Baxendale, whose travels have taken her across North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, also notes that she appreciates multiple dining options, lush toiletries, luxurious linens, windows that open, and air conditioning that can be turned off.

She enjoys experiencing local culture when she travels and looks for farm/ocean-to-table dining experiences, locally produced food and beverages such as chocolate, bread, wine, or cider, and an outdoor space for relaxing and soaking up the vibe.

Cleanliness and service above all
We received 62 responses to our survey from Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Ireland; the two most frequently recurring themes were cleanliness and service.

A few felt that, “cleanliness and service went without saying and should be a given in a 5-star hotel.” However, in the wake of the pandemic, that may not always be the case, and many hotels, including 5-star ones, are proudly advertising their cleaning protocols to reassure visitors. (See Celebrating Canada’s Holiday Island, in this issue, about the Safe Haven program the Tourism Industry Association of Prince Edward Island is encouraging its operators to follow, which allows them to advertise that their protocols are independently audited.)

“A room that is immaculate, along with excellent service, are the most important things for me,” writes Emilie Bunkall from the UK, who is planning trips to Washington, DC, and Toronto this fall. “It doesn’t matter how much you pay, or the qualities of the facilities—if the service is poor or the staff is rude, it cancels everything else out.”

Over and above that, she says she enjoys “unique touches, relevant to the location or the story behind the hotel.”

What service means
Service for our travellers means many things: attention to detail, such as providing two luggage racks in each room; key cards that work consistently and don’t have to be replaced during the stay; and a well-staffed front desk that handles check-ins and check-outs efficiently, avoiding that heart-stopping moment when a traveller waits, wondering if the hotel is over-booked or their reservation is lost in the system, or, perhaps, if they’ll get through this check-out in time to catch their plane.

It also means the little unexpected things. Duncan Matheson of Fredericton, New Brunswick recalls how the Inns on Great George in Charlottetown “always had fresh coffee and baked goods in the lobby for guests at no charge,” and how a hotel in Tampa provided a complimentary bottle of wine. “We didn’t expect that as it wasn’t advertised, so it left a positive impression.”

Our Irish respondent made a similar comment about delightful little welcoming gestures.

Location was also important to the people we surveyed. Guests staying at city hotels want to be able to walk to attractions, restaurants, and places of entertainment, while those visiting seaside or lakeside resorts expect to be on the waterfront and not separated from it by a busy highway.

Nancy Bauer of Fredericton, New Brunswick describes in detail what a 5-star experience means for her. “I love a great breakfast in my room with a pretty table arrangement,” she says. “Flowers. Served early. Wonderful coffee in a big carafe, homemade hot biscuits, eggs benedict with real hollandaise sauce, fresh fruit. A morning newspaper. A fluffy white terrycloth bathrobe. Maybe expecting real hollandaise sauce, and not the packaged kind, is a bit over the top, but you get the idea.”

Yes, Nancy, we do. We think you should get the real thing and so does the industry, which is constantly seeking to upgrade its services to embrace what our discerning travellers want.

The catalogue of what they want sheds some light on what tickles human fancy—or is totally essential—in 2023: from workout rooms, spas, heated pools, work desks with Wi-Fi, and accommodation for those with mobility issues to pet-friendly accommodation, rainfall showers, original art, dining options for vegetarians or those with food intolerances, assurances that the company is following environmentally sustainable practices, knowledgeable and helpful concierge service, room service, and last but not least, “good pillows and an extra towel for my long hair.”

The evolution of hotel ratings
While French tire manufacturer Michelin and Magnolia Oil (now ExxonMobil) are credited with developing travellers’ guides and rating systems for restaurants and hotels in the mid-20^th century as a way of encouraging the use of their products (rubber tires and gasoline), the credit for being first belongs to English travel writer, Mariana Starke (1762-1838).

Earlier travel guides had focused on architectural and scenic descriptions of places visited by wealthy young Englishmen embarking on the European Grand Tour. Starke’s regularly updated guides, by contrast, included practical advice for English family groups travelling to France and Italy, which she did with her own family.

She enlightened readers on how to obtain a passport and manage luggage, and noted the precise costs of food and accommodation in each city she visited. She also devised a rating system using exclamation marks (!!!) which appears to have been the forerunner of modern star-rating systems.

But the stars didn’t appear in North America until 1958, when Magnolia Oil agreed to fund the first pocket-sized 1958-59 Mobil Travel Guide, published by Simon & Schuster, who apparently admired France’s Guide Michelin. The project covered Magnolia’s territory, which was then Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, and was led by travel writers Marion and Alden Stevens.

The operation grew more comprehensive and sophisticated and in 2009, the original Mobil Travel Guide was relaunched as the Forbes Travel Guide, and after 2011, moved exclusively online. Today, the Forbes team of incognito travel guides continues to visit nearly 1,000 hotels, restaurants, and spas around the world, using up to 900 standards to determine ratings in three categories.

Five-star ratings indicate outstanding, often iconic properties, with virtually flawless service and amazing facilities; four-star properties are exceptional and offer high levels of service and quality of facility to match; while the third rated category, “Recommended,” indicates excellent properties with consistently good service and facilities.

Forbes, however, is far from being the only rating organization. There’s Conde Nast, Frommer’s Guides, Lonely Planet, and a host of others, including automobile associations such as AAA and CAA, which may use different systems with different criteria.

A small point – the price point
All of this can be confusing for travellers trying to choose which hotel best suits their needs, wants, and budgets. No one aspires to stay at a 2-star hotel, of course, although in reality many people do, and except for the super-rich, few of us can afford to pay for truly luxurious hotels, such as the self-styled 7-star hotels of Dubai, without running up terrifying debts.

As a result, the combination of what customers want and what they’re willing to pay has put pressure on the hotel industry to up their game while keeping prices competitive. In addition, some hotels are losing business to other forms of accommodation which, while not necessarily less expensive, may offer different experiences.

Two of our respondents, for example, indicated they are choosing alternatives to hotels, such as high-end Airbnb and VRBO accommodations or glamping—luxurious camping options, often in geodesic domes, where guests are surrounded by nature and gaze at star-filled skies.

Tell it all online
Customer reviews through the top online hotel review websites—Google, TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Expedia, and Hotels.com—have had an enormous impact on the hotel industry and its marketing strategies in recent years, as both our limited survey and extensive ones like those conducted by MARA indicate (as described by Tobias Roelen-Blasberg in Online Review Statistics Every Hotel Needs to Know in 2023, at www.mara-solutions.com).

According to Roelen-Blasberg, whose blog recaps numerous surveys conducted in the past five years, online reviews do indeed affect people’s hospitality choices to a greater extent than official “star” rating systems or attractive but possibly misleading advertisements placed by hotel companies. While personal recommendations still rank number one when booking a hotel, in their absence, 70.9 percent of travellers say that an online reputation influences their choice of accommodation, while 81 percent say they always read reviews before booking and pay particular attention to how the hotel company responds to a negative review. Does the business ignore the complaint, apologize, explain, or, better still, indicate how the issue is being addressed and rectified?

Good reviews, based on the survey statistics, are a higher motivational factor than discounted prices, “with 86 percent of people saying they would pass off a ‘good deal’ from a company with numerous unattended negative reviews,” while 56 percent of customers responded that they would “change their opinion about a business upon checking the responses given to the online reviews” by the hotel management.

In the early years of online reviews, there was a certain level of scepticism. Were the hotel companies’ staff members writing their glowing reviews? Were other hotels sabotaging their competitors’ businesses?

Roelen-Blasberg writes that while “fake reviews will never be 100 percent identified and deleted, publishing fake reviews on a large scale has become extremely difficult.” This is a result of sophisticated online review websites now able to track and authenticate the IP address of suspicious reviews and if necessary, delete them, with Amazon leading the way in 2020 with a $700 million investment to do just that.

Encouraging guests to leave reviews, hopefully positive ones, is yet one more thing hotel management is now tasked with. While they’re hopeful that satisfied guests will leave positive reviews, only “40 percent of travellers say they leave reviews when they experience exceptional service at a hotel but need to be prompted, whereas 48 percent tend to leave reviews if they have had a bad hotel experience.”

As noted, negative reviews put the onus on management to respond, with some companies turning to AI to generate responses, which may appear to work in the short term for PR purposes but be detrimental in the long term.

If online reviews are indeed as critical as surveys suggest, hotel management needs to ensure services and facilities offered are exactly as advertised and that they assist and support their staff, maintain morale, and provide appropriate training, which improves service and in turn leads to positive reviews from happy customers. And when customers are not happy, complaints should be met with authentic, personalized responses. In 2023, many hotels are doing exactly that!

