SAULT STE. MARIE — Sault MP Terry Sheehan announced that FedNor is providing $110,000 for Destination Northern Ontario to make the north’s tourism industry more welcoming to visitors and guests from 2SLGBTQ+ communities.
“This will position Northern Ontario as a destination choice for all travellers,” Sheehan said at the funding announcement made Thursday at Holiday Inn Express on Bay Street.
“We’ll be working with the Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in terms of their Rainbow Registered Accreditation Program," said David MacLachlan, Destination Northern Ontario executive director, in an interview with SooToday. "It involves working with businesses in terms of them being market ready, which means being more accepting, welcoming and inclusive to the 2SLGBTQ+ community."
The project will lead to 35 northern Ontario businesses receiving Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Rainbow Registered Accreditation through instruction by 25 new trainers.
Those 35 businesses could include Sault and Algoma District hoteliers, fishing lodges and tourist attractions, MacLachlan said.
Opportunities for tourism businesses to avail themselves of the FedNor-funded training will be advertised through Destination Northern Ontario and its municipal tourism partners like Tourism Sault Ste. Marie.
The investment will pay for five 2SLGBTQ+ diversity and inclusion training sessions for businesses operating in northern Ontario’s tourism sector and pay for five audits designed to identify each destination’s strengths and areas for improvement in their 2SLGBTQ+ market readiness.
“It involves the businesses being more inclusive in their marketing, images and language, being respectful at check-in points and in customer service. In their marketing they could show images of 2SLGBTQ+ couples. We’re all good hosts anyway but this is just designed to make us better hosts for this particular segment of the population, which is a huge travel segment,” MacLachlan said.
Nick Brash, Holiday Inn Express Sault Ste Marie general manager gave an overview at Thursday’s funding announcement of how the Bay Street hotel is serving the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Brash said he was made aware of the Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Rainbow Registered Accreditation Program in March 2023.
Meeting with the Chamber in April 2023, Brash said he learned that the hotel did not have any inclusivity training for its team, no gender neutral language in the company's new hire paperwork or employee handbook, none of its staff serving on boards and committees that support the 2SLGBTQ+ community, had not hosted any 2SLGBTQ+ group meetings, sponsored no 2SLGBTQ+ events and had no special rates for Pride Month hotel guests.
“We had nothing at all,” Brash said.
“We completed leadership training with a diversity, inclusion and unconscious bias specialist from a Toronto consulting firm. We were the first ones to get actual full length training on how to be more accepting and how to communicate that message to our team.”
The hotel’s frontline staff were given diversity training.
“We worked with our parent company, Diamond Hotels, to change the language used in our internal hiring documents and our business cards now have pronouns on them. These are little changes that showed we were making the steps necessary to be a hotel that could be worthy of applying for Rainbow Registered Accreditation Program certification,” Brash said.
The Sault’s Holiday Inn Express team then sat on committees, hosted the 2SLGBTQ+ Anishinaabe Awareness Week and set up a Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce rate for guests for Pride Month.
“All of this is going to continue with us,” Brash said.
The Sault’s Holiday Inn Express received its status as a Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Rainbow Registered hotel on August 13, 2023, making it one of 60 hotels in Canada to have that designation.
Brash said he is pleased that more tourism businesses will be able to come on board for training and certification because of the FedNor funding announced Thursday.
“We’re super excited to hear this announcement from MP Sheehan as this funding is going to foster so much growth, inclusiveness, understanding and most of all pride in our people, in our guests and in ourselves,” Brash said.
