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As someone who works in the travel and tourism industry my journey in this course was driven by the underlying theme of what environmental and corporate responsibility looks like for our industry now and into the future. I will dive into some themes that have resonated for me, along with my plans to implement some of what we have learned as a member of a large Canadian organization.

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One of the themes that stood out to me was the idea of a social enterprise. Specifically, the writing of Kruse, Wach and Wegge (2021) who look at a meta-analysis that focused on the motivation for social entrepreneurship. This week resonated with me as “Tourism Vancouver Island” was an organization I worked in partnership on various projects in previous roles, like others in the space they were a destination management/marketing organization. They were responsible for tourism marketing for Vancouver Island for the past 60 years. The CEO, Anthony Everette, led this change to a social enterprise out of a personal impetus to ensure he was giving back to Vancouver Island after years of selling resulting in over-tourism of many popular destinations on the island (Personal Communication, 2023)

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In April of 2022 they announced they would be shifting their business model and moving to a social enterprise call “4VI” created to ensure that travel is a force for good for Vancouver Island forever (Vancouver Island, 2022). The implementation plan required for this has been an interesting process to follow as they focused on revenue and volume and now seemingly focus on matters like biosphere certification, the Glasgow declaration and carbon neutrality. This matters to me as I’m interested in a touted shift in travel post-pandemic, and have read they are working on a new set a key performance indicator that do not focus on traditional measurements (4VI, 2022). This matters more broadly as many residents of British Columbia believe that tourists have started treating certain areas of BC like a “theme park” and tourism marketing organizations have lost social licence to operate under current conditions (CBC, 2020).

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4VI. A social enterprise, defining our destination.

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GILAKAS'LA, 'UY' SKWEYUL | WELCOME TO 4VI

4VI is a proudly non-profit social enterprise located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, committed to ensuring tourism is a force for good - forever. As tourism advisors who call Vancouver Island home, we bring a profound depth of expertise and commitment to every project. Through our focus on innovative, sustainable tourism, we elevate the quality and distinctiveness of visitor experiences.
Our roots are on Vancouver Island. Our reach is global.

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4VI. A social enterprise, defining our destination.

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GILAKAS'LA, 'UY' SKWEYUL | WELCOME TO 4VI 4VI is a proudly non-profit social enterprise located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, committed to ensuring tourism is a force for good - forever. As tourism advisors who call Vancouver Island home, we bring a profound depth of expertise and commitment to every project.

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Another theme that resonated with me was the idea of demonstrating positive impact, usually done through reporting to stakeholders. After attending the Indigenous Tourism Alberta annual conference, a burgeoning regional non-profit organization focused on Indigenous tourism development in Alberta. I was reflecting on conversation with their development manager who discussed this idea of “Cultural KPIs”, which would measure items such as “how many youth are practicing cultural and language activities” among others. As an Indigenous person working in the field it interesting to me to have an organization like this focused on shifting the conversation to ensure cultural revitalization is part of the impact of the industry. Travel Alberta is the largest partner and funder for this organization, I think it will benefit the province to measure indicators that matter to the Indigenous community as the social ills in Indigenous communities will not be solved through economic development alone. It will take organizations like ITA advocating for a measures that move beyond traditional KPIs in looking at success. This falls in line with the government’s own goals for reconciliation (Alberta, 2022)

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As a member of the organization Destination Canada (DC) we are a large organization who operates as a crown corporation I don’t think it would be possible for us to move to a social enterprise model like 4VI. It would take a mandate from the larger Canadian Government to shift our structure. I’m also not sure if that is what Canadians would want of their national marketing agency tasked with sharing our country to the world. While 4VI was a sixty-year-old organization who heard loud and clear from their stakeholders and community that change was needed, we don’t hear this at the national level. Because we are still in the recovery phase putting out corporate strategies that speak to “Canada’s Tourism Renaissance” (Destination Canada, 2022) I do not have the clout to shift our corporate mandate. We are also relatively new in the space as DC formed in 1995 and works nationally, where we have a lot of developing tourism products that do want the marketing support in key overseas markets.

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The government of Canada has a goal of reaching net-zero by 2050 (Canada, 2050). As an organization that falls under this mandate we are looking internally at how we can achieve this goal for our own sector. Some of my colleagues in other business units have done things such as reducing our international office space to ensure we are reducing our footprint (Skift, 2022). In my role within destination development I hope to ensure we are meeting with industry partners in aviation and accommodations, along with tourism products to share our position and mission. These are not easy conversations to have with an industry that saw large profit losses over the past number of years. As a Canadian organization I might lean on An Implementation Guide for Canadian Business (2015) as an approach I use in our implementation. I think the most reasonable target we will be able to achieve is mitigating our own footprint. Ensuring that all staff travel is compounded so multiple meetings are happening in a region, rather than one-off travel. I also think our leadership plans to buy carbon credits for all staff travel to reach this carbon neutrality.

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While I’m not sure if the travel and tourism is ready for this reckoning of tackling environmental and corporate social responsibility, I think there are hints across the industry domestically that we are ready to take on small actions within some organizations. A takeaway just as we learned from the beginning of this course is that this field has been evolving since the 60s and we will continue to see strides in all industries towards greater accountability for the planet and people, beyond just profit.

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A. Everett, Personal Communication, Destination Canada Connects January 24, 2023

Canada's tourism renaissance: Our strategy for recovery. Destination Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved

March 10, 2023, from https://www.destinationcanada.com/en/news/canadas-tourism-renaissance-our-strategy-recovery

Canada, S. (2023, January 27). Government of Canada. Canada.ca. Retrieved March 10, 2023,

from https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan/net-zero-emissions-2050.html

Niehrah, Y.-D. (2023, January 3). Executive Q&A: How destination canada is leading the way in Sustainable Business Events. Skift. Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://skift.com/2022/12/20/executive-qa-how-destination-canada-is-leading-the-way-in-sustainable-business-events/

Philipp Kruse, Dominika Wach & Jürgen Wegge (2021) What motivates social entrepreneurs? A           meta-analysis on predictors of the intention to found a social enterprise, Journal of Small Business Management, 59:3, 477-508, DOI: 10.1080/00472778.2020.1844493

Rude, messy, disrespectful tourists anger communities on ... - CBC. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rude-messy-disrespectful-tourists-anger-communities-on-vancouver-island-s-west-coast-1.5693863

Reconciliation in Alberta. Alberta.ca. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://www.alberta.ca/reconciliation-in-alberta.aspx

Sector, S. and I. P. (2015, August 10). Government of Canada. Government of Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Office of the Deputy Minister, Strategy and Innovation Policy Sector. Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/corporate-social-responsibility/en/implementation-guide-canadian-business

Tourism vancouver island makes industry-leading transition to 4VI – a social enterprise in support of a sustainable future for vancouver island. Tourism Vancouver Island. (2022, May 30). Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://vancouverisland.travel/2022/04/13/4vi-announcement/