The post Be Our Guest<p class="company">How the Hotel Industry Is Taking Hospitality to the Next Level</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

She did return to Calgary to work, “but I moved back for good in 2000, because I’d fallen in love with PEI,” she says. “And I still see it from a visitor’s perspective. When people grow up here, they may take it for granted, but it’s a unique and special place. That’s what makes my job—supporting our tourism industry and operators—such fun.”

With over 1,100 km of shoreline, 90 sandy beaches, rolling countryside, all the lobster, mussels, oysters, and potatoes you can eat, 32 golf courses, a national arts centre, a port where cruise ships dock, an interesting mix of cultures, and oodles of charm, one might think that the tourism industry on Prince Edward Island would barely have to lift a finger to keep visitors coming back.

But one would be so wrong! We learned from Clemence of the concerted effort it takes to ensure that this vital industry (employing one in eight islanders, and in 2019 generating $82 million in provincial tax revenue), already the second largest economic driver, stays healthy and keeps growing. We also learned that this growth is only made possible through the individual efforts of all tourism stakeholders, strongly supported by services and initiatives from TIAPEI.

Today, the association has 482 members across the island from all sectors, including accommodation, restaurants, retail, attractions, festivals, and events. “We have a great variety of members with varying needs that we represent,” Clemence says.

Among the many benefits members enjoy are group insurance benefits for operators and staff, with rates for single, family, and waived coverage; exclusive discounts on services ranging from graphic design, printing, and photocopying to home heating oil, and web hosting services; and a rebate from Chase Merchant Services.

In addition to these benefits, Clemence is delighted to be able to share news about some exciting new initiatives of great benefit to operators.

PEI’s tourism operators have always practiced a high level of sanitation, but Clemence says that because of the pandemic, the industry realized that more needed to be done to reassure visitors that the island was truly a safe place to bring their families. As a result, TIAPEI and Tourism PEI partnered with EarthCheck, an Australian-based world leader in scientific benchmarking and certification and an advisory group for travel and tourism, to develop their own Safe Haven program. This initiative establishes and upholds even higher standards of health and safety management, and is offered as a voluntary program, free of charge, to members.

The Safe Haven program is flexible, in that it is applicable to all types of tourism operation—fixed roof accommodation, campgrounds, restaurants, golf courses, retail, PEI Authentic Experiences, festivals, attractions, museums, and theatres—and goes above and beyond current legislation such as the Tourism Industry Act and the Public Health Act.

The program involves an online self-assessment for operators and helps them develop standard operating procedures for various health and hygiene categories; helps operators ensure staff members have access to materials to meet the standards, such as disinfectant, masks, and hand sanitizer; provides a training program for their use; and conducts an external audit.

“What’s different about this program is that we have added in that extra layer, where we have an auditor go out and audit the property to ensure that everything the operators say they are doing, they are actually putting into practice,” Clemence explains.

In return for achieving Safe Haven certification, businesses can display in their premises the program’s “seal of approval” as well as promotional material “confirming that the location that bears it is a worry-free destination, giving visitors the assurance that they want,” she says.

Safe Haven has been so successful that it caught the attention of Skift, a leading international travel news outlet, which awarded Prince Edward Island the 2022 Skift IDEA Award for Pandemic Response.

“Another program that is near and dear to my heart is the Tourism Wellness Program,” Clemence shares. “The industry has faced some incredibly difficult years with pandemic challenges, labour shortages, and the devastation of Hurricane Fiona. We know that everyone needs support at one time or another, and during this period there was a lot of added pressure and stress not only on our operators but on their staff and families.”

This wellness initiative is offered by TIAPEI with support from the provincial government. It provides up to six sessions per year of free, professional, confidential counselling for operators, employees, and their families through the Atlantic Employee Assistance Program, with three counsellors available in-person or online. Available supports include individual and family counselling, alcohol and drug treatment, stress and anxiety support, bereavement support, couples and marital support, and resources for dealing with depression, parenting, legal or financial matters, and learning disabilities.

Early in 2023, TIAPEI hosted a town hall-style meeting so that local operators could meet and speak with the executives from three national bodies—the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, with which TIAPEI is affiliated; Destination Canada; and the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada.

“It helps us to have our finger on the pulse of what’s happening nationally,” Clemence says, “and vice versa, so that these national organizations have an opportunity to learn what our challenges and our successes are. The biggest challenge across the country is the labour workforce, and that’s the one we are working on now. We do high school presentations about careers in tourism and culinary, we host job fairs to showcase the available positions, and we have a public perception campaign where we talk about what’s so great about the industry,” she explains.

“We have done two international recruitment missions and we have a full workforce action plan that addresses housing, childcare, and transportation. We are trying to attack it from every angle but there is no single, magic bullet that will fix it immediately.”

A lot of conversation took place around international recruitment and housing solutions for seasonal workers, permanent residents, or people on working holiday visas, and how the industry can better accommodate individuals coming to Canada to work.

“It was worthwhile to hear because we can take what we learned from operators in other parts of the country and try to implement it here,” says Clemence, referring to the three-year New Tourism Workforce Action Plan which TIAPEI instituted in June 2022, which highlights the need for continued support of operator capacity.

Clemence and the TIAPEI staff, in partnership with the federal and provincial governments, have worked with industry to develop an array of free training programs and workshops that offer operators opportunities to enhance their skills and acquire new techniques for developing their businesses. Among these was a mixology workshop with Lesley Quinn, Atlantic Canada’s Top Sommelier; workshops on how to use social media and Instagram strategies to take business to the next level; and Commercial Insurance 101, from the experts at the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

In addition to workshops developed for owner/operators are several programs aimed at enhancing the workforce. One example is a 12-week kitchen training and internship Entry Level Cook Training program, in which participants can earn a stipend equivalent to the minimum wage for over 30 hours a week, funded through the Canada-PEI Labour Market Agreements.

PEI BEST Service Excellence offers a one-day workshop with five modules which teach employees the skills to handle customer complaints, and there are opportunities to access Canada’s best online tourism and hospitality training through emerit. These are national skills training products developed by Tourism HR Canada and distributed by TIAPEI.

Through emerit learners can study over 24 occupations online at times convenient for them, including Event Coordinator, Front Desk Agent, Sales Manager, Director of Housekeeping, Heritage Guide, and Travel Manager. Employees certified through emerit earn a national credential that identifies them as professionals.

So yes, there were pandemic shutdowns, inflation, workforce shortages, and a hurricane to contend with, but Clemence says, “There was a silver lining in all this. It has strengthened communication and collaboration within the industry. We had a strong return in 2022 and we are hoping for the same in 2023 when the numbers are in,” she shares.

“It is great to see the passion of our operators as they innovate and adapt their offerings, adjust, and move forward because we are all partners in this. We want to make sure the public understands the value of tourism because it’s a celebration of where we live, our neighbours, our history, our authenticity, and our farmers and fishers. I think it’s important that we continue to tell this story.”

The post Celebrating Canada’s Holiday Island<p class="company">Tourism Industry Association of Prince Edward Island</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Chief Executive Officer Andrew McNair began his tenure with the association in 2022, and he says that its current mission is to provide the advocacy and support that its members, and the tourism industry at large, need.

One of the biggest pieces of TIANB’s work is advocacy, especially in tackling issues facing tourism operators and assisting in finding resources to solve these issues. This is done to help move things along for operators in the province and both identify and solve problems so that members are minimally affected.

Training is another key part of the association’s operations, as it offers a breadth of modules and certification programs for local workers and managers to elevate their skills and ensure that there are good employees and trained workers in the industry. These include modules like customer service training and responsible beverage programs for bars and restaurants, with many more programs available relevant to all sectors.

“We want to be a stakeholder in the quality of the New Brunswick tourism product,” McNair says. He also wants to elevate the industry as an attractive career option for both new and returning staff to the industry, so that a healthy pipeline of capable workers can be established and continue to prosper to benefit the sector.

Emerging from a turbulent start to the decade, McNair says that a lot of struggles persist for the tourism industry as it attempts to shake off the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a lot of help still needed from operators. However, he says that tourism in New Brunswick is in a good place, with demand having returned in large measure. Earlier in 2023, signs seemed to point to a positive summer season, but speaking at the end of August, the scene seems to have levelled out. Operators report that it may not be as flush a season as originally anticipated, with the unseasonably rainy weather in the Maritimes being a likely leading factor.

