Destination Inclusion

Empowering Racialized Individuals to Succeed in Tourism

Destination Inclusion offers learning and mentorship opportunities to racialized individuals in communities across Eastern Ontario.

Participants gain access to specialized skills assessments and customized training to enhance their technical, essential, transferable, and cultural competencies — with a focus on those that tourism and hospitality employers are seeking as the province reopens and recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The program includes self-driven e-learning modules related to Front Desk, Housekeeping, and Cooking operations, micro-learning assets which provide additional information to contextualize the learning content and provide tailored supports, and mentorship support to connect participants with industry professionals and networking opportunities.

The Destination Inclusion program has ended. Currently registered participants may continue to complete their training until July 31, 2022.

Destination Inclusion Benefits

Participants in the Destination Inclusion program will have the opportunity to:

Enhance transferable skills and language competencies

Achieve better employment outcomes by acquiring industry-needed skills

Explore a variety of career opportunities and paths in the tourism sector

Access a broad support network and mentorship opportunities

Obtain greater confidence and self-esteem in workplace settings

Gain a greater understanding of the tourism sector and Canadian workplace culture

Participant Eligibility

Participants meeting these criteria are eligible for the Destination Inclusion program:

Self-identify as a member of a racialized group*
Reside in Eastern Ontario

For participants whose first language is not English, meeting of level 5 or higher on the Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is recommended.

* For this program, “racialized groups” refers to individuals, other than Indigenous peoples, who self-identify as non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour. For skills and employment training programs for Indigenous individuals, please refer to this website.

Read About Past Graduates

"The learning materials were well-organized and the training drew my attention to utilizing the right words or names for the kitchen utensils, equipment, and cooking processes."

Lydie Adegbindi Read about Lydie's experience here.

"I never thought I would move from food and beverage to front desk. This opportunity and certification has led me to an open-ended path for a new career."

Shailesh Shrestha Read about Shaliesh's experience here.

"The moment I started the first self-paced e-learning module related to the front desk agent role, my curiosity along with my respect to that crucial role for any hotel team didn’t stop growing."

Youssef Skalli Read about Youssef's experience here.

"This program certainly gave me the right tools to navigate my career path and connections with people in the field that I'm interested in. "

Noeul Kang Read about Noeul's experience here.

Hire a Destination Inclusion Graduate

Destination Inclusion graduates are actively seeking opportunities to apply their skills in the Ottawa-area tourism and hospitality industry.

If you’re looking for staff to fill roles related to front desk operations, housekeeping, or cooking, contact info@destinationinclusion.ca to connect with local, trained job seekers.

Become a Mentor

Looking to give back to your community? Want to showcase the many pathways available in tourism and hospitality? Mentors are an integral part of Destination Inclusion. If you have experience in the tourism or hospitality sector — whether through employment or education — you can help support and encourage people seeking to enhance their skills. You’ll be supported through an orientation session, then matched with a participant based on their career interests and learning goals. You’ll also have the option to participate in the cross-cultural competencies and job search strategy training sessions offered to participants.

Additional Skills Training in Ontario

Tourism-focused skills training is also available in other regions of Ontario:

The Ontario Tourism Education Corporation (OTEC), Destination Northern Ontario, Nature and Outdoor Tourism Ontario, District Social Services Administration Boards, Indigenous Tourism Ontario, and Northern Ontario Workforce Planning Boards have launched Tourism SkillsNet North — an initiative designed to provide support to the hard-hit tourism sector. Tourism SkillsNet North identifies workforce labour gaps specific to northern Ontario, designs responsive customized training to meet these specific needs, trains employees, and matches them with available job opportunities within northern Ontario’s tourism sector.

Destination Toronto has launched Hospitality EDGE, which offers a highly curated suite of online courses at no cost for workers in the hospitality sector in the Toronto, Mississauga, and Brampton area.