The IFRS Foundation has announced three significant developments to provide global financial markets with high-quality disclosures on climate and other sustainability issues:

• Forming the new International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB);
• Consolidating of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) and the Value Reporting Foundation (VRF – the Integrated Reporting Framework and the SASB Standards) by June 2022; and
• Publishing a prototype Standard of climate and general disclosure requirements that has been developed by the Technical Readiness Working Group (TRWG).

Read our Adviser Alert for more information.

Updated on April 26, 2023

The labour shortage has been particularly severe in the tourism industry, an important segment of our economy. What can be done to address this challenge—which will not go away in the short term—and what are the solutions for your organization?

Québec’s tourism industry has seen strong growth. It represents $14 billion in revenues and around 400,000 direct and indirect jobs at 30,000 different businesses.

However, this growth is hampered by a lack of workers. The labour shortage has been a challenge for several years now for a number of reasons, including a lack of interest in low-paying jobs, difficult work conditions and the ageing of the population. The pandemic seems to have aggravated these problems.

To keep your business viable over the next few years, you will need to consider a transformation of your business model.

How to adjust your business model

Of course, there are medium and long-term solutions that can solve part of the problem: for example, investing in automation or recruiting internationally.

In the shorter term, SMEs in the tourism industry can expand their pool of potential employees by encouraging seniors to stay at work or return from retirement and they can take advantage of wage subsidy programs to integrate youth and people with disabilities.

However, this won’t be enough for many businesses and you will need to find personalized solutions.

To help yourself find the solution that works best for you, start by evaluating your current situation and answering some key questions: What is your objective? What will your value proposition be? Which partner can help you deliver it? Here are some key things to consider when adapting your business model to the new reality.

Enhance the customer experience, one element at a time

Your customers are at the heart of your business. To maintain an optimal customer experience despite the labour shortage, you first need to identify your touchpoints before, during and after the interaction with the consumer. Then you can find ways to address problem areas, one aspect at a time. Here are some potential solutions:

• Improve your website management and step up your presence on social media, by subcontracting if necessary.
• Optimize your booking platform.
• Prioritize in-person reception, which is very important to customers.
• Use parking pay stations.
• Offer packages that enable remote working and promote long stays.
• Offer enticing deals in low season when it’s less difficult to find staff.
• Consider focusing on business customers on weekdays and staying closed on weekends.

Pay attention to the employee experience

The same approach applies to points of contact with your employees. So how do you attract employees and make them want to stay?

• Improve the onboarding process: ensure the wellbeing of new employees and give them feedback.
• Promote engagement: build strong relationships with your employees, recognize their accomplishments.
• Give employees more enriching tasks: workers who are given the opportunity to grow will want to stay with your company.
• Reduce work hours or business hours: this will also help improve work-life balance.
• Offer reduced hours to students during exam time.
• Embrace and promote your role as top employer: participate in job fairs and post attractive offers on social media.

Integrate digital solutions

Automation gets talked about a lot, and it’s important, but it should not come at the expense of the customer experience. People are central when it comes to creating meaningful relationships and interactions in the tourism industry.

You will need to be smart about the way you integrate technology so you can tackle the labour shortage while improving productivity and reducing time spent on repetitive tasks so your employees can spend more time with clients. Consider getting training for yourself and your employees on using digital inventory, transaction and scheduling tools. Choose digital tools that are user-friendly and will appeal to the younger generation (and to everyone in general!).

Adopt a less labour-reliant business model

Does a company really need to constantly grow and increase its revenues? “Small is beautiful” might just become the new watchword in the tourism industry. The key is to identify your target clientele (the main source for your profitability) and concentrate your efforts there.

For example, if you’re a restaurant owner, you might opt to ditch lunch and focus on dinner, or position yourself as a neighbourhood eatery that’s open on weekdays and closed on weekends. Or if you’re a hotel owner, you could choose to focus on business clientele so you don’t have to stay open seven days a week.

Maintaining the status quo is impossible. Owners and employees of tourism SMEs are already exhausted. The situation is not sustainable in the long term. The end goal is not to be open as long as possible. It is to offer a great customer experience and a great employee experience while respecting sustainable development best practices.

The sector must work together

Tourism organizations need to rethink their marketing strategies, target audiences and offers so they can meet the needs of SMEs and ensure a sustainable recovery. They have to promote teamwork and the sharing of resources from here and elsewhere in order to boost creativity and generate new ideas.

It is all well and good to spend money to promote a region, but you have to make sure that local hotels and businesses have the capacity to receive tourists. It would be more effective, for example, to encourage them to travel to less visited regions or come to you during low season, and to cut down on content and advertising for sites that are already very popular.

Develop local partnerships to boost your region’s visibility and appeal. Include cultural activities, explorations and educational experiences in your offer. The creativity of service providers plays an important role in tourists’ choices and allows businesses to diversify their offer and better manage tourist flows.