“We continue to be optimistic,” McNair says, as tourism numbers reach close to the pre-pandemic standard and more people look to get back outside and explore what the province and its neighbouring Atlantic provinces have to offer.

He says that tourism is one of the many industries currently affected by labour shortage, especially in the more rural areas of New Brunswick, but operators are finding creative ways to address this. Approaches include finding technologies to create efficiencies that will allow operators to do more with fewer people, or minimizing hours to accommodate more workers.

The options available are not necessarily the most desirable, but everyone involved is making the best of it. Regardless, a lot of work is being done within the tourism sector to increase, improve, and identify opportunities for product in the province.

A few sectors and initiatives within provincial tourism have seen growth within the past year or so. McNair cites Outdoor Adventure, an all-encompassing promotion of outdoor activity and recreation in New Brunswick, as one that has been successful thus far and is still growing. This is attributed largely to people coming to the province and looking for things to do in nature. Operators are taking advantage of every opportunity available to capitalize on this interest with geo-domes, bike travel, trails, campgrounds, and even hunting and fishing, as people are very interested in the outdoor experiences the province can offer.

This outdoor focus also dovetails nicely with buy-local initiatives in New Brunswick, which are providing a boost in business for food and beverage companies. McNair says that craft spirits is one example of a part of this sector that is thriving, with new vendors appearing every few months. “Creative initiatives are thriving and taking advantage of what the consumer is looking for today,” he says, and are proving to be a growing ally for local tourism as time goes on.

The Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick regularly leverages its partnerships with other organizations to boost the services it provides. Frequent partners include provincial and national tourism industry associations of Canada, and New Brunswick works closely with all of them and supports their respective initiatives. The organizations also share ideas and best practices with one another.

McNair says the government of New Brunswick provides valuable education and labour resources, citing how the association regularly works with the early education and childhood development branch of the province to get tourism on the radar of schools, to encourage students to consider it as a future career opportunity.

Other associations, like Tourism HR Canada and Restaurants Canada, provide training and education, with the latter part of a reciprocal deal where members in New Brunswick can take advantage of services on offer. He also says that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is a strong partner and a huge supporter of the tourism industry, helping operators and providing sponsorships and loans where possible.

“We try to keep our networks as open as we can,” says McNair. “A lot of the issues in our industry are not limited to just us, so we do our best to offer support to partners in return.”

Going forward into a new year, he says that the association wants to focus on what the tourism industry needs; as someone who is relatively new to the scene, his focus is on listening and learning, and identifying where support and growth lies in the province. “If we aren’t listening and figuring out where the gaps and opportunities are, we aren’t much good as an organization.”

While tourism in the province is still strong, the Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick aims to anticipate its members’ needs to facilitate growth and future strength. It will continue to do what it does best while adding even more services, providing new training opportunities and staying abreast of current tourism issues to ensure its strength as an advocate. Above all, the association will look to build a bigger and better organization into 2024 and beyond, and McNair and his team are looking forward to another 40 years of TIANB being the go-to place for New Brunswick-based businesses and tourism operations to flourish.

The post Opportunities Abound for Provincial Tourism<p class="company">Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

How it all began
The Halifax airport, located 30 minutes from downtown Halifax, was built by the Federal Department of Transport and opened in 1960, serving approximately 180,000 passengers annually in its early years. Originally, it was managed by Transport Canada, but that changed on February 1, 2000, when Halifax International Airport Authority (HIAA) took over operational and managerial control.

This control, according to a government policy developed in 1992, allowed the Minister of Transport to empower local communities, through a devolution process, to take greater advantage of the airport, offer services that meet local demands and attract businesses, make significant improvements to the airport’s facilities, and enhance its role as an economic generator for the region.

In 2005, the terminal building was named after Robert L. Stanfield, in honour of Nova Scotia’s well-respected Premier (from 1956-67) and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, serving as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition (from 1967-1976), where he earned the moniker of “the best PM Canada never had.” Two years later, the entire airport was renamed the Robert L. Stanfield International Airport.

Into the 21^st century
By its very nature, there is something exciting about an airport, especially an international one that’s been rated by passengers as among the best in the world.

In recent years, Halifax Stanfield received recognition numerous times from the Skytrax World Airport Awards, in which over 13.25 million passengers from 112 countries take part in annual airport satisfaction surveys and rank it in various categories, anywhere from second to tenth in the world. The airport has also been ranked third in North America in Airport Service Quality (ASQ) ratings.

We wanted to learn more about what makes this airport such a success, so we spoke with Joyce Carter, President and Chief Executive Officer, HIAA, and Marie Manning, Vice President of Business Development and Chief Commercial Officer, HIAA.

Carter tells us what she told an international conference in Amsterdam in 2017 when she was invited to speak on how an airport can operate cost-effectively and still offer the highest quality service: “It’s the result of great cooperation and collaboration among everyone in our airport community.”

Carter and Manning agree that they thoroughly enjoy working for an organization where the focus is on public service, economic growth, and community values, in a space where no two days are ever the same.

With 3.5 million passengers expected to move, in 2023, through a facility that is served by 16 passenger airlines flying an average of 100 regularly scheduled and charter flights per day, to 35 destinations across Canada, the U.S., the Caribbean, and Europe, how could it be otherwise?

But passengers are not the only people in the airport. There are approximately 4,300 people who work for one of 102 organizations operating at the airport, including 200 directly for HIAA. These businesses include airlines, aviation service providers, aerospace and defence, car rental companies, food and beverage services, retail shops, hotels, and many others, all available to support a thriving aviation industry and passenger journey.

Advancing the Stanfield experience
As Carter noted in 2018, when Halifax Stanfield hosted the inaugural ACI (Airports Council International) Customer Excellence Global Summit, “We know that providing our passengers with more options and price points, such as ultra-low-cost flights and more nonstop routes to popular destinations, gives them more reasons to travel, for business or leisure. Halifax Stanfield has become the airport of choice for more and more passengers, which we’re thrilled to see.”

In addition to the sorts of services travellers might expect, Halifax Stanfield also has unique offerings, including a nursing room; a multi-faith worship centre; a volunteer therapy dog program in partnership with St. John Ambulance; the Tartan Team Volunteer Host Program; Autism Aviators, created in partnership with Autism Nova Scotia and aimed at easing the travel process of individuals on the autism spectrum; and Books Now Boarding, in partnership with Halifax Public Libraries.

Halifax Stanfield’s commitment to service excellence isn’t only about the passenger experience. It is also focused on ensuring the airport is socially and environmentally sustainable. The airport has earned Level 3 accreditation through Airports Council International—North America’s Airport Carbon Accreditation Program, the only institutionally endorsed global carbon-management program for airports. Level 3 accreditation means the airport demonstrated it was managing and reducing CO₂ emissions and engaging stakeholders to do the same as part of the global airport industry’s response to climate change.

Included among the airport’s environmental achievements are the construction of the LEED silver-certified Combined Services Complex, home to HIAA’s emergency response and maintenance teams; a stormwater treatment system; a more environmentally friendly de-icing alternative; and a solid waste management program which received the provincial Mobius Award of Environmental Excellence.

How the Airport Authority model works
Carter explains that the HIAA “is a non-share capital corporation, meaning that we are required to reinvest any surpluses back into airport operations or development. We don’t issue dividends to shareholders, and any surplus revenue is how we pay for our growth and development.”

She says revenue is derived from various sources, including landing and terminal fees paid by airlines that use the facility, business tenants who rent space, and non-aeronautical activities like parking, shopping, and dining. “We’re required to set our aeronautical rates at levels that are close to meeting the cost of running the facility, and what’s left over is reinvested in the airport, making it better for passengers,” she shares.

“How the model works and how funds are generated is a really interesting question, which begins with the airlines,” says Marie Manning, speaking from a business development perspective. “Everyone may not understand our role from an airport development perspective and what airports do to attract airlines to service an airport: we have a strong air service development team that, based on solid business cases and developed in partnership with tourism and economic development agencies, presents to appropriate airlines opportunities to launch a new route or provide additional air service for our community.”

Since HIAA took over the facility, the list of major improvements through a multi-year, multi-faceted Airport Improvement Program has been truly impressive.

Among them was an extension of Runway 05/23 to 10,500 feet, the longest in Atlantic Canada; reconfiguration of the airport roadway network; construction of a 2,300-space parkade, with an over-the-road pedway and the province’s only moving sidewalk; complete restoration of all runways and taxiways; expansion of international and domestic arrival areas; a self-service baggage drop system, making the airport the first in North America to offer this service; and creation of the public Observation Deck.

