We talk policy making during the pandemic with Yukon’s Tourism Minister Jeanie McLean.
Highlights / Arctic Tourism and the Pandemic
Prior to the pandemic, Arctic regions and chambers of commerce around the world had increasingly touted tourism as a key economic tool. It’s an industry that provides jobs for a variety of education levels, promotes small-scale entrepreneurship and creates sustainable development lacking in many of the expensive and hard-to-get-to regions of the North.
Prior to 2020, the industry was on the upswing across Canada’s North, and it’s hard to overstate how hard the pandemic has hit the tourism industry in the territories.
In this ongoing podcast, we speak to business experts, community members and policy experts on how the tourism shutdown is affecting northern communities, their economies and industry workers, and the strategies being put in place to respond.
Arctic Tourism and the Pandemic #3 A northern town tries the staycation
Peter Magill, the Tourism & Economic Development Coordinator in Hay River in Canada’s Northwest Territories, talks us through the town’s ‘Haycation’ campaign and what other communities might learn from its experience.
Arctic Tourism and the Pandemic #2 It’s a scary situation we’re living in today
George Angohiatok, head of Cambridge Bay’s Ekaluktutiak Hunters & Trappers Organization in Nunavut talks about the economic consequences of the tourism shutdown on hunters and how the community is pulling together to get each other through the pandemic.
Arctic Tourism and the Pandemic #1 Situation critical in the North
Keith Henry, president & CEO of the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada, on why northern Indigenous tourism businesses have been hit so hard by the pandemic and what it’s going to take to build back.
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