recover

TIAO is excited to join the Faster Together campaign to help step up vaccination rates across Ontario and Canada!

What is Faster Together?

Spearheaded by Bruce Anderson (Chairman of Abacus Data and Partner at Spark Advocacy) and Hassan Yussuff (President of the Canadian Labour Congress), the Faster Together campaign is a voluntary effort of people and organizations across Canada. It works to promote COVID-19 vaccine acceptance to help speed up recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. To help partnering organizations and decisionmakers across Canada tailor their messaging, the campaign shares innovative public opinion data monitoring evolving views on vaccine hesitancy. Driven by its data, the campaign makes digital materials and social shareables, which Faster Together partners disseminate.

TIAO joins over 200 partners (and counting) across the country—including organizations from tourism and hospitality, retail, entertainment, business and finance, tech, postsecondary, and manufacturing sectors—to promote the message that getting vaccinated can bring us all back together faster.

Why is TIAO a partner of Faster Together?

The tourism industry is built on creating personal and shared experiences – memories which cannot be fully captured or replicated by Zoom. Despite the incredible innovation demonstrated by our industry, tourism in Ontario has largely been on pause for the last fifteen months with our businesses enduring revenue losses, layoffs, and job losses. As the hardest hit industry, restarting our tourism industry is directly linked to vaccination rates and case counts. By encouraging everyone to do their part and get vaccinated, Ontario’s tourism and hospitality businesses can begin to restart, recover, and welcome visitors back to rediscover what Ontario has to offer.

TIAO is proud to join Faster Together to help open our doors again, bring people together again, and create shared experiences again. Faster.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ontario’s tourism businesses have been wide-ranging and significant. After fifteen months of closures, job losses, layoffs, revenue losses, and mounting debt, the tourism industry faces a long process of recovering and rebuilding. As Ontario moves to Steps 2 and 3 this summer under the province’s Roadmap to Reopen framework, many tourism businesses are encountering challenges to reopening, rebuilding, and long-term recovery just as provincial and federal supports begin to wind down.  

In June, TIAO conducted a survey to collect up-to-date information on the current challenges facing tourism business operations as the province is reopening. The survey sought to: 

1) Examine the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ontario’s tourism businesses; 

2) Analyze whether the impact of COVID-19 on tourism businesses has worsened in key areas such as revenue loss, debt, and financial sustainability compared to previously collected data; and 

3) Understand what tourism businesses need to rebuild and support long-term recovery. 

The results of the survey show a worsening picture of financial health affecting business capacity to reopen and prospects for long-term recovery:  

• 9 out of 10 of tourism businesses reported experiencing a revenue decline due to COVID-19, with two-thirds of these businesses seeing revenue declines of more than 90%—a two-fold increase since March 2021 

• 77% of tourism businesses have taken on debt to remain afloat—a 9-point increase from March 2021 

• Almost half of all businesses cannot hire staff because they are not generating enough revenue.   

• 77% of tourism businesses accessing government aid programs would have shut down without them 

• With no changes in current levels of government support, financing, or sales, 3 in 10 businesses may be at risk of closure by the end of September 

The full findings of this survey are available in our new report, ‘The Long-Term Impacts of COVID-19 on Ontario’s Tourism Businesses and Capacities to Reopen, Rebuild, and Recover.’ As the last industry to recover in Ontario, this report shows that continued government support is necessary to have a chance at long-term economic recovery. It demonstrates that reopening does not mean recovery—reopening must not become a substitute for vital government aid. 

To view the report please click here.

From June 1-15, Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General held a public consultation to amend the Liquor Licence Act. The proposed amendment to Regulation 718 would remove the 360L cap on liquor that licensed representatives of manufacturers are permitted to store at their licensed premises for the purposes of delivering purchase orders.

In support of Ontario’s 200,000 tourism businesses—including restaurants, event planners, trade shows, travel accommodations, and suppliers—TIAO was pleased to submit consultation feedback supporting this amendment and the gains it will offer both businesses and customers. Amending Regulation 718 would reduce regulatory burden, offering greater flexibility to store beverage alcohol product at the manufacturer’s location when purchased by licensees.

What does this mean for businesses? Extra storage availability for licensees who have limited on-site space to store liquor (an issue especially in densely populated areas) and a more reliable supply of liquor to keep up with customer demand. As the province reopens and businesses and vendors look to meet Ontarians’ pent-up demand for dining, travel, and events, having a more reliable supply of liquor would help to ensure that tourism businesses are able to maximize their profit gains wherever possible.

As tourism and hospitality businesses begin to reopen after fifteen months of closures and unprecedented levels of revenue loss, the amendment to Regulation 718 would help support their recovery and rebuild.