Recent investments include the construction of a new air cargo logistics park, including a facility that features a large cold storage area from which fresh seafood, mainly live lobsters, are shipped via cargo services to Europe and Asia, and the construction of a new taxiway to Runway 14, to improve aircraft operational efficiency and reduce idling time.

Meeting challenging times head-on
2019 had seen phenomenal growth. For the third year in a row, the airport served more than four million passengers. The airport had increased its number of non-stop destinations, including new services to Chicago and Philadelphia, and increased capacity to New York, with total U.S. air travel increasing by 19 percent over the previous year.

Then came March 2020 and the lockdowns, which severely impacted the aviation industry and revenue flow at airports around the world, including Halifax Stanfield, when tourism, immigration, visiting family and friends, and business travel came to a standstill. However, cargo movement continued throughout the pandemic because of the demand for essential items like personal protective equipment, vaccines, and other goods. At the height of the pandemic at Halifax Stanfield, passenger activity was down more than 90 per cent, but cargo activity was only down about 20 per cent.

“We say that cargo helped us keep the lights on,” Carter says, “because it allowed exports to continue, so from a regional economic perspective, it was important as it has a $500 million economic impact annually to the Province of Nova Scotia. However, from HIAA’s perspective, it didn’t come close to replacing the passenger business we lost,” she explains.

“We are still in recovery mode,” she says, “but we are on track in terms of what we had anticipated coming out of a very difficult time for the aviation industry. In fact, we have done extremely well, and so far in 2023, we are at approximately 85 percent of the passenger volumes we had in 2019. We are very pleased with the numbers, and we are on track, looking at it from a forecast perspective, for next year.”

She adds that it has taken a concerted effort to recover thus far, working with many partners—including the Atlantic Canada Airports Association as well as the Canadian Airports Council and Airports Council International—to provide a seamless travel experience for passengers. Recovery has also involved working with diverse tourism associations such as Tourism Nova Scotia, the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, Discover Halifax, Destination Canada, various economic development agencies, and the airlines themselves.

“It’s really important for us to regularly stay in touch with the airlines to understand what their challenges are and where there may be opportunities, and analyze those to see if there is an alignment with us so we can develop a business case and support them,” Carter says.

“It’s about negotiating with airlines to get service into Halifax,” she continues, “a situation where we need to provide them with as much information as we can—not only about our airport but about our community from tourism and economic perspectives, to see if it matches their business needs.”

Speaking of the recovery, she affirms that the demand for air service is strong again, and planes are fuller than they have been.

In 2023, three airlines offered non-stop flights to Europe, with year-round service to London Heathrow by Air Canada and summer seasonal service to Frankfurt by Condor and Discover. Halifax Stanfield is connected to the U.S. with Air Canada flying daily year-round to Newark and Boston, and American Airlines operating in the summer season to Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. American Airlines recently announced it would also begin flying between Halifax and New York’s LaGuardia airport starting in June 2024.

The sun flight season at Halifax Stanfield begins soon, with several airlines offering non-stop flights to Florida, the Caribbean, and Mexico. Manning says airlines are increasing their capacity to these destinations to meet high demand. In addition, Manning hopes to see more air service to Canadian destinations, including regional connectivity, soon.

Moving forward
“We’re very optimistic about the future,” Carter tells us. “We spent a lot of time at the beginning of the pandemic thinking about our future, our recovery, and about our region, and how we could restart and secure air services again.”

The planning to which she refers is not only for the immediate future, but also includes a long-range Master Plan with passenger and cargo growth projections to 2041. “When we created the Master Plan in 2020 and 2021, we didn’t know how recovery from the pandemic would play out. Today in 2023, in terms of recovery overall, we are where we thought we would be, which is a pretty awesome achievement, and we’re optimistic about the years to come.”

Carter, who has been named one of Atlantic Canada’s top 50 CEOs for four consecutive years, and named in 2023 by Atlantic Business Magazine as one of the 25 most powerful women in business, is humble when she speaks about her work, describing herself as a public servant. “What gets me motivated every morning is being able to come to work in a place that makes a difference in people’s lives, from personal travellers reuniting with family, to international business travellers, to the businesses that are located here in the airport, and to the tourism operators in our local communities,” she says.

“Every little piece of work we do here contributes to someone’s success or happiness. Knowing that we are here to serve the public, and that what we do matters, is what motivates me.”

The post Halifax Stanfield: A Beacon of Success in Atlantic Canada<p class="company">Halifax International Airport Authority</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

These have been three decades of promoting the growth of a dynamic and adaptable workforce and supporting human resource development in a globally competitive and sustainable industry. By providing tourism stakeholders with the tools and resources they need to thrive in their employment and entrepreneurial pursuits, the organization collaborates with the industry to attract, develop, and retain valuable tourism professionals.

Recognized as a Canadian Workplace Culture Leader for outstanding organizational culture, the organization takes pride that its team embraces the belief of putting people first. With its employees, clients, business partners, and the local community, Tourism HR Canada aims to nurture this strong and supportive workplace culture industry-wide by promoting the growth of a dynamic and adaptable workforce while enabling HR development initiatives for a globally competitive business.

“Tourism HR Canada’s mandate can be summarized as building a resilient, competitive, and inclusive labour market,” says President Philip Mondor. “It comes down to addressing whatever workforce issues might prevail in the tourism sector. Tourism itself is made up of well over two million workers, working in every riding in Canada, in five different industries that comprise the sector.”

Tourism is a large industry indeed and the role of the organization is to coordinate and facilitate all activities that address these realities. These include setting standards for best practice by defining skills and projecting skill and labour demands; attraction and retention campaigns; working with education systems to align programming; and developing training and certification programs that align with industry needs.

“Research is at the foundation of a lot of what we do,” Mondor says. “We’re known as a foundational labour market system as well. So when the government of Canada first set up these types of organizations, within the mandates were some fundamental areas of work, one being research.”

That means the organization is responsible for the production of most of the types of labour market research and analysis that inform policy and program decisions for the industry. But it’s not alone on this front. Tourism HR Canada works very closely with Stats Canada and other groups that specialize in this kind of research, but its job is really to pull it all together, particularly focusing on the analysis and decisions as to where research is necessary to inform policy.

“It’s everything from what we would call foundational statistics—such as demographics, supply/demand projections, compensation data—to what the trends and prevailing challenges are,” Mondor explains. “That’s kind of a bread and butter or fundamental category, but there’s so much more.”

Demands on the research come from diverse sources, such as governments and academia. The organization investigates everything from supply and demand, which is a very complex field, to sentiment surveys to ascertain people’s views of working in the sector from multiple angles, such as through a consumer’s lens or a worker’s lens.

State of industry reports have become another high priority, and call for the organization to take periodic measures of how well the industry is managing in the current political, social, and economic environment. Thanks to the pandemic, that’s an activity that has occupied a lot of time and continues to do so.

“We’re the go-to agency responsible for having a good understanding of what’s happening with the labour market and what should we focus on looking forward, particularly to inform policy and program investments,” Mondor says.

While that kind of research tells Tourism HR Canada what it is they need to tackle, working with the education and training sector to develop curricula and modes of delivery, for example, is more current. During the pandemic years, the emphasis naturally shifted to what the research could provide to inform policy because conditions were so disruptive with all kinds of novel phenomena to consider.

“Although the sector is very large and represents about 10 percent of the labour market, we don’t operate in a vacuum,” says Mondor. “If you look at the broader labour market context and the broader economic, social, and political context, we’re part of that larger narrative. But we have to understand how we work within that context to address the complexity of this sector, which is very diverse.”

While the pandemic has very much affected how employers are attracting and retaining workers, some things haven’t changed from a decade or even 20 years ago.

“In other words, some of the challenges we face today are structural and systemic,” Mondor says. “They’re not new, but they’re amplified—and perhaps more complex in many ways. The obvious ones you hear in the headlines today are things like housing, which is a factor of supply; that there are just not enough workers to fill the demand for skills; the changing skills landscape; and so on.”

Emerging from the pandemic requires smarter, more sophisticated human capital practices, because competition for workers and changing cultural views have changed the landscape entirely, he adds. “You can’t look at your workforce like you did in 2019 or before that. It’s fundamentally a new world.”

Learning to work with fewer people despite the demand for growth means doing much more with what’s called a “blended workforce,” where companies are sharing workers and finding ways to work with more contingent workers while still fostering the development of an anchor team.

“But that alone gives you an idea of some of the complexity here, because some of those workers could be working anywhere on the globe, or working in another region where there are different factors at play, different labour laws, different kinds of responsibilities around the way people are paid, how you communicate,” Mondor says. “It changes the culture of your workplace.”

