Canadian travel advisors and agents have a tremendous opportunity to sell domestic travel to their clients, says a senior official with Destination Canada.

Speaking with TravelPulse Canada Editor-in-Chief John Kirk on our Wednesday Facebook Live chat, Sebastien Dubois, Executive Director, Industry Partnerships for Destination Canada, said the crown corporation’s mandate from the federal government has been to market Canada to foreign travellers.

But, by the time March came around they realized they had to get Canadians to explore their own back yards in order to help keep travel and tourism businesses survive, and to help Canadian advisors.

Now, Destination Canada has a full campaign called Canada Nice, which seeks to get Canadians to explore this wonderful country of ours and helps Canadian agents, too.

“We need to get domestic travellers, Canadians, to travel again, either in their own back yard or travel from one province to another,” Dubois said.

Destination Canada has created the canadaspecialist.ca website to help make Canadian tourism offerings more familiar to agents who have traditionally sold trips to Europe or other destinations.

There are also training tools offered by individual cities such as Montreal or Vancouver, or by Canadian airlines. Just as important, they’ve created a list of tour operators who pay commissions to agents.

“We just want to make it easy for the travel trade to book Canadian destinations,” Dubois explained. “It’s important to provide the tools to travel advisors. The knowledge they acquire will last post-COVID; it will last for years and years.”

Dubois said it's important for Canadians to understand the value of booking with a travel advisor.

“Our studies show that more and more, consumers want to feel safe. They want to buy peace of mind. The fact that they’re dealing with a professional from the travel industry to sell them a package, often augments ... the security of what they’re buying," he said.

“I think there are great opportunities for travel advisors. I totally understand it’s a tough time, and a huge disruption, but there definitely are opportunities.”

Dubois said Destination Canada is taking a major role in the Travel and Leisure Show, which will use TravelPulse Canada’s virtual platform and takes place Sept. 10 and 12. The 10th is set aside for the travel trade to meet with suppliers and tourism folks, while the 12th is for consumers and the media and is expected to attract 15,000 to 20,000 participants.

“We believe it’s a great platform to talk to the travel trade,” Dubois said.

Destination Canada will have hotels, cities and provinces joining in, allowing advisors and others in the business to meet with between 75 and 100 suppliers, tour operators, hotels and others, allowing them to build critical relationships that will help their business prospects.

Dubois said Destination Canada also has bi-weekly newsletters that advisors can subscribe to.