Tourism: Does it Pay?

Abstract

Tourism is a $1.8 trillion dollar industry, making it the world’s largest. Public opinion surveys suggest that travel is a high priority for consumers in industrialized nations, and yet Canada’s performance with regard to tourism is faltering at the very moment that we will need it most. This article indicates that with significant mounting headwinds foreseen for Canada’s historically dominant resource sector, the country needs to aggressively promote tourism in an effort to diversify its economy, taking the case of the North of Superior region in Ontario that already has natural tourism draws like hunting, fishing, and skiing that are ready to be marketed in a targeted campaign. Canada has tourism assets like this, but it suffers an image problem – taking the experience of New Brunswick’s tourism marketing campaign, this can be addressed. In terms of the individual businesses making up the tourism sector, they are mostly small businesses, many of which may not have the long-term strategies and marketing plans that are critical for business success, but through help from the bank, the availability of resources from those banks, as well as governments, associations, and others, to support and inform those businesses, and improved relationships between the university and corporate sectors, Canadian tourism can remain competitive.