Dear Accommodation Community and Stakeholders,
Last week, we – along with our industry partners at Destination BC, Tourism Industry Association of BC, BC Regional Tourism Secretariat, and Indigenous Tourism BC – learned of the Provincial Government's intent to implement further restrictions on travel. Since that moment, we have worked round-the-clock on your behalf to ensure the best interests of our entire tourism and hospitality network are kept top of mind – both in the implementation of today's travel ban, and into the near future as we work to gain critical financial support and a phased reopening plan.
We collated an extensive list of questions from industry, which we brought forward to government. Through this work, we provided information and recommendations on the role our accommodation community will take in managing these restrictions. Our workforce is precious and we clearly communicated the immeasurable risk our industry would bear if responsible for policing reservations. That is not our role.
While simple, our role is of critical importance.
In order to reduce COVID-19 case numbers, alleviate stress on our health care workers, and reopen travel in time for summer, it is vital that our entire industry accepts our task of educating BC residents and travellers against non-essential travel outside of their identified health zone. The province is asking all British Columbians to follow the order of the Provincial Health Officer and stay within their Health Authority. By supporting this message over the coming weeks, we support the survival of our intimately woven tourism and hospitality community.
To ensure you are better-positioned to communicate these changes with your guests, staff, and stakeholders, we along with our aforementioned industry partners, have created a communications toolkit with key messaging, a Q&A, and other resources.