The circular economy is an interesting trend to promote. For example, you might consider promotional tie-ins or cross-selling with a partner that has a complementary service offer. This economic model has been gaining popularity because it allows businesses to share human and material resources, preventing losses and enhancing efficiency.

So where do you start? Before all else, you need to produce a detailed assessment of your organization and its environment. A good diagnosis will help you reframe your business model, prepare an action plan and prioritize actions based on your timeline and your situation.

If your business is experiencing financial difficulties, rest assured that financial recovery solutions are available. But sometimes selling is the best option.

If your business has been ravaged by financial difficulties, selling it may be the best way to avoid bankruptcy. What are the steps? How do you protect your employees, customers, suppliers and the organization’s value? Here’s an overview of the financial turnaround process and how to connect with potential buyers.

Current situation in the wake of the pandemic

A lot of small and mid-size businesses have faced hardship since the beginning of 2020. In fact, 71% of SMBs have gone into debt as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. On average, they owe $170,000 and three-quarters of these businesses will need more than 1 year to pay down their debt. In Quebec, insolvencies jumped 17% between the second quarters of 2020 and 2021. Now that government subsidies are winding down, the trend is only expected to get worse.

Insolvency trustees and financial recovery advisors know that entrepreneurs tend to be optimistic and solutions-oriented. They’ll try everything before seeking help from specialists. Whether a business has lost an important client, been hit with significantly higher material costs or simply lost control over their finances, most owners will try to set things straight on their own. After all, bold initiative is what got their business off the ground in the first place.

Provide temporary flexibility

Sooner or later, creditors will start demanding repayment. When this happens, many entrepreneurs look for short-term solutions that can actually reduce their chances of getting their finances back on track over the long term. They might take out a high-interest loan or personally guarantee their business’ debts, etc. This is often the stage when they’ll reach out to a financial turnaround specialist. And yet, involving a specialist earlier on would give you more time and options to turn your finances around. What will a specialist do to help?

1. Identify difficulties

Your financial recovery specialist will start by helping you determine what’s causing the problem. This is key in order to come up with the right strategy for your organization.

2. Propose an action plan

Once the issues have been determined, the recovery specialist will propose an action plan that reflects your business’ specific circumstances.

3. Place the business under the protection of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act

At this stage, it’s a good idea to seek protection for your business under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. Doing so can prevent a shutdown and eventual bankruptcy, if:

• your company’s debt load is so high that it’s unable to borrow more;
• your company is no longer able to find investors to provide liquidity;
• pressure from your business’ existing creditors is jeopardizing your operations.

Bankruptcy protection is used to temporarily prevent creditors from seeking recourse against your organization’s assets. It also freezes the company’s liabilities. This eases some of the pressure from creditors and gives the company time to prepare a proposal to creditors and restructure the business.

4. Find investors

If you’re able to inject cash back into the business, the funds can be used to finance a settlement with creditors or future operations. Rather than using the funds to cover past losses, you’ll be investing in the future.

If this isn’t possible, the insolvency trustee can help you find a shareholder interested in gaining a stake in the company. The investor’s funds will be used to rekindle the business and settle with your creditors.

However, finding an investor isn’t always possible, especially if the company is in dire straights and market conditions are particularly unfavourable. When this is the case, the best way to save the business is to sell it. This can be hard for business owners to accept. But the advantage is that you can save jobs, preserve relationships with your customers and suppliers, and enable the business to remain operational.

Selling a struggling business

If you have no choice but to sell your business, your insolvency trustee can help you keep it up and running. After all, the objective of the law is to protect the business.

Acting quickly can help you avoid losing suppliers and customers, which could reduce your business’ value or even jeopardize its survival. To make the process successful, you’ll need support from your key employees and you may want to offer them a bonus for staying on.

1. Prepare a presentation document

Your trustee will prepare a document to present the company and provide a transparent description of its financial situation.

2. Approach competitors and suppliers

Next, your trustee will approach competitors who may be interested in broadening their customer base or expanding their operations. Other potential buyers could be suppliers and customers interested in vertically integrating their operations.

3. Ensure you get the right price

At this stage, the trustee will make sure that no decision is made that could worsen the company’s financial situation. The goal is to obtain the best possible price for the business, given the circumstances. The sale will have to be approved by the court.

The advantages of an acquisition for the buyer

Even though the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act provides various tools to proceed with an acquisition, most of the time the buyer of an insolvent business only acquires its assets. Then it’s up to the buyer to figure out how to make these assets profitable.

Acquisitions can be very useful for companies looking to expand. They get the assets, but not the debts, since any amounts owing remain attributable to the insolvent legal entity.

If your business is experiencing financial difficulties, our recovery specialists can help keep the business operational and assist you through the remaining steps.