Generation Next: Exploring Promising Talent Pipelines

By Joe Baker, Tourism HR Canada Board of Directors A recently released CBC report details which industries Canadian workers are flocking to—and which ones they were fleeing. The report tracked the number of employees between January 2019 and July 2022…

Federal Tourism Growth Strategy: Workforce Recovery

In response to the Government of Canada’s consultation on the development of a post-pandemic Federal Tourism Growth Strategy, Tourism HR Canada submitted a suite of workforce recovery strategies with recommended, concrete, and measurable actions. Tourism, at its core, is a…

Solving the Problem. With Labour.

By Joe Baker, Tourism HR Canada Board of Directors Originally published in STAY It will be hard to navigate the case for Social Design without sounding esoteric. Stick with me though. We can make it land together. Not much more…

Seize the Opportunity to Shape Workforce Strategies

The Government of Canada wants to hear from Canadian tourism stakeholders from coast to coast to coast as it charts the path forward for the sector. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada is conducting a public consultation on the development…

Housekeeping Forum Tackles Labour Challenges and Offers Solutions

Earlier this month at Toronto’s Chelsea Hotel, Hotelier hosted its first one-day Housekeeping Forum since the pandemic hit, highlighting the pivotal and ever-important housekeeping department. Always viewed as one of the most important departments in a hotel operation, never has…

Celebrating Tourism’s Strength: Its People

Led nationally by the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC), and with many complementary regional and local initiatives, Tourism Week is “an annual invitation for all tourism partners to come together to champion and promote Canada’s destinations, tourism businesses, and…

HR = E3 (Exceptional Employee Experiences)

The pandemic has caused significant disruption to the tourism labour market, much greater than the economy overall. While the latest Labour Force Survey shows the workforce is recovering, there is a long way to go: tourism remains over 200,000 workers…

Collaboration Key Focus of Tourism HR Canada Meeting with Provincial/Territorial Partners

Tourism HR Canada met with its network of provincial and territorial human resource organizations (HROs) in Ottawa last week to discuss work plans associated with training and assessment resources that constitute the Emerit Tourism Training brand. The first in-person meeting…

Responding to the Labour Crisis

Pan-Canadian Tourism Workforce Recovery & Growth Task Force Tourism, at its core, is a people business and one that relies on a skilled workforce to capitalize on its economic potential for Canada. Re-opening tourism businesses and guiding their recovery requires…

A Dose of Reality, and a Prescription for Surviving a Chronic Shortfall of Workers

Enduring 24 months of the pandemic has led many tourism operators and workers to express feelings of despair, loneliness, and uncertainty. The collective and cumulative fatigue is evidence of a very tired workforce that needs a lot of support. The…

Help Rebuild the Tourism Workforce: Join a New Working Group

The tourism industry is facing an unprecedented shortfall of workers and major structural challenges impacting its workforce. The labour shortage is expected to be long-lasting—it may be a decade or more before the industry reaches pre-pandemic employment levels. In response,…