In 2020, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) announced our plans to launch a pan-Canadian Tourism capacity-building workshop series for winter and shoulder-season tourism and culinary tourism. These workshops were designed to assist small and medium tourism industry operators and other tourism organizations across the country – especially during the time of COVID-19. We further expanded this initiative to include a number of strategy development pilots in some select markets.

From May 2020 to March 2021, TIAC facilitated over 100 workshops from coast-to-coast-coast. Originally designed to help bolster Canada’s tourism expansion in high-potential growth areas, TIAC pivoted the design of the workshops to reflect the new tourism reality for most operators. Our workshops focused on helping SMEs, Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) and others in building awareness and capacity for high potential growth opportunities in rural tourism, culinary tourism and during shoulder and winter seasons – so they can be ready to welcome visitors again once it is safe to do so. 

As mentioned above, we piloted the development of culinary tourism strategies as well winter and shoulder season development strategies in a select number of unique destinations from coast-to-coast-to-coast.

We want to take this opportunity to acknowledge our partners that have taken this journey with us; our content experts and delivery agents, Culinary Tourism Alliance and Twenty31 Consulting; and our provincial, territorial and regional tourism industry association and organization partners.

We are proud to leave a set of legacy materials that will be useful to all tourism stakeholders. The Elevating Canadian Experiences resources hub will be available online on the TIAC website (ecehub.tiac-aitc.ca). The launch date for the hub is planned for March 31, 2021. The following tools will be available:

• Online self-guided webinar/training modules: five culinary tourism themed modules (Growing agritourism, Attracting culinary tourists, Multisensory experience development, Partnering for success and Exceeding expectations) and a module on how to enhance shoulder and winter season tourism. 
• National Guidelines for food tourism development in rural and remote destinations:
• National toolkit on how to enhance shoulder and winter season tourism
• Consumer demand research report for winter and shoulder season tourism in Canada