Smooth Sailing or Stormy Seas: Tourism makes a comeback
The tourism sector contributed significantly to the Canadian economy, employing 9.8% of the working population and generating $43.5 billion in GDP in 2019. COVID-19, however, devastated the sector. In 2020, the number of jobs directly supported by tourism fell by as much as 70%, while tourism-generated GDP fell 47.9%.
The sector is now making a comeback.
As the sector recovers, what lesson did it draw from the pandemic? How do we put the sector on a more sustainable footing? How will the sector overcome labour shortages, transportation and logistics challenges and heightened concerns over health? This panel will explore the myriad issues in a sector returning from the precipice.
This panel will mark the launch of a new report by the MacEachen Institute in partnership with the ACCA on scenario planning for the cruise sector in Atlantic Canada.
About the Speakers
Dr. Rachel Dodds
Dr. Rachel Dodds is a professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly known as Ryerson University). Rachel is known globally for her work to make tourism more sustainable. Rachel’s research focuses on sustainable tourism, overtourism, destination planning and management and consumer motivations.
Rachel is also the Director of Sustaining Tourism, a boutique consultancy and a founder of Klevr Places, an integrated destination dashboard solution. She recently wrote a book about how to travel more sustainability called: Are we there yet? Travelling more responsibly with your children which is available on amazon.
Rachel has lived and worked on four continents and travelled to over 80 countries.
Ross Jefferson
Ross Jefferson is the President and CEO of Discover Halifax, the regional destination marketing organization responsible for overseeing the growth of the tourism economy in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Ross has an Executive MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business and holds the ICD.D destination from the Institute of Corporate Directors. Ross has served on several boards including as past director with the Canadian Automobile Association and the Destination Marketing Association of Canada.
Sarah Rumley
Ms. Rumley brings over 20 years of combined port, administrative and cruise marketing experience to the Atlantic Canada Cruise Association. She is passionate about the cruise industry and driving economic development and growth within Atlantic Canada
Kevin Quigley
Kevin Quigley is the Scholarly Director of the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance at Dalhousie University. He is a public administration scholar who specializes in risk governance and critical infrastructure, focusing in particular on public sector responses to rare and high impact events, such as pandemics, natural disasters, industrial failures and cyber and terrorist attacks.
Dr. Quigley has published two critically acclaimed books on critical infrastructure, including his most recent, Too Critical to Fail: How Canada Manages Threats to Critical Infrastructure(co-authored with Bisset and Mills) which was shortlisted for the 2018 Donner Prize, awarded for the best public policy book by a Canadian.