Indigenous tourism officials plead for more federal funds to save their industry

Keith Henry is once again sounding the alarm bells.

The president and CEO of the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC) has spent a good chunk of this year fighting to help save businesses that have suffered immensely from the pandemic.

This past June the federal government stepped up to provide $16 million in COVID-relief funding for hundreds of Indigenous tourism business operators.

But on Monday, ITAC officials sent out a news release stating they are once again appealing to the Canadian government to provide slightly more than an additional $18.5 million to support those still reeling in the Indigenous tourism sector.

Without any further federal assistance, Henry believes as many as 1,200 of the 1,700-plus Indigenous tourism businesses that existed in Canada prior to the pandemic could be wiped out forever.

“Doing nothing is not an option,” he said.

Though the ITAC release came out Monday, Henry said he did contact officials within various government departments last week to inform them why there is an immediate need for the additional funds.

“We submitted our second wave plan last week,” he said. “But there’s been no commitment either way so far.”

Henry plans to get back in touch with several federal officials this week to see if they can provide any sort of update on ITAC’s funding requests.

“We want to let the government know that we do have a plan in place,” Henry said. “They have been supportive of Indigenous tourism so far this year.”

Henry though is uncertain how the federal government will respond to ITAC’s latest call for funds.

“I’m not overly optimistic, but confident something can be done,” he said.

Earlier this year a Conference Board of Canada report indicated about 700 Indigenous tourism businesses in the country could be lost this year.

Many of these businesses are seasonal operations and were unable to even open their doors at all in 2020.

“We don’t know the total number of businesses from that first wave that have been lost,” Henry said. “We were told about 700 businesses could be lost. But it’s way too early to tell. We know some businesses have closed but we don’t know if they are in hibernation or if they have closed forever.”

And the number of lost businesses is expected to go higher.

“Now with the loss of winter tourism, we’re in big trouble,” Henry said. “With this second wave we could lose up to 500 more businesses.”

That’s why ITAC officials have put out their request for additional federal funding as soon as possible.

With the $16 million in funding that ITAC received earlier this year it was able to help a total of 683 Indigenous tourism businesses. They each received up to a maximum of $25,000 in grant money to help keep them afloat.

As the pandemic is still ongoing, many of these businesses continue to face financial hardship and they could benefit from additional funding now.

ITAC officials have broken down their request for new funding into three segments.

A bit more than $12 million would go to the 683 businesses that already received funding, as well as to the estimated 150 businesses that applied for previous funding but did not get any.

Under ITAC’s proposal, those that received the maximum $25,000 already would now get up to $10,000 in additional funding.

Henry said the reason many of the businesses that did not receive any financial relief before was because there was no other federal funding available. Plus, many of these businesses didn’t qualify.

“A lot of them didn’t have COVID recovery plans in place,” he said.

ITAC officials are hoping they receive sufficient further funding to be able to hand out a maximum of $25,000 to each of those companies that did not benefit before but are now eligible.

ITAC is also requesting a total of $6 million to launch a domestic marketing campaign, which would ideally commence this coming January.

“We believe it’s going to be even more difficult in the next two, three months for businesses,” he said.

And that’s why a sound marketing campaign will be required.

“It will take additional resources to make that happen,” Henry said.

He’s hoping the federal government will provide $3 million to get the marketing campaign off the ground.

Henry said the additional $3 million being requested as part of the domestic marketing campaign would be utilized to provide extra funds for those businesses that don’t discount and can prove it with paid invoices.

Members of ITAC’s marketing team have heard many businesses plan to provide discounts for their services in order to entice visitors.

But ITAC officials are hoping to convince the businesses to charge their regular rates.

“They need every dollar they can get right now,” Henry said.

ITAC’s third requested segment of funding is worth $460,000. This money would allow the association to establish and hire several individuals to work at an Indigenous tourism business crisis call centre. 

These employees would work with businesses on a one-to-one basis to help them identify and access the various sorts of financial relief available from federal, provincial/territorial and local governments.

Local Journalism Initiative Reporters are supported by a financial contribution made by the Government of Canada.