Thompson Okanagan Resiliency Initiatives
Resiliency Efforts by The Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association in a Pandemic
Kavan Vijayakumar
Royal Roads University
Author Note
This paper was prepared for MGMT589 taught by Eileen Davenport, submitted on July 6th, 2020.
Internship Project
The Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association is a not for profit society governed by the BC Societies Act. The purpose of the Association is to sustain the Thompson Okanagan region as a competitive destination through setting strategic direction for the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association and working as a policy board to ensure the long-term viability of the Association. The mission of TOTA is to stimulate ongoing sustainable growth by embracing the value of tourism through community engagement, innovative leadership in promoting authentic experiences, and inspiring creative collaboration. This paper is primarily going to focus on the tourism resiliency efforts by the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association to support local businesses in Kelowna that depend on tourism and uplift the tourism industry in these hard times by shaping the future of a pandemic hit tourism industry in British Columbia.
Problem Statement
The vision for TOTA is to make the Thompson Okanagan a phenomenally successful year-round destination, with a strong and attractive image that is clearly differentiated from its competitors. The region will be well known for the authenticity and quality of its tourism offers, and the cultural and environmental richness and diversity of the areas within it.
Unfortunately, because of the COVID-19 Pandemic the tourism industry in British Columbia has been negatively impacted because Canada has shut borders to visitors from around the world who would generally travel to British Columbia for summer holidays and are huge contributors to the large and small businesses who are part of the tourism industry in British Columbia.
The focus and vison of TOTA has shifted to work on resiliency of the tourism industry in the Thompson Okanagan by supporting local businesses who have been impacted by the pandemic because of less tourism in the region and have started the Tourism Resiliency Program to support local businesses. The Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) has partnered with BC regions to launch the Tourism Resiliency Program (TRP). This program will provide long-term one-on-one support to tourism businesses to navigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, adapt services, and work towards eventual recovery. The president of TOTA Mr. Glen Mandzuik is determined to kick start the tourism resiliency program to support local businesses in the region of the Thompson Okanagan and the team at TOTA is currently focusing on creating new initiatives like safe travel, eco-efficiency and mental health services to support local businesses and tourists in the Thompson Okanagan region during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The research will focus on understanding how TOTA can improve resilience of the tourism sector in the Thompson Okanagan region and support local businesses and tourists during these highly uncertain times because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The research will explore the initiatives by TOTA to execute the tourism resiliency program and understand the initiatives being taken by other tourism associations in Canada to revive the tourism industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research Question
Academic Discipline
Strategy and operations are the two primary objective disciplines through which I will examine the efforts by TOTA to build tourism resiliency. To successfully execute the tourism resiliency program, effective strategic decisions will have to be made which will affect the daily operations of the association.
The subtopics that I will examine within this discipline will be change management and relationship marketing because the tourism resiliency program will provide long-term one-on-one support to tourism businesses in order to navigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, adapt services, and work towards eventual recovery. There is no cost to participate in the program. Change management will help in dealing with this transition from changing focus of TOTA from sustainability to resiliency and relationship marketing efforts will help strengthen the support to our stakeholders now and in the future as we work towards eventual tourism recovery.
Annotated Bibliography
Filimonau, V., & De Coteau, D. (2020). Tourism resilience in the context of integrated destination and disaster management. International Journal of Tourism Research, 22(2), 202–222. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.2329.
This research article explores resilience in the tourism industry in the context of destination development and disaster management. It focuses on a popular Caribbean destination, Grenada, which is prone to disasters and throws light on stakeholder collaboration to build resilient organizations. The source will be considered throughout the analysis since the action framework for managing disasters will help improve collaborative efforts in tourism resiliency.
Jiang, Y., Ritchie, B. W., & Verreynne, M.L. (2019). Building tourism organizational resilience to crises and disasters: a dynamic capabilities view. International Journal of Tourism Research, 21(6), 882–900. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.2312.
According to this source, resource allocation, routine transformation and utilization is integral for tourism organizations to become more resilient. It focuses on understanding dynamic capabilities to improve tourism organizations response to turbulent environments. I selected this source because it touches on preparing organizations like TOTA for unforeseen events like the COVID-19 Pandemic. This source will help identify the trajectory of the tourism resiliency program and the method in which TOTA can maximize their resilience efforts.
Stefan Gössling, Daniel Scott & C. Michael Hall (2020) Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid assessment of COVID-19, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1758708.
According to this source, Tourism is majorly affected by measures to curtail pandemics because of restricted mobility and social distancing. The article compares the impacts of COVID-19 to previous epidemic/pandemics and other kinds of global crises and explores how the pandemic may change society, the economy, and tourism. I selected to use this source because it will help strengthen my research by providing tried and tested methods from the past and better understand what the best possible solution for maintaining the highest resiliency during a pandemic like the COVID-19.