Referred to as “reworking the work arrangements,” it involves being accommodating and adaptive to the different needs of workers. In a way, that’s not new, but attitudes and expectations around such an approach have changed in ways that are no longer a differentiating factor—it’s now foundational that you have to have your work designed in ways that are tailored to each and every worker.

“It’s a much more complex way to think about how you manage your workforce,” says Mondor. “It’s about how their HR management goes beyond their front door and community-led strategies where they have to be far more engaged in community-levelled efforts to better influence what’s happening from a public policy point of view.”

The bottom line, he adds, is that HR today doesn’t look anything like it did a decade ago. To assist with navigating this dynamic and ever-changing industry, Tourism HR Canada has designed Discover Tourism, a website with programming to attract and retain workers for the industry.

First launched a decade ago, recent investment by the federal government has resulted in a massive refresh and expansion of the site, demonstrating a change in attitudes—“not just with employers and the tools to help them, but also with job seekers and those already working for us,” shares Mondor. “It’s a much larger ecosystem that we tap into with a more cohesive strategy to not only illustrate what the value proposition is with the industry but really to help people understand and navigate it and to create better career paths.”

While the pandemic changed much in the tourism field, the organization already understood pre-pandemic the kinds of changes on the horizon in the workforce and anticipated a number of the challenges that the pandemic brought on so abruptly, specifically those of losing 880,000 workers within 10 weeks and then being closed for more than two years.

The Future Skills project was formed to map and define the way the workforce would look in a dynamic way that would continue to be responsive to evolving changes. These changes have in fact been in demand in many other industries the organization works with, both within and outside of Canada.

This experience, and the organization’s own prescience, has now enabled Tourism HR Canada to be at the forefront of analyzing skill demands and helping define other needs in the sector for the Future Skills project. This will roll out in the late fall branded under the Workforce Management Engine.

Along with this initiative is the Labour Market Forum, an event financed by the Government of Canada designed to bring in 80 to 100 people responsible for looking at workforce issues from across Canada, such as heads of associations involved with HR and large companies, as well as government associations.

Topics include immigration—a constant subject of discussion in many industries as immigration is a major source of workers—as well as Indigenous workforce development, employer practices, and the workforce ecosystem.

Mondor makes the point that the pandemic was a highly disruptive period, and it changed the narrative and the reality of how labour markets are addressed. “This has been a sum game for us in terms of increasing visibility and increasing people’s true understanding of these challenges,” he says.

From a public policy point of view, he adds, the organization has a seat at the table now like never before. “And we have a strong voice. So if there’s nothing else the pandemic and all those challenges did for us, that’s a big one. And it’s monumental.”

Soon, the organization will be launching the updated Canadian Academy of Travel and Tourism, a suite of resources for high schools, across Canada. Teachers will be able to tap into a variety of learning materials that can be incorporated based on their unique program needs, plus become part of a worldwide network of tourism educators via the Global Travel and Tourism Partnership.

“These are all elements that materialized largely because the pandemic accelerated the demand for these particular tools,” Mondor explains. “And around Indigenous workforce-related efforts, there too there has been a much better understanding of the kind of framework and approach we need to take and some headway on that. And while they’re all complex, there are different challenges here that we’ll continue to work on. There’s no hard outcome at the moment, but there’s a lot of groundwork.”

As for milestones to achieve in the coming years, the organization’s overall aim will be to grow the tourism workforce to 2.5 million by 2030. “There are a lot of things that need to happen, the most important being that we do need to continue to have influence and further inform critical policy changes, particularly with the immigration system and with employment insurance schemas,” says Mondor.

“Related to that is the Discover Tourism initiative and program. It’s such a foundational and important tool for such a broad audience. We need to nourish that and ramp it up, expand it. The more that happens, the more it facilitates a lot of the needs. It’s kind of the go-to spot.”

Underpinning that are new tools in response to the market along with new research. “It’s been fascinating to look at the kinds of inquiries we’ve had around research in the last two-plus years,” Mondor says. “We’ve been doing research since the inception of the organization, and producing lots of information monthly and annually. However, the pandemic has motivated people to work with that information in ways we’ve never seen, and it’s bred a demand for more targeted information, and more informed questions. There’s more interest in different kinds of data.”

The organization is also eager to delve into issues like modelling data on understanding, which is “sophisticated, but absolutely fascinating,” Mondor says.

“Another aspect we’re working with is where a new partner of ours is studying just what can change the behaviour of employers—to help them look at HR differently. So you can see this goes beyond the conventional; it’s getting into the psychology of these things,” he says. “It touches on how behaviour links to economic policy, and understanding the dynamic aspects of political context. The complexity is much greater than people may appreciate.” And Tourism HR Canada is here to help make sense of it all.

The post Building a Better Workforce Through Better Research<p class="company">Tourism HR Canada</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

What she realized very early on was that if she was going to help write grants, she had to have a good understanding of how people and the city were impacting the ecosystem.

“That really opened my eyes. I learned a lot about how human behaviour impacts the environment, and that there weren’t necessarily regulations in place to prevent it,” says Nagy. “I just assumed, ‘hey, if these things are bad for the environment, the government would stop that.’ Well, I quickly learned that’s not always how things work.”

The more she learned, the more frustrated she became. At the same time that she was working on writing grants, she was involved in a project to reintroduce peregrine falcons that had been driven out of the Okanagan Valley by the use of DDT in the 1960s. Not only did she help bring back breeding pairs of falcons to the region, but she also learnt that she wanted—needed—to make a difference through protecting nature.

Care for nature, care for community
This set the tone for what was to come. Eventually, Nagy served on Kelowna’s city council and supported green policies for the community, including supporting the densification of the downtown core and creating a permanent growth boundary around the city to prevent urban sprawl.

Through her community work, she came to recognize the gulf between large-scale green initiatives in communities and regions and the pressing needs of small and medium-sized businesses, which are the lifeblood of these local economies.

The thing about small and medium businesses is that climate change and issues have a direct impact on them, but unlike bigger enterprises out there, they don’t often have the resources to attract the attention of the large consulting firms, or the knowledge and time to tackle sustainability themselves. This is an important gap to address when you consider that smaller enterprises represent up to 98 percent of all businesses in the economy.

Nagy doesn’t shy away from a challenge once she’s identified a problem, so in 2006 she became a consultant for small and medium-sized enterprises to help them make sustainability part of their business operations. That led her to found her award-winning company, GreenStep Solutions Inc., in 2008.

At its heart, GreenStep helps businesses and organizations tackle what may have seemed overwhelming, helping them to measure, report on, and improve their sustainability performance, doing their part to protect the planet.

This is largely accomplished by providing sustainability and regenerative strategy development, carbon footprint measurement, lifecycle analysis, and a range of certification programs, software tools, and consulting services. As founder and CEO, Nagy has been there throughout, shaping how GreenStep helps businesses make sustainability part of their future. Now, GreenStep has been in business for 15 years and is issuing its first annual sustainability report to mark this milestone and quantify its 15 years of impact.

A strategy for Sysco
While focusing primarily on smaller companies, one of the firm’s early clients was Sysco Food Systems, with its regional team based in Kelowna. “The initial process was helping them to develop a sustainability strategy and support them in articulating it,” says Nagy. “This was pivotal in Sysco securing a million-dollar contract with the University of British Columbia which had sustainability criteria as part of the contract.”

She worked with Sysco on goals related to energy efficiency, reducing energy consumption, and environmental impacts of the business. She supported Sysco in identifying ways to save energy in the warehouse, from lighting to refrigeration equipment, and save on fuel consumption through route efficiency for delivery drivers. Waste reduction was also important, including eliminating single-use items in employee cafeterias and kitchens.

“There were some really measurable impacts from those efforts,” she says. “They also set a target for local procurement that led to a whole other level of engagement with them where we developed a local procurement strategy and connected with farmers to overcome barriers in getting local food to local tables.”

Setting the example
The company sets an example for others to follow, having been carbon-neutral since 2011 and becoming a certified B Corporation in 2015. The office is entirely powered by low-impact renewable energy with Bullfrog Power, which uses renewable sources. And, as part of its offerings for the tourism sector, GreenStep has achieved Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC)-recognized status for its Sustainable Tourism criteria for tourism businesses and destinations and has worked with hundreds of tourism businesses, destinations, and industry associations across Canada to develop sustainability and climate action strategies, provide certification, and measure their carbon footprint.

