We’re Listening, Learning, and Taking Action
We recognize that equity-deserving groups continue to face disproportionate barriers as a result of systemic racism and discrimination, and these challenges have a profound impact on the way we work and live. These issues affect us all, at Destination BC and around the world, serving as a reminder that systemic barriers still hold many people back.
We understand our responsibility to do better, and believe that the greatest contribution we can make to changing structural inequities is sustained action within our organization, and within our work. Equity and anti-racism work are foundational to all of our government’s efforts to build a truly inclusive province, and to better serve our industry and the people of British Columbia.
Dismantling discrimination within processes, systems, and language, and unlearning attitudes or behaviours needs to be thoughtful and intentional. We understand that this process of change will take time, and we are committed to implementing our learnings around diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) into everything we do, and sharing these learnings with our industry partners.
Key Takeaways
In 2021, we partnered with DEIA subject matter experts and learned more about the experiences of our employees, especially equity-deserving groups, and how their experiences differ due to societal inequities that have shaped behaviour, processes, and systems. We’ve also learned that there is much more we can do to ensure we are authentically representing British Columbians in our marketing and programs.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways from our work in 2021.
Building an Inclusive Culture
Our people are our greatest asset. Our teams bring varying backgrounds, ideas, and points of view to our work. Our diverse perspectives come from many sources including gender, race, age, national origin, sexual orientation, culture, education, and professional and life experience.
Being welcome is different than being invited, and that’s the journey we’re on. We’re all human, but we’re not the same, and we want to create a space where shared humanity is real, where we belong, listen to each other, and share with each other.
Being welcome is different than being invited, and that’s the journey we’re on. We’re all human, but we’re not the same, and we want to create a space where shared humanity is real, where we belong, listen to each other, and share with each other.
Reflecting British Columbians in the Super, Natural, British Columbia Brand ®
Inclusive marketing isn’t about including everyone, it’s about being purposeful about who we include and exclude, and not defaulting to the dominant culture lens.
Each person and culture experiences British Columbia differently, and we need to ensure we apply an ethnorelative lens to our work. Even more important is how diversity of lived experiences is integral to our brand strategy, from content and advertising, to how we work with content curators. We need to go deep rather than wide, in order to reflect and resonate with equity-deserving communities.
Each person and culture experiences British Columbia differently, and we need to ensure we apply an ethnorelative lens to our work. Even more important is how diversity of lived experiences is integral to our brand strategy, from content and advertising, to how we work with content curators. We need to go deep rather than wide, in order to reflect and resonate with equity-deserving communities.
Co-Creating Our Future, Together
We recognize that our differences need to be addressed. This work isn’t a one-size fits all approach, and needs to be done alongside equity-deserving groups.
We are committed to making lasting, meaningful change, with our employees, partners, and stakeholders across the province.
Creating and nurturing a diverse and inclusive tourism community where we can all thrive together, is only possible when we all work together.
We are committed to making lasting, meaningful change, with our employees, partners, and stakeholders across the province.
Creating and nurturing a diverse and inclusive tourism community where we can all thrive together, is only possible when we all work together.
From Awareness to Action
Learn more about the concrete actions we took in 2021 to create a more just and equitable workforce and improve our programs and services.
DIVERSITY AND PARTNERSHIPS
Growth and
Well-being
Well-being
HIRING
Accessibility
DIVERSITY AND PARTNERSHIPS
Growth and
Well-being
HIRING
Accessibility
- Destination BC underwent a DEIA culture audit, led by consultants at Inclusion Incorporated, for the purpose of better understanding the representation of diversity in our workforce and the employee experience. Specific analysis was done to understand the different experiences of equity-deserving groups, and the work we can do on our processes, our policies, and our structure.
- We expanded our internal DEIA Steering Committee to be more inclusive of a diversity of backgrounds, voices, and lenses.
- Our brand strategy, including content, advertising, and how we procure content creators, underwent an extensive audit led by an inclusive marketing agency, AndHumanity, to help us understand how we can better reflect the diversity of British Columbia’s people. This is one component of a two-part approach on our journey to becoming an inclusive brand.
- While this audit was occurring, we partnered with a greater diversity of content creators through our influencer partnerships, ‘Stay Local, Support Local’ guides, and our ExploreBC with Locals campaign.
- We began to use Social Impact Procurement Guidelines on our Requests for Qualifications (RFQs).
- Recognizing the impact of events highlighted in the media related to racial trauma, we secured dedicated counseling services for all employees who self-identify as a member of the BIPOC community.
- We signed on as an employer partner with the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, providing employees with unlimited access to webinars, a knowledge repository, and various other resources to support their DEIA learning journey.
- DEIA learning webinars for employees were provided on the following topics: Importance of Intersectionality in Diversity and Inclusion, Safe Spaces for Dialogue, Activating Allies, Combatting Tokenism, Accessibility, Inclusive Marketing, Building Belonging, Microagressions and How to Work Effectively with Indigenous Peoples.
- We made updates to our hiring processes, such as using a gender decoder tool on all of our job postings to help identify and eliminate gender biased language for the purpose of attracting diverse talent.
- We also introduced the availability of Indigenous Applicant Advisory Services to all job applicants who self-identify as Indigenous and are seeking work or already employed in the BC Public Service.
- We’ve made a commitment to ensuring accommodations are in place to support job applicants who self-identify as having a disability in our hiring process and in our workplace.
- We continued to execute our three-year Accessible Tourism Strategic Framework & Action Plan, and forged relationships with a number of disability subject matter experts to help inform our work towards supporting a more accessible tourism industry. Experts include Spinal Cord Injury BC, Rick Hansen Foundation, Community Living BC, Inclusion BC, CNIB, Autism BC and others.
- We continued our outreach to tourism businesses and encouraged them to add mobility, vision, hearing, cognitive, sensory or general accessibility information in their HelloBC.com listings. Over 500 tourism businesses have listed accessibility attributes.
What We’re Doing Next
With the support of consultants, our DEIA Steering Committee is leading the development of a three-year DEIA Corporate Strategy that will include clear and measurable goals and actions. If we’re going to sustain this, we need to make it sustainable. Destination BC will be looking deeply at the possibilities, with more expressions of bridging and empathy. This strategy will be informed by our audit, and will be a strong foundation for where we focus our efforts to make lasting meaningful change, co-creating our future, together.
In parallel, our Global Marketing team is also working with consultants to take the learnings from the Inclusive Marketing Audit and develop a plan that includes short, medium and long-term actions that will support our efforts to ensure we are accurately reflecting the diversity of British Columbia’s people in our marketing.
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