Methodology
The primary methodology I will be using during my analysis will be a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. My internship will be for a period of 3 months at the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Authority offices and/or in the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife offices which will afford me access to primary and secondary sources of data that are adequate and admissible for the research. I will be using peer reviewed articles and reviewing documents for safe travel plans and mental health services plans to incorporate in my secondary research and conducting interviews with the managing director of the foundation. I will analyze secondary data from Statistics Canada and the Tourism Industry Association of British Columbia to compile my research.
Research Method
I will conduct a case study by conducting interviews, reviewing documents for the tourism resiliency program and initiatives of safety and mental health. I also aim to survey tourism operators in British Columbia which will help improve the accuracy in my findings.
To obtain useful information on this topic, between 7 and 10 in-depth interviews with the personnel at the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association. Given the number of respondents, these in-depth interviews represent a qualitative approach. To maximize the collection of data I will supplement survey with questionnaires in my quantitative approach. Whether they rely on the theory, I raised to meet success.
The preparation for the interviews will be based on the theory I will obtain during the literature review. The candidates will be asked for permission to audio record the conversation and that the answers could be published in the case study.
Choice of Methodology
The methodology of conducting interviews and surveying other tourism operators is to improve the accuracy of my research since the people being interviewed have been working in the tourism industry and have several decades of professional experience and will definitely contribute to creating high quality research for understanding the best resiliency efforts in the tourism industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.
C enable me to explore the research subject more in depth, gather opinions from the employees, their experiences, and behavior in response to the turn of events brought about by the issue. Moreover, the cost is also a consideration, different methodologies may require a lot of resources and time, and that makes them less preferred as compared to the interviewing approach.
Data collection
To collect data during my interviews I will request the people I will be interviewing for their permission to record our entire interview to document the interview accurately. The surveys will be sent to a couple of tourism operators over a span of a week and their response will be documented and incorporated in my research paper. I will record the conversations right from the beginning to the end to maintain originality and ensure that in need of a reference, the records will be available. In an online survey, a copy of the survey responses will be saved to ensure that such important information is not lost.
Data Collection Problems
There are several problems I could encounter in the process of data collection. The tourism resiliency program for assisting in the recovery of the tourism industry in British Columbia during the COVID-19 pandemic has never been executed before and it is a pilot program hence there can be unforeseen challenges in accuracy of data because managers will be extremely busy and getting an interview appointment with them will be tough and not all managers might have uniform answers because a pandemic of this scale has never happened before. Content validity and depth challenge could arise too because members of TOTA might have different viewpoints and other operators might not be totally sincere in answering survey questions since they are competitors of TOTA.
Interview question draft
Data analysis
To analyze the data, I will record interviews, and then proceed to transcribe them by sorting the data into themes based on the deductive reasoning theory. The themes will be focused on the data I secure through my interviews and surveys (inductive) and from reviewing the documents and peer reviewed articles and theories (deductive). When consulting the managing director of the foundation, the theme will be different from the one to be used after analyzing information that has been obtained upon asking the employees of TOTA.
Research Ethics
For any research to be ethical, it must have considered research ethics. My research methodologies primarily focus on interviewing human subjects, the central ethic that I must ensure is obtaining formal consent from the participants before planning an interview with them. Having permission will ensure that the entire process is conducted effectively since the participant will have agreed and accepted to be part of the research process. I will be handing out consent forms to every human subject whose inputs will be part of my research and ensure that I comply with the ethical standards while conducting my research.
Validity and Reliability
Secondary research will be based on credible peer-reviewed articles and primary research which will be documented through my internship at TOTA. The reliability of the research will depend on the interview’s conducted and size of the survey. Considering the study will be conducted within TOTA, the sample size would be more than 70. The research will be valid because the data will be collected from employees working in the tourism industry and within TOTA. The research will comprise information that would be collected by interviewing experienced professionals in the tourism industry. Research will be conducted after receiving all the required approvals, without any privacy violation of the company. There will be no discrimination or bias in the process of data collection or observation. The research report will be a fact-based paper without any personal biases.
Anticipated Benefits
This research will help in the recovery of the tourism industry in British Columbia. The research will equip tourism operators and associations with best practices in improving resiliency of the tourism industry and be more prepared in the future to fight and recover faster from the rumored second wave of COVID-19 and pandemics like COVID-19. The management of The Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association can use this research to frame new guidelines and policies around the tourism resilience efforts of TOTA. Also, TOTA can create a full time management position of a tourism resilience officer role who can regulate these efforts and provide timely reports to TOTA and publish them as a benchmark for the tourism industry in British Columbia.
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