TIABC Voice of Tourism Newsletter – August 1, 2025

When I first read the federal government’s notice regarding the launch of the process for pre-budget consultations, it made me chuckle. The news release stated that Budget 2025/26 will ‘spend less’ and ‘invest more’ to catalyze private capital, unleash investment, and build the strongest economy in the G7.

The notion of government ‘spending less’ and ‘investing more’ seemed like an oxymoron until I considered the difference between investing and spending, which lies in the expectation of return. Spending is about using money for immediate consumption or needs, with little-to-no expectation of a future return, while investing involves allocating resources with the expectation of generating downstream benefits such as income, profit, or appreciation in value. 

With those definitions in mind, TIABC is looking to draft its pre-budget submission with a focus on investment, but also considering spending requests that are necessary. To that end, we will be reaching out to members over the course of the next few weeks to seek your input on the top priorities.

If you recall, in our pre-budget submission last year, we focussed on five areas:

A) Disaster Relief: Create a dedicated tourism sector disaster relief and recovery fund for tourism operators to prepare for, respond to, and in particular, recover from major crises such as wildfires, flooding, and drought.

B) Debt Relief: Create a loan guarantee program with more favorable terms (e.g. longer amortization, lower interest rates) for anchor tourism businesses to support the re-financing of existing debt or much needed capital improvements.

C) Capital Investments: Launch a dedicated Tourism Infrastructure Fund to support major capital projects in the sector, with a particular focus on building, renovating or expanding conference venues, airports and attractions.

D) Transportation: Develop and help fund a multi-modal transportation system for Canada that expands connectivity across the country, enhances rural/urban connections, and maximizes the interconnected role played by Canada’s airlines, motorcoach, passenger rail, and cruise ship stakeholders in improving traveller access throughout Canada.

E) Transportation: Create a fund dedicated to improving tourism infrastructure vis-a-vis electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in rural areas enabling Canada to meet its 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan: Clean Air Strong Economy goals through a reduction in carbon emissions; and invest in the domestic production of biofuels and green solutions for Canada’s transportation sector.

Some or all of these may still apply. However, given the constantly changing operating environment, there are likely new ideas worth considering. Importantly, we aim to stay focussed on up to five pressing priorities rather than a long, laundry list of recommendations, most of which tend to get dismissed.

For your information, our national counterparts (TIAC) are advocating for more money for Destination Canada; permanent funding for the business events sector (International Convention Attraction Fund); a national, multi-modal transportation strategy (similar to point D above); digitization of the electronic travel authorization process; and environmental sustainability (i.e. green solutions).

What would help your business from a federal budget perspective? What new investment measures should be introduced? Are there certain taxes that need to be eliminated or reduced? What policies require refinement? TIABC would appreciate hearing from you so please take the time to drop us a line or fill out the One-Minute Monitor survey below. In the meantime, you can learn more about the budget consultation and provide direct input via Canada.ca/YourBudget.

The practice of ‘spending less’ and ‘investing more’ is a good strategy but extremely difficult for governments to implement, especially when it comes to the tourism sector. At the same time, highlighting future returns on investing in digitization, green solutions, a Canada-wide multi-modal transportation system, and other priorities is not something to laugh about but a serious opportunity to move our industry forward in the coming year.

Walt Judas

CEO, TIABC