by Jen Mallia
Last updated: 10:50 AM ET, Tue January 28, 2025
Travel advisors and agencies in Ontario are certified by the Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO). If you’re in Ontario, you have likely encountered the council professionally, but do you really know what it does?
TravelPulse Canada sat down with Richard Smart, TICO President and CEO, and Kristina Wilson, Stakeholder Relations Manager, to give us the inside scoop on how the organization works and how they protect advisors and the travelling public.
Can you explain how TICO works?
Well, in two words, TICO is about consumer protection. That, ultimately, is what our mandate is. The government delegated the responsibility to TICO back in 1997 and what we do is consumer protection. There's only two other regulatory bodies like us in Canada, one in BC and one in Quebec, which happen to be the three provinces where most of the head office locations are for travel.
What’s the purpose of TICO certification?
Every individual who's selling travel in the province of Ontario needs to take a TICO exam, and that exam is around the consumer protection laws in the province. If a person is interacting with the public to sell, consult or guide a consumer to purchase travel, they have to be certified, and they must work with a licensed travel agency and tour operator.
We work with the travel advisors to help them understand their obligations under the consumer protection laws. We have the certification program. We have ongoing programs around different aspects of being an advisor, advertising, looking after trust accounts, disclosures that you need to make pre- and post-travel and all the rules that are in the legislation. We try to work with advisors and to provide information through our social media channels and through our registrar toolkit, which is a virtual toolkit that provides a variety of tools and assets and collateral to help an advisor with materials that they can use for their customers.
What about uncertified advisors?
Some people are not aware of the consumer protection laws in travel. The barriers to entry to come into the travel profession are not that difficult. We have people who want to be independent and not work for a big bureaucracy, they just want to sell. With social media we easily find there's a lot of non-registered or non-licensed sellers. So part of our role as regulators is ensuring compliance, to monitor the marketplace and look for individuals who may not know or understand the laws but are selling travel, which puts our licensed entities at a disadvantage.
So we reach out to them. We explain the consumer protection laws. We explain you need to be TICO certified and you need to work through a registered entity. Approximately 98% of the time they respond positively. If they don’t or they snub their noses at us, we have provincial defense officers that can lay charges under the travel industry act, and an individual can be fined up to $50,000. If it’s through a corporation, they face a fine up to $250,000 and up to two years incarceration. We don’t like to be a regulator with a stick, but it [an unlicensed travel seller] really puts the other hard working, legitimate, licensed entities at a disadvantage.
Does TICO work with the public?
Any consumer can go on to our website and use our “agency search feature” to verify the company is registered in Ontario. So that's something that we share far and wide with consumers.
TICO also offers a complaints process, so if somebody has purchased through a TICO-registered agency or tour operator and there is a misunderstanding, or there is some sort of issue that comes up. We have a team that can help between the consumer and the company to try to work out a resolution.
And there's also a compensation plan where in certain instances, consumers can get their money back if a company has gone out of business. If a consumer is defrauded or made a purchase and the business goes out of business, there's this recovery mechanism. It’s not insurance, but it is a so-called “fund of last resort.”
Read more about TICO and where things may be headed in the coming year: Travel Industry Council of Ontario Talks 2025: Trends, Challenges, and What’s Next.
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