The ongoing work in certification for sustainable tourism is key, especially given the impact the sector has on the climate. “Depending on the studies that you look at, tourism generates eight to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. So there’s a significant impact. Also, there has been growing interest among destinations in managing the impact that tourism has on communities and the environment,” Nagy notes.

One factor in all of this is that travellers are looking for sustainable options for their destinations. “The EcoFund program that we’ve developed for the tourism sector focuses on helping accommodation, restaurants, and transportation companies to engage their guests in creating a fund to invest in large projects that help them operate more efficiently. There’s a tremendous opportunity to help those sectors drive down not only their energy consumption and carbon footprint, but also their costs.”

This can start with simple moves, like converting to more energy-efficient lighting. For hotels, another huge opportunity can be found in occupancy sensors and controls in rooms that control both HVAC and lighting. “It’s a relatively low-cost investment on a per-room basis that can have significant operational cost savings,” Nagy explains. “And as energy costs rise, as carbon taxes increase significantly over the next six to seven years, going from $65 to $170 a ton in Canada by 2031, that’s going to significantly increase the cost of energy for all businesses.”

To that end, the company maintains partnerships and works directly with the Tourism Industry Associations of Canada, Ontario, and B.C., along with the B.C. Hotel Association, the Canada West Ski Areas Association, and Wine B.C., among others, to promote sustainable actions throughout the industry.

UN recognition
Prestigious recent recognition for GreenStep was becoming an official Affiliate Member of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, enabling the company to align with and support efforts at the international level to advance the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

“One of the things that we’re really proud of is offering free tools for the tourism sector to measure their performance,” says Nagy. “We’ve invested a lot of money and time into generating low- and no-cost tools and guidance. Because our target market is small to medium enterprises, we need to make sure we can deliver opportunities for them to engage no matter where they’re at.”

To this day, the goals Angela Nagy had at the beginning of her career continue to drive the goals of GreenStep for the future: providing tools for everyday people to save the planet.

“Our vision is to become known for improving the sustainability performance of small and medium-sized enterprises in North America,” she says. “Literally, we want to save the world: help companies drive down their carbon footprint and other impacts, then start working on regenerative strategies to heal the things we’ve damaged. To achieve real sustainability, it’s about creating an environment where everyone and everything can thrive.”

The post Supporting Sustainability for Smaller Businesses<p class="company">GreenStep</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Having experienced population growth and strong investment activity over the last several years, Sun Prairie has allocated resources and support to sustaining the health of the economy for the long term, while being committed to absorbing the growth to ensure it preserves quality of life for the community.

Mike Beale’s perspective as Economic Development Specialist with the city is positive and optimistic. “We found that we’re in a really strong position economically here in Sun Prairie. We’re the second biggest city in Dane County and I see more growth on the horizon. The county, as a whole, is growing rapidly, and Sun Prairie is going to continue to play an important role.”

Sustainable strategies
An important aspect of Sun Prairie’s success story is strategic planning, which over the past few years has included a housing needs assessment, transportation-infrastructure evaluations, an equity audit, and a downtown design study to further invest in an already vibrant downtown.

For Beale, it’s important to accommodate the existing population while making room for newcomers. “We want to allow opportunities for all to live here, grow their families, and get good jobs,” he says. “That’s first and foremost in our minds. We’re somewhat unique in our active approach to community building and our long-range and short-term planning. We’re always looking at creative ways to support the community.”

The findings from the housing-needs assessment showed that, like many other communities across North America, gaps existed in every housing type, so the focus has remained on increasing the housing supply to ensure that residents of every income bracket, both settled and prospective, have a place to call home.

One such project is located at the corner of Main and Bristol Streets, the site of a 2018 tragedy that forever changed the trajectory of Sun Prairie’s history and development. Committed to rebuilding the area and the spirit of the community, a 92-unit market-rate apartment complex is under construction and plans are in the pipeline for a prospective 151-unit apartment complex and a 63-room hotel.

While the need for a complete range of housing stock still exists, there is no shortage of residential development activity in Sun Prairie. Last year, the city built the second most homes in the state behind Madison, helping to meet the population growth.

“We’re focused on increasing not only multifamily options but also the single-family housing options, too,” says Beale. “By building that many single-family homes, we’re hoping to allow our community members to purchase their own homes, and just by increasing the housing stock in general we want to be attractive to other people throughout the state and the region to continue to help staff the growing industry that we have here.”

It is becoming increasingly easy for people to get around once they settle in the community. Metro Transit service began on June 11 with the launch of two routes that operate during peak commuter windows, designed to complement the existing commuter bus services in and out of Madison each day.

“One route departs every 60 minutes from the Park and Ride, and another departs every 30 minutes, and they both circumnavigate the community. The one provides a more direct, quicker route and the larger of the two accommodates a broader population and serves more businesses,” Beale explains.

There are also plans to bring Bus Rapid Transit service to the community in 2024, which will further support those who commute to Madison each day as well as those who require regional transportation services. “Those buses are actually going to be able to stop traffic and go through red lights and things of that nature to allow for really quick service in and out of Madison, so we’re really excited for the bus rapid transit to come in 2024,” Beale says.

Heightened connectivity is another priority for Sun Prairie, which extends beyond its expanded transit service to include the city’s highways and Interstate access. New interchanges, as well as interchange improvements, will support the movement of people and goods across the region.

“There are talks about improving the Interstate 90/Highway 151 interchange and adding a new interchange at Hoepker Road to allow easier access to Interstate 90, which provides access to Chicago and Minneapolis Metro Area,” says Beale. In addition, we’re just off Interstate 94, which means you can be in Milwaukee in just over an hour. I think one of our greatest assets is our central location.” He adds that this is particularly attractive to Sun Prairie’s light manufacturing base.

Economically speaking
From light industrial to retail and service sector growth, Sun Prairie is firing on all cylinders, and strategy is once again playing a role in its success. When it comes to small business and entrepreneurial support, the city has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for an incubator and co-working feasibility study to identify opportunities to help these sectors grow.

Sun Prairie’s economy is composed of what Beale refers to as, “a nice mix of blue-collar and white-collar workforce. It’s a really nice blend and it allows us to be attractive to different businesses of all sizes.” Some of the area businesses include Colony Brands, QBE Investments, Wisconsin Distributors, Royle Printing, and Trachte Building Systems, which has recently expanded.

“They expanded in our Park 151 industrial park so we’re really happy to have them here in the community. Their neighbor in Park 151 is Milwaukee Tool. They bought out a local company called Imperial Blades and rather than pulling that business back to the Milwaukee area they decided to invest here in Sun Prairie,” Beale shares.

The north side of the business park is set to be expanded by 64 acres, which is generating a lot of interest, as is Prairie Lakes, which has become a retail hub that draws shoppers from around the entire region.

Intentional spaces, thriving places
Sun Prairie is also encouraging growth through investment in quality-of-life initiatives. The city is home to excellent parks and recreation programs and lively events and festivals. One of the most popular is the prognostication event, which draws the attention of people across the globe when Jimmy the Groundhog gets to work on Groundhog Day.

“We are focused on placemaking and quality of life, and on making this a place where folks want to live and businesses want to locate and have adequate staffing to meet their needs; it’s a multifaceted approach,” says Beale.

Part of this approach includes investments in the local education system, which has also expanded to accommodate the growth of the last several decades. The community recently welcomed its second high school, Sun Prairie West, a new facility that offers novel and innovative educational opportunities for students such as collaborative learning spaces and new skills training to support local business needs.

Sun Prairie is also undertaking a downtown design study to optimize use of the space available in its core. Of particular interest are Cannery Square, a well-utilized quarter-acre park, as well as beautification and streetscaping efforts on Main Street which will make the area increasingly attractive and accessible to the community.

Collective success
It’s evident that in Sun Prairie, economic development and community development is a team sport, with numerous partners working collaboratively to promote economic growth and social equity in the city.

Beale credits development partners like the Sun Prairie Chamber of Commerce, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), and Madison Region Economic Partnership (MadREP), as well as the business community and engaged community members, all of whom have a hand in the city’s success.

By strategically balancing the economic and population growth it has experienced to date while mindfully sustaining this growth for the future, Sun Prairie has found a way to preserve the character of the community and the strength of the economy while identifying new and exciting ways to drive local and regional growth for years to come.

The post Where Growth and Development Shine Bright<p class="company">City of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

TCD is eager to attract a diverse industry portfolio to the area to encourage a robust regional economy. Target industries include advanced manufacturing and precision metals, plastics and chemicals, oil and gas support industries, agribusiness and food processing, health services, and data centers.

