Canada’s tourism minister was in Whistler today, July 12, to meet with local officials and business owners in the wake of Ottawa’s sweeping new national tourism strategy.
Approximately 70 Tourism Whistler and Whistler Chamber of Commerce members met with Minister of Tourism Randy Boissonault and Sea to Sky MP Patrick Weiler in the Rainbow Theatre on Wednesday to discuss issues facing the local tourism sector as well as Canada 365, the Liberals’ federal tourism growth strategy first unveiled earlier this month.
“It was the most engaging townhall we’ve had across the country,” Boissonault said in a sitdown with Pique following the meeting, which was closed to media. “[I heard about] everything from labour to housing to micro-dips in bookings, which was really interesting.”
Canada’s ambitious new strategy aims to grow tourism’s contribution to the national GDP by 40 per cent in the next seven years, resulting in an estimated additional 85,000 direct jobs, while at the same time creating a more sustainable, regenerative tourism landscape.
“Canada, for too long, took a passive approach to tourism. The thought was, people are just going to come because we’re so great and we’re so nice here,” Boissonault said. “Then the rest of the world woke up to the fact that the visitor economy is found money. You bring people into your community or your province and it gets on your books as an export, and it supports local communities.”
Whistlerites concerned with overtourism and its impact on the character of an already rapidly changing community may bristle at the thought of growing the resort’s tourism sector, but Boissonault was quick to note the new national strategy places significant emphasis on attracting a certain type of guest that will respect the land, the local community, and, to put it bluntly, will pay a premium to be here.
“We’re going to be mindful about who we invite, and we want more high-value guests, so that they’re not overly bothered by paying what the sector needs so that people can actually make a living wage and have a long-term career here,” Boissonault said. “Tourism, for a lot of people, is a great career, and before the pandemic, we were starting to see some cracks in the labour system, because it was hard to make ends meet. So, we have to make sure that we’re positioning for this growth spurt that we want to see, this growth phase for Canada, with an action strategy that is intentional about growing tourism, that the workforce is there and that we can house them.”
Check back with Pique next week for more on our interview with Boissonault and Weiler and the wide-ranging national tourism strategy, which can be viewed in full at here.
