOs. Tourism Economics (a division of Oxford Economics) suggests a global return to 2019 tourism levels by 2023—but only under certain conditions.
As the national HR organization working for Canada’s tourism sector, our goal is to provide the knowledge and tools to help tourism employers rebound from the crisis and build a resilient workforce. We’re here to help tourism SMEs as a new global tourism landscape emerges.
In the weeks and months ahead, business survival will turn to business recovery, with a new set of questions to address:
- Have my customers changed?
- Should I only be focused on the regional and domestic market?
- How can I best build back my financial reserves?
- Can I lower my overheads and increase my margins?
- How do I re-tool my offering to focus on an almost exclusive regional tourism consumer?
Tourism HR Canada is in the process of creating a no-cost, easy to access and use, comprehensive and bilingual online COVID-19 Tourism Workforce Recovery Toolkit.
This new resource is based on best practices and aligned with needs identified by employers. Its insightful and business-friendly content will directly support Canadian tourism SMEs as they recover and build medium- and longer-term resiliency, including preparing for potential next waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Toolkit is part of a fast-tracked update to one of our core Emerit resources, Business Builders. It will be a practical web-based program that includes presentations, downloadable content and tools, notifications of new material, and more. It will be updated regularly with evergreen content focused on topics like:
- human resources
- crisis communications
- marketing
- budget & finance
- strategic planning
The COVID-19 Tourism Workforce Recovery Toolkit is an extension of the free online training that we announced in March. Further details on its early summer release will be announced in Tourism HR Insider and on our social media channels—be sure to subscribe to be among the first to know.