The British Columbia Tourism Resiliency Network was given the Community Contribution and Impact award at the recent B.C. Tourism & Hospitality Awards.
According to a report, the 2022 B.C. Tourism & Hospitality Awards is a celebration and recognition of leadership, innovation, and excellence in British Columbia’s tourism and hospitality industry, showcasing the province’s most remarkable leaders and positive change-makers.
“We are honored to have served B.C. tourism businesses and communities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and support their survival,” said Anthony Everett, president & CEO, Tourism Vancouver Island and Chair, British Columbia Regional Tourism Secretariat.
“This program was designed by the tourism industry for the tourism industry, utilizing our sector’s specialized understanding of our own needs to guide the recovery of B.C.’s visitor economy.”
The BC Tourism Resiliency network is a long-term resiliency plan run by the British Columbia Regional Tourism Secretariat (BCRTS) that provides B.C. tourism businesses with meaningful and one-on-one assistance to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, to adapt, and move towards the eventual recovery.
The British Columbia Tourism Resiliency Network has supported 2,033 tourism businesses to date, including 158 Indigenous-owned, six youth-owned, and 440 women-owned businesses from communities across the province, where 1,333 of the participants have secured assistance from relief programs of the government and an estimated 3,694 jobs have been preserved.
“As the British Columbia Regional Tourism Secretariat, we were able to collectively offer a program to the tourism industry that was consistent, that evolved as required and was delivered to the industry during their greatest time of need during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Kathy Cooper, CEO of Kootenay Rockies Tourism Association.
We could never independently scale a program like this to the level that we did achieve with shared resources, subject matter experts, and our combined teams’ committed efforts. I am very proud of the way we came together to deliver the Tourism Resiliency Program to our tourism stakeholders in our respective regions.”
The British Columbia Regional Tourism Secretariat is a partnership between five of B.C.’s non-profit Regional Destination Management Organizations (RDMO) comprising Tourism Vancouver Island, Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA), Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association (CCCTA), Kootenay Rockies Tourism Association (KRTA) and Northern British Columbia Tourism Association (NBCTA).
The 2022 B.C. Tourism & Hospitality Awards were announced last Thursday, March 10, as part of the 2022 B.C. Tourism & Hospitality Conference.
This story originally appeared on E-Know.
I’m really curious about the kinds of help that made a real difference to those tourism businesses supported by the British Columbia Tourism Resiliency Network. It would be so cool to hear about the smart moves and fresh ideas they used to tackle the tough times of COVID-19 and bounce back.