Dear Accommodation Community and Stakeholders,
Following the immense confusion surrounding formal meetings and the Public Health Order (PHO), we are delighted to share with you that the PHO has been updated to allow 'critical service meetings' and 'occupational training which cannot be provided virtually'.
Over the past week, many of you alerted us to the issue surrounding meetings; you had clients, who deemed their meeting to be essential and were looking to book, but that you were unsure if you were able to move forward with their business.
We thank each of you for bringing this issue to our attention as we immediately connected with Public Health to advocate for clarity and to have these essential business meetings added to the PHO. Hotels have consistently demonstrated an extreme dedication in abiding health and safety protocols to ensure properties continue to remain safe for visitation. The recent extension of province-wide restrictions delivered yet another devastating blow to our industry and formal business meetings where one of the limited revenue streams still afforded to businesses.
We also thank Dr. Brian Emerson and Dr. Bonnie Henry for listening to our concerns and updating the order.
While we know that for some of you, your meetings business has been lost, we hope the clarity achieved through the amendment of this order will allow you to confidently host 'critical service meetings' for the duration of the current PHO.
