GNWT & CANNOR Announce GRIT  - a Tourism Recovery Program

Dear Members,

Earlier today, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CANNOR) anounced a new program to help tourism businesses that are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The Growth and Recovery by Investing in Tourism (GRIT) Program makes $1.5 million dollars available to help NWT tourism operators. The GRIT program is part of a larger suite of programs available from the territorial and federal governments and you can find out more about this particular program by clicking on the links below.

https://spectacularnwt.com/sites/default/files/2020-08/NR%20-%20GRIT%20Funding_Backgrounder.pdf

https://www.iti.gov.nt.ca/en/GRIT

As the summer season comes to a close and NWT's fall and winter aurora operators face the NWT border restrictions again, I want to assure you that our advocacy for relief and recovery programs continues to be a top priority for NWT Tourism. We are in contact regularly with our industry association colleagues both provincially and nationally. Collectively, we are a strong voice across the country articulating the needs of our industry for survival and recovery supports.

To make sure we have a good understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on your business, and of the program supports that have been helpful to you, and to ensure we understand what other program supports you are going need in the months ahead, we are preparing a survey for our membership. We will be sending that survey out later this month and when it is issued, your input will be critical for us. It will enable us to represent your needs for relief and recovery to both national and territorial governments and we want to do that as they work through their 2021/22 budgeting and program planning. Please watch for this survey and please be sure to participate when you see it. 

We have also begun to prepare for our Annual General Meeting which will take place in the first week of November - via Zoom conferencing.   Since we will not be holding our annual tourism conference this year, we are planning some virtual sessions that lead up to our AGM to connect with you more directly. Our sessions will inform you about our destination marketing in this COVID-19 pandemic situation and how our plan addresses the various scenarios related to the pandemic and border restrictions.  We will also share our member survey results with you directly and provide an opportunity for a conversation with us about those results and what they mean for advocacy priorities going into 2021.   You will begin to hear more about these opportunities and others in early September.

We encourage you to visit our members’ section of the website at https://members.spectacularnwt.com/ to keep on top of news for our membership.

If you have any questions or comments on the things we are delivering please connect with me via email at executive@spectacularnwt.com or contact me by phone at 867-873-5007, Extension 1005. 

Take care, stay safe and stay in touch. 

Cathie Bolstad
CEO, Northwest Territories Tourism