The association advocates for local entrepreneurs with hands-on support and services that will help their businesses expand. Its help can save these businesses “countless hours of research and analysis,” with their one-stop shop approach, Diedrich points out, and all of this saving comes free with no strings attached.

TCD supports the community as a whole by coordinating workforce programs, responding to requests for proposals, managing communications, applying for incentives, participating in housing development, and more.

The Nebraska Panhandle enjoys an ideal location in the heart of the United States. The cities of Scottsbluff and Gering are perfectly positioned for cost-effective product distribution to fifty million customers within a day’s drive. In addition to four-lane highways, the community boasts rail service through Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and Union Pacific. And with two runways and thousands of flights annually, the Western Nebraska Regional Airport in Scottsbluff keeps residents connected to the rest of the country with direct flights to Denver, Colorado.

The area is dubbed the Twin Cities because Scottsbluff and Gering have grown together to form the seventh-largest urban area in Nebraska. “Our region, known as the Western Nebraska Panhandle, has everything you need and is close to everything you want,” Diedrich summarizes.

CNBC ranks Nebraska the seventh-best state to live in, he notes. The region is known for its Midwest lifestyle, which is famous for its spirit of cooperation and close-knit communities. Within this neighborly region, the Twin Cities area boasts particularly strong attributes.

Recreational opportunities abound, especially for nature lovers and outdoor adventurers. The unique and stunning local landscape includes Chimney Rock, Lake Minatare, Wildcat Hills, Monument Valley Pathway, and Scotts Bluff National Monument.

The community hosts a range of events, from Old West Balloon Fest, Oregon Trail Days, and Bands on Broadway to Scotts Bluff County Fair and Rubidoux Rendezvous gravel bike race. Families enjoy local attractions like the Riverside Discovery Center Zoo, water parks, swimming pools, golf courses, disc golf courses, splash pads, and numerous lakes and parks.

The region has also been home to the national hot air balloon races for the last three years in a row and has just been selected to host the first-ever U.S.A. gravel cycling national championship races. The event is expected to bring thousands of cyclists and tourists to the Nebraska Panhandle over the next two years.

In addition, several new recreational projects have recently been completed. A new section of the Monument Valley Pathway has just opened that includes a pedestrian bridge over Highway 26, connecting the north side of the path with the rest of the city. The path now stretches a total of 7.1 miles, meandering along the scenic North Platte River and the historic Scotts Bluff National Monument.

Gering is home to the Western Nebraska Pioneers, a community baseball team whose high-level games provide a popular pastime for families during summer evenings. The newly remodeled Oregon Trails baseball and 23 Club baseball complexes are all set to host multiple baseball and softball tournaments.

Downtown plazas in both Gering and Scottsbluff have recently undergone exciting renovations. The new plaza designs will create a more welcoming space for community events, Diedrich explains. Scottsbluff’s revamped plaza was already home to the Bands on Broadway Summer Concert Series, the 18^th Street Farmers’ Market, Best of the West Beer and Wine Fest, and the Cinco De Mayo Celebration. Now, there will be a permanent stage near the great lawn, as well as fire pits, picnic tables, shade trees, and curved brick archways over the two plaza entrances.

The region’s location places it in the heart of one of the United States’ fastest-growing economies but with a low cost of living. In fact, Scotts Bluff County’s cost of living is 19.8 percent lower than U.S. averages, Diedrich shares.

This cost savings extends to utilities. Nebraska is the only state with completely publicly-owned utilities, which boost reliability and affordability, he says. He explains that Nebraska residents pay some of the lowest electric rates in America because non-profit, cost-of-service-based rates lead to prices that only include the cost of generating and delivering power. In addition, twenty percent of the state’s power comes from renewable sources.

The region’s superior services include remarkably reliable and affordable internet. The area boasts faster broadband speeds than many metro areas due to a lower population density.

Another advantage is relatively low real estate prices on everything from vacant land and residential homes to commercial buildings. The rental costs of commercial and residential properties are also lower than in many other areas of the country, and TCD has a housing loan fund of $3.3 million to spur residential development in the region. The money has successfully funded fifteen projects in the last year alone. Current projects include a new townhouse development in Scottsbluff and a container home community in Southeast Gering. The latter will include seventy-five residential lots, multiple container home layouts to choose from, and community greenspace.

There is an “extreme demand,” for housing in the region, Diedrich says, and TCD is eager to help the community keep up to increase the local workforce, which will then help attract even more business to Western Nebraska.

Another factor that sets the region apart is its entrepreneurial spirit. Small, family-owned businesses abound throughout the community. Several organizations assist local entrepreneurs in promoting a stronger economy, including the Nebraska Business Development Center. Here, certified consultants help startups, established businesses, and entrepreneurs with everything from sales, financing, and planning to transitioning, training, and more. In 2020, the center served over 2,000 Nebraskan clients, creating or saving more than 250 jobs and generating over $40 million in business investment, says Diedrich.

The TCD eCenter, meanwhile, is an incubator that helps startups, existing businesses, and entrepreneurs access resources so they can reap the full benefits of available services. Co-working spaces are available, as well as coaching and other readiness tools.

An extension of the innovative eCenter, the Entrepreneur Kitchen provides food entrepreneurs with a commercial-grade space to turn their vision into a business. This resource means that start-ups will not be stymied by the cost of a commercial location; instead, they have easy access to a newly remodeled space complete with new stoves, ovens, large preparation spaces, and storage space. The goal is to provide startups with “every chance at success,” Diedrich says.

There should be plenty of new opportunities for these startups to explore now and into the future. “The future of our community is bright,” Diedrich says, and TCD will be there every step of the way to make sure that businesses can take advantage of these upcoming opportunities.

The post An Ideal Place to Live and Work<p class="company">Twin Cities Development Association</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

“Some of the canonical buildings in Winnipeg, in terms of civic buildings, were done with MMP and architectural partners,” notes Russell Krepart, Partner and Director of Design.

MMP’s design work extends to interiors as well as exteriors. The company is currently focused on the health care and multi-residential sectors—including apartments and condominiums—and wants to expand its presence in the education and Indigenous building markets. The majority of the firm’s projects are based in Manitoba, with the occasional work elsewhere in Canada.

If there is one driving reason behind the company’s enduring success, besides the notable design skills of its architects, it lies in its customer-first approach. “We deeply respect our clients and take them very seriously,” says Dustin Sharrow, Partner and Architect.

“One of our strengths is having close relationships with clients. From the very onset, we make sure we understand the client’s mission, vision, and values for the project. Then we align consulting teams to suit that type of client. From the very, very beginning, we like to involve the entire inter-disciplinary team together with the client,” Krepart agrees.

Establishing design parameters with contractors is “also key from the onset,” adds Aleksandra Chomik, Partner and Architect. Laying such groundwork “helps with our process,” and allows the company “to narrow down and focus on the details rather than going off in multiple directions.” Once MMP takes on an assignment, the company brings in trusted outside engineers to offer input, a collaborative approach that makes it easier to synchronize architectural vision with engineering realities.

MMP has a number of noteworthy projects on the go at present, including a new headquarters in Winnipeg for Payworks. With a Canada-wide reach, Payworks offers payroll, human resources, and employment management services. The total budget for the project stands at around $50 million. It is a “prominent new build site that we’re about halfway through construction right now. We’ll be finishing up next summer,” says Sharrow.

In the health care realm, the team recently completed construction documents for Lakeshore General Hospital in Ashern, Manitoba. This project focuses on an addition to the hospital’s in-patient facilities and a renovation of the emergency room. In a similar vein, the company performed work for Bergen Gardens, an assisted living facility in Winnipeg that specializes in senior care and memory services for patients with dementia.

MMP also maintains “a lot of longstanding relationships with First Nations communities,” Chomik affirms. One of these relationships is with the Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN), a First Nations band located near The Pas, Manitoba. MMP is working on a series of projects for OCN, including a wellness centre and the expansion of a high school and primary school. The latter assignments fit nicely with the company’s goal of increasing its education-related portfolio.

“We have a lot of university work. A lot of it is renovations, but we do have two standalone research facilities in drawings right now for the University of Manitoba,” Krepart shares.

“We have a presence in higher education—universities and colleges. We would like to get into more of the elementary schools, public schools, high schools,” Chomik adds. Civic infrastructure, including community centres and theatres, is another sector in which the company is looking to grow.

Regardless of the sector served, its recent work shares certain common factors. “Our projects are getting larger and more complicated. I think everybody here at MMP likes that challenge,” says Krepart.

