Excerpt from Coalition of Hardest Hit Businesses website
These are challenging times, and we know that keeping Canadians safe and healthy is a top priority.
Many sectors were impacted by COVID-19, but few as severely as ours. Businesses in the tourism, travel, hospitality, arts, festivals and events sectors are in a crisis for one simple reason: the core of our business is about bringing people together, face to face, and this activity has been restricted by public health measures since mid-March. The result saw thousands of festivals, concerts, conventions, Indigenous tourism experiences, fairs, exhibitions, and business and sporting events cancelled, leaving our businesses without revenue for the past 6 months.
We are doing our part to prevent the spread of this virus. But our revenue and employment losses are staggering and unlike just about every other sector of the economy, our recovery is not forecast until the summer of 2021.
