As part of an Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)-funded initiative, Tourism HR Canada is developing a Pan-Canadian Market and Export Readiness curriculum to help tourism businesses develop products and services for new and emerging visitor markets. This RFP is part of a series of new initiatives aimed at developing market-ready tools, accreditation programming against market-ready criteria, and access and partner collaboration on a market-ready portal. For the purposes of this RFP, we are seeking proposals to enhance and update Tourism HR Canada’s Business Builders® resources to serve as an anchor resource to assist Canadian tourism businesses to prepare to expand their customer base and grow their business.
Business Builders® is a series of practical and straightforward tourism business management tools, resources, and templates. Ideal for entrepreneurs and owners/operators of small tourism businesses, this series explores the fundamentals of business planning, development, and management.
Since its introduction to the marketplace in 2001, the resource has been updated twice to reflect new content, as well as to offer more flexible formats to give customers choices. In the latest iteration, the tool was made available only in CD-ROM (disc) format. In reviewing Business Builders®, we feel a strong need for an update and adaption to provide the learning content in formats that align more closely with the preferences of today’s customers.
Though most of the content still proves to be relevant, some areas require updates to meet changes in the market (including consumer behaviour), to suit learners’ needs and demands, and to be online ready.
Aside from the six existing modules listed in this RFP, to align with the overall project we envision a seventh module to cover Market Readiness Basics. This module goes beyond a Marketing Plan, which is already covered under the Marketing module. It will instead focus on how to strategically implement the Marketing Plan in various situations and how to use available resources creatively. Hence, it is expected that this module will contain topics on strategic thinking and problem-solving scenarios to ensure the market readiness of the user.
Tourism HR Canada would also like to incorporate new content focused on mitigating workplace sexual harassment, encouraging a civil and inclusive workplace, and cultural awareness and sensitivity.
© Tourism HR Canada 2019. All rights reserved. Update and Enhancement to Business Builders® Market Ready Programming
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While there is a solid base to work from, Tourism HR Canada is open to innovative and novel content and delivery enhancements for this resource. Having had this product as part of our resource library for nearly 20 years, we feel the need for external ideas and expanded content and options for the learning content. For this reason, we do not want to be overly prescriptive on what we expect as the final deliverables and are counting on bidders to bring strong ideas to the table in their proposal.
To provide an idea of the depth and breadth of the resource, the Appendix contained within this RFP gives a sample of the existing content.
Tourism HR Canada is open to suggestions and innovations that may either limit or eliminate some of the existing content if that is seen as the best way to deliver a resource that meets the needs of tourism businesses and is more appealing and useful to operators. The current content is extensive, but does not necessarily all need to be included in the update. Operators have limited time to dedicate to training, so we are looking for a solution that will efficiently cover key content. This extends to how the content is provided and consumed and how best to leverage existing technology
