For more than 13 months, ACTA has intensively lobbied governments drawing much needed attention to the dire economic situation faced by travel agencies, travel agents, independent travel agents, and the entire Canadian Travel Industry eco system.
The Minister of Finance and Transport recently announced the first financial relief package agreement with Air Canada. The package included mandatory customer refunds, and the protection of travel agent commission.
"This is significant," said Wendy Paradis, President, ACTA. "In speaking with travel associations around the world, ACTA understands that Canada is the only country where a travel agent commission protection program has been included by the government airline financial relief package."
In a meeting with Minister Freeland last week, ACTA learned that the budget assumes that vaccine rollout will continue at a rapid pace through the end of June and Minister Freeland stated, "I believe Canadians are going to have a great summer."
"While we hope that the Minister is correct, ACTA along with other travel and tourism associations stressed that the timelines are premature," said Paradis. "Given that we are still under very strict lockdowns, borders closed and travel restrictions in place, travel agencies and travel agents will not see any notable increase in revenue in Q3 and Q4 when aid programs are set to expire."
The Regional Relief and Recovery Fund (RRRF) application deadline was extended to June 30, 2021,
though travel agents have experienced many challenges with this program, much like some of the other
liquidity programs. The government has proposed to create the Canada Recovery Hiring Program (CRHP), designed to help hardest hit businesses. The CRHP could provide opportunities as the CEWS program decreases, business begins to pick up and there is a need to rehire, although funding amounts decrease monthly and the program is only available June to November, 2021.
The government's allocation of the $1B for Tourism is currently broken out to $500M for the Tourism Relief Fund, administered by the Regional Development Agencies, and $500M to Festivals, Canadian
Heritage and Destination Canada.
ACTA says it is important to keep in mind that while the Budget has been tabled, it still has to move through the parliamentary process and as such, by no means is this document the end product. The Budget is currently a framework, although the government will move quickly to introduce the Budget Implementation Act (BIA). The government's BIA will need to go through the usual legislative process before becoming law, including important committee reviews by both the House and Senate where the legislation will potentially be amended several times before reaching its final form.
This means the travel industry still has the opportunity to influence changes to the programs or direct how some of the monies earmarked for the programs can be utilized. ACTA has already had meetings with some key Ministries and will continue this newest lobbying campaign over the next several weeks.
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