InnFocus Fall 2023

y Mike Macleod, Director of Operations
Workforce Initiatives & Sales Representation Services
After a busy summer, we hope that you will be able to catch
your breath and start looking ahead at the coming months, while
addressing training, recruiting, and building your RevPAR. With
that in mind, the BCHA is proud to announce two returning service
programs that touch on our workforce pillar, as well as a new
service designed to help hotels drive more revenue.
First up are two returning Workforce initiatives. “Fast Track Your
Future” is returning for another year. We launched the first Fast
Track training in December of 2020 with the popular Financial
Leadership course. Season two returned in late 2022 and
early 2023 with two tracks including Leadership for Hospitality
Professionals. This season we are expanding to five tracks and
introducing training that focuses on Housekeeping, Human
Resources, and Property Maintenance. The series is built for
accommodation operators and team members interested in
refining and building new hospitality, customer service, and
leadership skills. It features five condensed six-week courses
that provide practical, actionable, and easily digestible guidance
presented by industry’s leading experts and trainers. Register your
team for a specific series, mix and match, or sign up for all five to
unlock exclusive savings. Registration is open on www.bcha.com
under our education page.
On the international recruiting front, the BCHA will once again
attend the Destination Canada Mobility Forum presented by
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). This
recruiting event is held in France and Morocco in November and
attracts recruits from French-speaking countries utilizing the
Francophone Visa pathway. The BCHA was honoured to be asked
to represent the sector for the second consecutive year. This year,
we are expanding our representation to 30 member hotels, and our
goal is to place three job orders per property, at a minimum. The
BCHA team will conduct hundreds of candidate interviews over
the multi-day, multi-country event, and refer all qualified candidates
back to participating hotels. Further information may be found
on our Workforce Resource pages on www.bcha.com. We also
encourage employers to reach out to our Workforce Strategist,
Alison Langford for more information at Alison@bcha.com.
Finally, we are very pleased to announce a new initiative. As
business recovery plateaus from the post-pandemic rebound
and transient business at many hotels dips, many are turning to
the group market for new sources of business. BCHA gathered
information from members earlier in the year that pointed us in
the direction of providing sales representation services for smaller
properties. We are very pleased to launch a pilot project where we
represent a limited number of hotel and resort properties at four
industry events this fall. BCHA’s expert team will provide co-op
marketing space at these events, offer sales support, follow-up,
and reporting. Should this prove successful, BCHA will evolve and
expand this service as yet another value for membership and one
that provides meaningful returns.
We are very proud to represent our industry, and we are
continually striving to drive value for membership, whether that is
through advocacy wins, savings, and benefit programs, and now
services that help operators recruit, train, or find business in an
efficient and cost-effective manner.
Advertisers
BC Hospitality Foundation 30
Bichin Laundry 11
Canadian Trade House 19
Cloverdale Paint 24
Coldstream 15
CorMac Projects Inc 29
Ecolab 11
Immigrant Services 29
Nationwide Realty 23
Liv Hospitality
IBC
LOC International Inc. BC
Redshift Collective 19
RHB Enterprises 13
Ricky’s Family-Style IBC
Restaurants
Tex-Pro Western Ltd 22
True North Distributors IFC
Western Financial Group 13
WorksafeBC 18
World Web Technology 9
30 InnFocus