Question Period Note: COVID-19 AND TOURISM RECOVERY

QUESTION: What is the Government of Canada doing to support the tourism sector during the COVID-19 pandemic?

• The Government of Canada has been providing support to businesses and workers across the tourism, arts, and culture sectors since the onset of the pandemic

• Businesses and non-profit organizations in these sectors have received an estimated $15.4 billion through federal emergency support programs.

• To further encourage the tourism sector’s recovery, the government this year introduced additional and targeted measures, totalling $1 billion over three years, including:
o A $500 million Tourism Relief Fund to help businesses.
o $200 million to support Canada’s major festivals and events.
o $200 million to support local festivals and events.
o $100 million to Destination Canada for marketing campaigns to promote Canadian travel destinations.

• Budget 2021 provided support to protect jobs and help hard-hit businesses recover and grow with the extension of pandemic support measures, including the wage subsidy.

• To help restore Canadians’ confidence in the safety of air travel and support the recovery of Canada’s hard-hit air and tourism sectors, the government invested in COVID-19 sanitization and testing infrastructure at airports, and in the development of advanced technologies to facilitate touchless and secure air travel.

• The government will work closely with industry partners to build on regional strengths and to chart a new path to long-term sustainable growth.

The tourism sector has been among the hardest hit by COVID-19. Revenues declined 49.2 per cent from $104.4 billion to $53.4 billion for 2020, and jobs directly attributable to tourism decreased 41 per cent from 692,000 to 409,000 in the same period. Projections for summer 2021 revenues are approximately half of summer 2019 revenues.

As a result, the government introduced a number of measures to support tourism businesses. In addition to the $1 billion for tourism recovery, these include:

• The Highly Affected Sectors Credit Availability Program (HASCAP) offers guarantees on low-interest loans of between $25,000 and $1 million to help businesses. In addition, hard-hit businesses with multiple entities under related ownership, like a chain of hotels or restaurants, ownership could be eligible for up to $6.25 million. Qualifying businesses will benefit from repayment terms of up to 10 years, and may postpone principal payments for up to the first 12 months of the loan. The interest rate on these government backed loans is 4 per cent. Businesses can apply for HASCAP until December 31, 2021. According to the Business Development Bank of Canada website, as of June 30, 2021, tourism businesses received 42 per cent of the total number of HASCAP loans.

• The tourism sector can also continue to benefit from broad-based measures, including the Canada Emergency Business Account, which provides up to $40,000 to small businesses and not-for-profits, and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy.