C-19 BULLETIN - July 10, 2020

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CEO Message

Three thousand and counting  could mean many things.
 
For me, it represents the number of emails sitting in my inbox as of today. At the same time, it doesn’t factor in the hundreds of responses embedded within multiple email trails, nor the thousands of emails I’ve deleted or forwarded since the pandemic reared its ugly head a few months ago.
 
Like you, I am inundated with dozens of actionable emails each day and hundreds each week that deserve response or attention during this crisis. Some days they arrive in such rapid-fire succession, many disappear from my screen and fall to the bottom of the page. Only when I find the time (usually evenings or weekends) to scroll through the list, I discover notes from people that are weeks or sometimes months old.
 
For most of us, there are not enough hours in the day to read, process or respond to every single note, especially given the current working environment of endless emails, phone calls and Zoom meetings on steroids.
 
Seems each week I’m apologizing to someone for ignoring or missing their email, and if the latter includes you, please accept my sincere apology as well. Even better, please text or call me...even if it’s to draw attention to an email that I need to read and respond to in short order. Chances are if you’ve sent a note and haven’t heard from me within a few days, your email is buried in the pile or I haven't had time to get back to you.
 
On a related communications matter…TIABC has been doing its level best to communicate relevant news and information throughout the COVID-19 crisis. As you know, we have been publishing this C-19 Bulletin five days a week since March. However, with fewer government announcements, program updates and other factors, we are reducing our publication schedule to each Monday, Wednesday and Friday starting July 13th.
 
Please know that if urgent news needs to be shared on a Tuesday or Thursday, we will do so without hesitation.
 
Thank you for reading the Bulletin and for sharing your stories, data and information. We also appreciate your encouragement and kind comments on our efforts as we strive to keep you informed and engaged in tackling the issues our industry faces due to COVID-19.
 
As always, I look forward to hearing from you in whatever form of communication you choose. 3001, 3002, 3003……

Best Regards,
Walt Judas
CEO, TIABC
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Provincial Government Update

The Province wants to hear
your ideas on BC’s recovery

Join a telephone or virtual town hall on the dates outlined below:

July 13 @ at 12 pm (PT), Virtual Town Hall on Supporting Small Businesses
Participants:
  • Michelle Mungall, Minister of Jobs, Economic Development, and Competitiveness
  • Tom Conway, CEO of Small Business B.C.
  • Jinny Sims, MLA Surrey-Panorama
  • Join the live event on Facebook

July 14 @ 7 pm (PT), North, Interior, and the Kootenays
Participants:
  • Michelle Mungall, Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness
  • Ravi Kahlon, Parliamentary Secretary for Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development
  • Kim Emerson host
  • Register to participate in the telephone townhall

July 16 @ 7 pm (PT), Lower Mainland
Participants:
  • George Heyman, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy
  • Lisa Beare, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture
  • Kim Emerson host
  • Register to participate in the telephone townhall

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COVID Research Roundup

Destination BC is rounding up relevant research and articles each week related to the travel and tourism industry and COVID-19. 

Last week in brief :
•Hotel occupancy, ADR, and domestic flight bookings to BC are now on the rise.
  • BC’s ADR reached $130.71 on June 27, an increase from a low seen during the pandemic at $98.57 during the week of April 18. Similarly, BC’s occupancy rate reached 41.60% on June 27 compared to a low seen at 14.28% on April 11.
•BC residents are conservative in their travel intentions amid the Phase 3 announcement of BC’s Restart Plan.
•Decreases in sales volumes reported as greatest impact on businesses.
•Encouraging tourism will allow many BC tourism businesses to turn profits.
•Destinations are beginning to reopen around the world, showing positive signs of recovery.


Destination BC also produces a  Signals & Sentiment Dashboard , designed to help BC’s tourism industry make strategic, data-driven marketing decisions in the coming months.

While the tourism industry and British Columbia as a whole has experienced the impact of the pandemic, reported tourism statistics of Q1 (Jan-Mar 2020) are now available in Destination BC's latest  Tourism Indicators report .
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Thompson Okanagan Visitor Research

The dashboard data starts the week of February 4th and is tracked on a weekly basis. Data is currently available
through to June 28th.

While overnight travel is significantly down compared to 2019, an upward trend in movement and overnight stays on a week over week basis was apparent during weeks 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, and 22.

All of the BC Regions saw an increase in visitation from week 21 (June 22-28) to week 22 (June 29-July 5).

The Thompson Okanagan saw a  6%  increase in visitation compared to British Columbia during  Week 22  (June 29 – July 5).

Visitation to the Thompson Okanagan increased by  23%  and British Columbia increased by  15%  when comparing  Week 21  (June 22-28) to  Week 22  (June 29-July 5).

Download the report here or visit:
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Tourism Unemployment Rate Moved Down Slightly, but Still Well Above Average

953,000 jobs were added in June and the unemployment rate dropped slightly to 12.3% (using seasonally adjusted data).
 
In the tourism sector, the seasonally unadjusted data shows that the number of employed individuals grew by 243,900 from May to June.
 
Although the tourism unemployment rate moved down from 29.7% in May to 25.0%, it is still well above the overall seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate of 11.9%.
 
Full-time employment increased by 138,200 jobs while part-time employment grew by 105,700 jobs.
 
Tourism employment increased in every province from May to June.
 
All five tourism industry groups recorded employment increases
  • Accommodation 24,200
  • Food and Beverage Services 144,500
  • Recreation and Entertainment 58,400
  • Transportation 15,000
  • Travel Services 1,800
 
Employment is still well below February levels. As of May, tourism employment is still down 553,900 jobs (-27.2%) since February. The nadir of tourism employment occurred in April when tourism employment was down 881,700 jobs (-43.3%). Since then, employment has risen by 327,800 jobs.
 
Since tourism adds to its labour force during the spring and summer, we should start looking at year-over-year comparisons of employment. Going forward, this will give us a better measure of COVID-19’s impact on our workforce than comparisons to February will. By this metric, employment in tourism is down 668,300 compared to June 2019.
 
In most sectors, the number of actual hours of work being performed remains below the levels seen in February. By this metric, accommodation and food services remains the hardest hit sector, despite a significant increase in hours worked in June. Total hours worked increased 54.6% from May to June, but remained down -35.2% compared to February. In February, accommodation and food services employees worked over 31 million hours. In June they worked just over 20.2 million hours.
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Hotel Stats Paint Bleak Picture

The BC Hotel Association's (BCHA) latest pulse survey shows that the accommodation sector remains hard hit by the pandemic.

  • Number of employees still laid off across BC: 43,545
  • Average expected occupancy up until December 2020 averages about 32% across the board
  • Most businesses indicated they have not recalled their entire team
  • Accommodators are operating at minimal staffing levels and occupancy
  • Compared to the June Pulse Check, only 37% of hoteliers suggested that they would not recall their staff, compared to almost 50% in the July survey
  • Downtown Vancouver is sitting at the lowest occupancy in the province with Vancouver Island and Interior having better levels due to resort destination demand

Advocacy Priorities:
  1. Extending wage subsidy
  2. Property tax relief
  3. Extending temporary layoff period beyond August 30th
  4. Securing liquidity
  5. Working capital
  6. Additional business loan 

Many operators also flagged CERB as an additional concern.

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Pulse Check #4

In these unprecedented times, we are collaborating with business associations across the province to collect and provide the best information we can to government from businesses of all sizes, sectors and regions. Information gathered will inform a holistic approach between government and society in acting on the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Your feedback to this survey is essential to inform governments’ understanding of the most pressing impacts you are experiencing and what can be done to ensure government is enacting measures to provide the greatest relief.

The survey will take under ~7 minutes to complete. Survey will close on July 13th.

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Moving Van Webinars

Moving in a Livable Region (MLR) is hosting a new series of community dialogues entitled  Moving Van: Building our Region for a New Normal .  

3-part series of dialogues on the following themes:
 
Tuesday July 21 @ 3:30 pm (PT)
What are the most important decision making factors that will influence whether you physically partake in an activity like work, school, or recreation? How are you looking to move about now? What's safe now and what do we need to change to ensure we're safer in the long run?   These are the questions we will be exploring with you and with experts in the mobility space. 

Monday July 27 @ 3:30 pm (PT)
Is density a bad word after COVID-19? Are we better off in sprawling communities instead? Does COVID-19 shift how we plan our cities? What does this mean for housing prices and cost of living? Is there still hope for reducing our GHG emissions?  These questions look at how the pandemic will affect our community planning in the future and will allow us to separate myths from facts when it comes to safety risks.

Friday July 31 @3:30 pm (PT)
Why was our public transit infrastructure under threat of financial collapse because of COVID-19? Are we funding our priorities sustainably? Has COVID-19 highlighted system vulnerabilities that organizations have been pointing out for years?  This event will explore how we fund our public transit system, where the dollars go, and what other funding methods exist out there that we could learn from.
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****NOTE: Starting July 13th, distribution of TIABC's C-19 Bulletin will be limited to every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Feel free to send us your ideas on what information would be valuable for TIABC to share through our COVID-19 Bulletin going forward. Drop us a line at info@tiabc.ca.