Gaining the Edge - Tourism StrategyPhase II: Employment Survey
The Vancouver Island region is one of Canada’s top tourism destination areas.
Located off the west coast of Vancouver, the area is both remote and accessible, providing a combination that attracts thousands of visitors annually. Visitors to the island region are able to take advantage of a diversity of experiences ranging from urban to rural, cosmopolitan to rustic, and relaxing to adventurous.
Once a region that supported its population with logging, fishing and mining jobs, there has been a shift towards more service based employment. From 1989 to 1999, employment in forestry, fishing, mining, oil and gas decreased by 10.1% (Statistics 2000) . In 2001, a total of 267,000 (or about one in eight) people were employed in tourism related organizations, which represents and increase of 6% since 1997 (B.C. Stats, as cited in Rollins 2001).
One of the leading service sector employers is tourism, which has been promoted as an economic diversification tool for many of the rural areas experiencing economic transition. With the increase in visitation to the island, tourism businesses in rural areas have flourished. Many tourism businesses have responded to visitor demands for eco and adventure, culture, botanical and agricultural experiences resulting in a diverse tourism employment base.
Nothing however, is known about the impact of tourism employment in the Vancouver Island region.
As the majority of the destinations in the Vancouver Island region are in rural areas, federal and provincial labour market research figures have limited utility for regional labour market planning. Labour market research is needed for the island region to establish the prevalence and impact of tourism employment in rural areas, and to guide labour market planning efforts.
Tourism Vancouver Island and the Recreation and Tourism Research Institute at Malaspina University-College initiated the Tourism Labour Market Research Project with funding assistance by the Human Resources Development Centre in Nanaimo. The Project aimed to provide a better picture of the impact tourism was having on the employment scene in the Island region and included two phases.
In Phase one, an inventory of all tourism related organizations in the Island region were developed (n=3483) and a short telephone survey was used to estimate number of individuals employed in each season.
Phase II built upon this inventory by investigating the quality of tourism employment.
Survey Report
In one portion of Phase II, a mail survey was sent to 800 tourism organizations in the Island region to describe the type of employment opportunities that exist, ascertain why individuals chose to work in tourism, and identify training needs.
Interviews
Another portion of Phase II, which included in-depth interviews, was intended to investigate if tourism was attracting and providing meaningful employment opportunities to individuals in declining resource based industries like forestry, fishing and mining.
