By Joe Baker, Outgoing Director, Tourism HR Canada Board
I have been thinking a lot lately about time.
After nearly a decade serving on the Board of Directors for Tourism HR Canada, my time in that role has come to an end.
That sentence is harder to write than I expected.
Not because it is sad, exactly. It is not. I am not stepping away from tourism, hospitality, workforce development, education, or the work of building a stronger future for the people who power this sector. That commitment is still very much part of who I am.
But this is the closing of a meaningful chapter. And meaningful chapters deserve a moment of reflection.
When I first joined the board, Canada’s tourism sector was already changing. Employers were talking about labour shortages. Educators were talking about enrolment patterns. Students were asking important questions about opportunity, belonging, and whether this industry could offer the kind of future they wanted to build.
Then the world changed.
The pandemic did not simply disrupt tourism. It exposed just how fragile, valuable, and connected the systems underneath it really are. It reminded us that behind every visitor experience are people.
Servers. Housekeepers. Guides. Cooks. Front desk agents. Managers. Entrepreneurs. Educators. Students. Newcomers. Seasonal workers. Destination leaders. The people whose work turns places into experiences, and experiences into memories.
For a while, much of that work stopped.
Then, slowly and unevenly, it began again.
Over the past decade, I have watched Tourism HR Canada grow into an even more important national voice through that complexity. I have seen the organization deepen its role in labour market intelligence, workforce development, skills training, inclusion, accessibility, work-integrated learning, and national collaboration.
I have watched the team respond to crisis with urgency, but also with discipline. Not chasing every headline. Not confusing activity with impact. Just doing the patient, practical, and necessary work of helping a sector understand itself better so it can prepare for what comes next.
That is not glamorous work.
It is better than glamorous. It is useful.
And in a sector as dynamic, distributed, seasonal, entrepreneurial, and people-dependent as tourism, useful matters.
One of the great privileges of board service is that you get to see an organization from a different altitude. You are not in the cockpit every day. You are not landing every plane. But you do have a responsibility to pay attention to the weather, understand the destination, ask good questions, and support the people doing the flying.
I have always believed board service is, at its best, an act of stewardship.
It is not about being the loudest voice in the room. It is not about making the work about you. It is about listening carefully, contributing thoughtfully, challenging respectfully, and helping build something that will outlast your own term.
That lesson has stayed with me.
So has this one: workforce development is not abstract.
It can sound abstract when we wrap it in policy language. Labour market data. Skills frameworks. Training pathways. Immigration systems. Wage subsidies. Occupational standards. Human resource strategy.
All of that matters.
But at the centre of it are people trying to build lives.
A student looking for a first chance.
A newcomer trying to turn talent into belonging.
An employer wondering how to keep the doors open and the team strong.
A worker deciding whether this sector still has room for their ambition.
A young leader discovering that hospitality is not just a job, but a calling.
A person with a disability hoping accessibility is not treated as an afterthought.
A community depending on tourism not only for economic activity, but also for identity, pride, and connection.
That has always been the deeper why for me.
Tourism is one of the world’s great people industries. It asks us to welcome strangers, tell stories, share place, create moments, solve problems, read emotion, move quickly, care deeply, and recover gracefully.
Those are not soft skills. They are human skills.
And human skills are among the most important skills we have.
Over this same decade, my own career has changed in ways I could not have predicted.
Looking back, the through-line is clearer than it felt while I was living it.
People gave me chances. Mentors opened doors. Employers trusted me. Educators challenged me. Colleagues shaped me. Students inspired me. Sector leaders gave me rooms to walk into and responsibilities to grow into.
My career, like tourism itself, has been built through relationships.
That is why this moment carries so much gratitude.
I am grateful to the staff team at Tourism HR Canada for their professionalism, care, intelligence, resilience, and belief in the work. I have seen up close how much effort goes into building tools, programs, research, partnerships, and resources that the sector can actually use.
I am grateful to the board colleagues I have served alongside. Governance is not always visible work, but it is important work. The best boards bring different perspectives to the table and still find a way to serve the mission together. I learned from every one of those conversations.
I am grateful to the employers, educators, associations, government partners, and tourism professionals across the country who continue to show up for this sector, especially when the path forward is uncertain.
And I am grateful to the students and emerging professionals who keep reminding us why this work matters.
Because the future of tourism is not something we wait for. It is something we build through the opportunities we create for people.
That may be the lesson I carry most strongly from this decade.
Programs matter. Strategy matters. Research matters. Funding matters. Policy matters. But none of it matters unless it helps people move forward.
A decade can pass quickly.
But it can also change everything.
Tourism HR Canada has changed over these years. The sector has changed. I have changed. Through all that change, one belief has only grown stronger for me: Canada’s tourism future will depend on how well we value, support, include, train, welcome, and believe in the people who make this industry possible.
So this is not goodbye to the work.
It is simply thank you for this chapter.
Thank you for the trust. Thank you for the lessons. Thank you for the friendships. Thank you for the chance to contribute to something national, purposeful, and deeply aligned with the work I care most about.
I leave this board role with pride, humility, and a full heart.
And I remain, as ever, optimistic about what comes next.
Because tourism has always been about arrivals and departures.
And every meaningful departure makes room for a new beginning.
Bon voyage,
Joe Baker