Other recent challenges, however, have proven more headache-inducing. “The whole world’s been hit by supply chain and cost uncertainty,” Sharrow notes, “so every project is a challenge in terms of budget.”

Some clients are dealing with supply delays and mounting costs by “ordering expensive equipment before construction starts. It’s risky but it’s a risk our clients are more willing to take because they don’t want to be delayed at the end of the project, waiting for a mechanical rooftop piece for six months.”

Supply chain chaos has also impacted clients who want to revive projects they put on hold during the COVID pandemic. Thanks to supply shortages and inflation, the existing budget for these projects often falls short, a painful fact that the team has to explain to customers.

Given that the firm was founded in 1936 during the Great Depression, it is safe to say MMP is well equipped to sail through any current economic headwinds. Established by Herbert Moody and Robert Moore, the company was originally called Moody Moore & Partners. Among other Winnipeg landmarks, the firm designed a building for Holt Renfrew & Company Limited in 1944 as well as the Imperial Oil Company office block built in 1948.

The company provided designs for countless hospitals, schools, and other structures during its early decades. Sometimes, the company took on projects outside of its hometown, including an assignment at the famous Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, England. It worked on this historic medical facility (which provided reconstructive surgery for disfigured Allied soldiers) during the Second World War. In the late 1940s, MMP provided designs for the Hudson’s Bay Company office and warehouse in Montreal, Quebec.

Over the years, the company has seen its share of change, with expansions, acquisitions, new staff, and a merger in 1969. In 2020, Chomik, Krepart, and Sharrow became partners at MMP, and the trio is determined to chart a brave course for the future while respecting the company’s heritage.

Certainly, MMP’s longevity has been a selling point for landing new work, and [art of the company’s legacy is in the landmark projects it has been a part of. “We can say, ‘Here are the successful results,’ says Krepart. “I think there’s something nice about having that legacy behind us. We can basically bear witness to the things we have done in the past.”

The company employs a team of 25 people, a figure that has remained consistent for almost a decade. There is little turnover in staff, which enhances the company’s work, say the principals. As evidence, Sharrow points to MMP’s quality assurance/quality control department, which is headed by a technologist and an interior designer with decades of combined experience. The pair’s extensive company knowledge ensures that quality control is managed in an efficient, effective manner.

“Any project of any significance has to go through this process. It’s set up and scheduled at the very beginning,” he says. “We have our own internal standards for [architectural] drawings and whatnot that we’ve developed over the last few years.”

“Everybody in the office understands the expectations of our drawings,” Krepart agrees.

The company has a culture built on trust, in which employees are encouraged to ask questions and develop ideas. Teamwork within the office is encouraged, and MMP strives to maintain a healthy work/life balance, offering annual retreats and other social activities.

While the staff is cohesive, this firm is far from stuck in its ways. The company is a believer in the power of technology and is an avid user of Autodesk Revit BIM software and Enscape 3D architectural rendering software. The team also makes use of virtual reality technology; but, as Sharrow explains, these solutions are simply a means to an end. “We’re amenable to technology but it has to make sense for what we’re trying to achieve. We’re not trying to chase software; we’re using software as a tool,” he explains.

Moving forward, MMP wants to enhance its already impressive design services while, at the same time, remaining true to its nearly century-long legacy. “We’re not quick movers… In terms of our legacy, there’s an expectation that our clients and peers have of us,” says Krepart. “We are a legacy firm but we can’t continue to be a legacy firm unless we’re planning for the future.”

To this end, the three principals are keenly aware of the importance of arranging a proper succession plan to make sure MMP continues to flourish long after its centenary.

“Ultimately, we’re going to be stepping away [and the company] will go to somebody else. The legacy is not the critical part on the client side but, internally, it really is. We don’t want to change things overnight or flip tables upside down. We want to maintain the quality we have and build on that,” states Sharrow.

The post A Legacy of Service<p class="company">MMP Architects</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Headquartered in Chamblee, Georgia, Harrison Homes is an award-winning real estate development and design-build general contractor with a reputation amongst clients and competitors for being as solid as the homes they build. Founded in 2007, Harrison Homes grew their foundation from a luxury speculative homebuilder, to custom homebuilder, and then finally tackling townhome and single-family home developments. Today Harrison exclusively focuses on detached single-family and multifamily townhome neighborhoods and will deliver over 110 units in 2023.

Diverse services from qualified professionals
Harrison Homes offers developer clients a single-source solution for their residential communities. With a professional team of 10 office and field staff, Harrison can lead architectural design (or work with existing plans), interior design, site development, permitting, procurement, preconstruction planning, vertical construction, and unit sales.

Harrison’s tightknit team holds years of experience in residential construction. Their background in speculative and custom homebuilding serves their clients well, as they understand what today’s homeowners and home renters desire in each residential product. These skills guide the design of the homes, and help their clients achieve attractive rental rates and sales prices.

Access to their in-house architect save their clients time and money, as they move quickly and agilely to work through challenges, create solutions, and implement change orders through effective cross-functional team collaboration.

A well-vetted group of trade partners also ensures that Harrison can deliver units on time and on budget, with smart management of the construction schedule and subcontractor relationships.

Working with Harrison is simple. They begin with a thorough discovery of the project to understand every client’s needs, and clearly communicate next steps and deliverables through each phase of the build, making it easy for clients to stay abreast of all the important details for their development.

An impressive portfolio
Currently, Harrison is completing a build-to-rent townhome community close to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Hapeville, Georgia. Offering 68 high-end modern farmhouse rental units, 801 North Central Avenue is set to be completed by the end of Q4. Harrison was engaged as the design-build contractor and managed horizontal construction.

With options from just under 1,300 square feet to about 1,900 square feet, tenants can choose from two- to four-bedroom units and several floor plans. Complete with luxury finishes, fire pits, a dog park, and outdoor activity space, the townhomes are actively leasing and have already welcomed tenants this past summer.

Another representative project of Harrison’s was completed in 2022 in Brookhaven, Georgia. Brookhaven Commons features 26 detached single-family homes with seven stunning modern farmhouse elevations and three floor plans. The community sold out within a year and was deemed by voters of the Atlanta Parade of Homes as “Best Overall Home” and “Best Kitchen.” Brookhaven Commons also received an Obie Award recognizing the development as the “Community of the Year.”

The future of Harrison Homes
Next Harrison Homes will begin vertical construction on another exciting build-to-rent development in Northern Fulton County, delivering 74 townhomes by January of 2025. These rental townhomes are in complement to the master developer’s traditional 335 apartment units and 35,000 square feet of retail.

When asked about the company’s trajectory, President and Owner Scott Hudson had much to say about what to expect from Harrison Homes in the coming years.

“We have a lot of pride in the product that we build; we feel that we are scalable. We’re looking to gain market share and increase the number of units that we deliver each year,” says Hudson. “Georgia’s rental market is evolving, and in the southeast, there’s just not enough housing to keep up with the population growth. Throw higher interest rates on top of the inventory problem, and there’s a bigger demand for more rental housing,” he says of the shifting real estate environment forcing the industry to adapt to the changes to keep with the growth.

“Managing growth is obviously important and represents a big change [across the region],” he adds.

Consequently, 2024 brings the company’s most ambitious goal yet: building around 200 units over 12 months, and then expanding that to an annual figure of 300.

Harrison and their team are hugely enthusiastic about being in the ideal position at the ideal time. “We’re excited to be part of the continued growth of the area,” Hudson enthuses. “We’re committed to exceeding our clients’ expectations, and safely delivering quality homes for the growing Atlanta market.”

Giving back to the community they serve
Beyond striving for organizational growth, the team at Harrison Homes prioritizes giving back to the communities in which they build to also foster team unity.

For the past two years, Harrison Homes has donated and raised funds for Make-A-Wish GA, a national non-profit with local chapters serving critically ill children. Most recently, Harrison’s Director of Architecture, Jason McBryde, rappelled down 22 stories at the Buckhead Intercontinental Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, an effort that collectively raised over $90,000 to grant wishes for sick children. In the past, Harrison has also donated to The Rally Foundation, an organization devoted to research for childhood cancers, and partnered with Home Aid to demo old apartments that provide transitional shelter for women and children experiencing homelessness.

With a list of successful builds now totaling over 400 homes in Metro Atlanta and a scalable model, Harrison Homes is undeniably set up to become one of Georgia’s future legacy businesses.

The post Elevating Residential Construction: Harrison Homes Sets a Standard of Excellence Designing and Building Communities<p class="company">Harrison Homes</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.