TIABC Voice of Tourism Newsletter – August 15, 2025

CEO Message

Back in the day as PCs were becoming more mainstream, I occasionally received calls from someone claiming to be from Microsoft to tell me about a software issue that was compromising my hard drive. You know the drill. Typically they would ask me to log-on to my computer and follow their instructions to allow them to take the controls to fix the problem.

These scammers had plans to reconfigure my hard drive to blackmail me into paying significant fees to restore it to its original state. After nearly falling for the scam the first time, whenever I took similar calIs henceforth, I pretended to comply for as long as I could so as to waste their time and eventually expose their ruse. It was great fun. 

These days though, cyber scams and phishing attacks are increasingly more sophisticated. Whether it’s fake texts from me to colleagues asking for their help, or unsolicited emails that appear to come from TIABC offering to sell a BC Tourism Industry Conference attendee list, I’ve increasingly been forced to deal with these cons and you likely have as well.

It seems that each week I’m learning of additional incidents targeting the tourism sector that we need to pay attention to, both to avoid financial hardship, as well as to protect BC’s reputation. For example, last week, AI-generated photos purported to show wildfires in parts of the province that were not only bogus, but projected a distorted image of the situation and could have caused multiple visitor cancellations.

Consequently, BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) issued a special bulletin reminding people that use social media to access and share info that misinformation can cause fear and anxiety during an emergency, and could even be deadly.

To avoid any uncertainty about what’s real or simulated, BCWS recommends either downloading its app, signing up for a local emergency alert system, or accessing a reliable news source like a radio station which is better than random, unsubstantiated social media posts.

Yet another scam that I recently heard about is even more disturbing than phony emails or photos. It appears fraudsters impersonated real businesses or created fake websites for those that don’t operate in a digital environment, to promote high-end BC experiences to prospective international clients. Some of these customers unknowingly purchased and ultimately e-transfered thousands of dollars to scammers on legitimate platforms for a service that the actual operator knew nothing about and wasn’t obliged to deliver.

In two recent cases, owners found out they had been misrepresented when the client called looking for additional trip details. Can you imagine if these prospective visitors didn’t phone ahead and just showed up at the business expecting to receive what they had supposedly paid for?

These examples show the growing sophistication of cybercriminals and the urgent need for businesses to routinely monitor their digital presence. In the tourism sector, where many organizations operate with lean staffing and limited IT resources, it’s all too easy for a single click on a bad link to result in data breaches or financial fraud. Alas, cybersecurity is no longer a big business imperative but also a small tourism operator necessity.

In the meantime, I connected with our partners at the Tourism AI Network (TAIN) to ask about bogus photos and videos. I also reached out to Consumer Protection BC (CPBC) about what recourse customers have (if any) on the aforementioned scenario and what businesses can do to protect themselves. CPBC advised that although scams and fraud are not part of its mandate and therefore referred to the police or the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, consumers should do a business license search on CPBC’s website or call the tourism operator directly…as the clients did in the incidents I mentioned earlier…albeit too late. 

TAIN provided some excellent advice on detecting fabricated photos and videos:

1. Source – Is it posted by a legitimate organizations like your municipality, your local DMO or a verified newsroom?
2. Context – Does the caption give a specific time/date/location? Does it match official updates?
3. Provenance – Look for content credentials (C2PA) or platform labels indicating how/when the image was created. Some images contain a small icon or label you can click to view creation/edit history. Absence doesn’t prove anything, but presence helps.
4. Reverse search – Use Google Lens or TinEye to see if the image is old, AI-generated, or unrelated.
5. Account hygiene – Is the publishing account new, use a generic name or say anything of substance in the bio? These are all signs of things that should raise suspicion 
6. Caption vs reality – Does the image align with official location/time details? E.g. – fires raging this morning yet the image appears to be taken in the evening 
7. Red flags – Impossible angles, glossy smoke or flames, melted text/signage, inconsistent shadows, or crowds/fire trucks that look copy-pasted.

It’s important to note that if in doubt, refrain from sharing the photos or videos and report the post to the platform. Finally, TAIN insists that any images you see online should be assumed to be fabricated until you’re able to prove otherwise. The same goes for unsolicited email and phone calls from numbers you don’t recognize. All good advice worth paying attention to. 

Thankfully Microsoft has stopped calling but regrettably Revenue Canada, Immigration Canada, Canada Post, and other government entities are constantly trying to connect with me for urgent information about taxes I owe or a Nigerian fortune awaiting collection. The only condition is that I would need to press this key or call that number, forward my bank information, or better still, pay a nominal processing fee. For obvious reasons I no longer play along just for the fun of it.

Walt Judas

CEO, TIABC