BC Tourism Resiliency Network

New Program to Support Tourism Industry

For most of our tourism industry, this is the 8th week of our provincial shut down as we all do our best to follow the direction of  Health Minister Adrian Dix and Dr. Bonnie Henry in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Over the initial few weeks, our team at the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) has been doing our best to reach out to personally connect with over 800 industry stakeholders to understand your issues and concerns and to feed those up daily to the Provincial and Federal Governments. Through these conversations with you, It has become clear that many stakeholders need support in navigating the various assistance programs that are available, where they are eligible, and what steps they need to take to obtain the many opportunities for relief or benefits.

Together with the British Columbia Regional Tourism Secretariat representing the 5 Regional Destination Management Organizations (RDMO) in the Province and our strong partners at the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, go2HR, Indigenous Tourism BC, Tourism Industry Association of BC, Community DMOs, and Destination BC, we are activating a new Tourism Program for the industry this week. This work will see our organization at TOTA pivoting our efforts to provide the one on one direct support we have heard industry asking for.

As part of the introduction to this initiative, TOTA will be hosting a Webinar TODAY, MONDAY, APRIL 27th at 2:00 p.m. that will provide tourism stakeholders in the Thompson Okanagan with information and details on how our team has been preparing to work to assist you and the next steps in how to participate in this new program.

REGISTER FOR today's informational TOTA Tourism Resiliency Webinar

On behalf of myself, our board of Directors, and our entire TOTA team I would like to take a moment to thank both the Provincial Minister, the Honourable Lisa Beare and Federal Minister, the Honourable Melanie Joly for their tireless efforts to find the relief assistance necessary to provide and protect our Tourism Industry today and for the future.

Glenn Mandziuk, TOTA President & CEO