THUNDER BAY — Representatives from the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario (TIAO) attended the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference this week for an opportunity to speak directly to provincial government caucus members and ministry staff to recommend necessary enhancements to the existing Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) regulations.
The accommodation tax option was made available to Ontario municipalities in 2017.
It has been implemented in 50 of the 444 municipalities across the province, often replacing fees collected under industry-led destination marketing programs.
TIAO president and chief executive officer Andrew Siegwart said there have been some really great outcomes from the first generation of the regulation.
“It has delivered some great investments for tourism, marketing, product development, investment and promotion for the tourism sector. And it has also brought in revenues for municipalities to be able to pay for and support some of the infrastructure and the services that municipalities often invest in to support tourism,” he said.
“Our recommendations come from a point of view of, ‘we’re seven years in now and we’ve had a lot of lessons learned.’ We see some opportunities to really improve collaboration to improve how consultation happens between municipalities and industry so that we can get faster decisions made and hopefully encourage more municipalities to overcome some of the barriers so that they can implement MAT and reap the benefits as well.”
Siegwart and his team brought forth several recommendations to improve the accommodation tax. They include reducing red tape, better transparency on rate changes, and including college and university accommodations.
The recommendations also seek to ensure short-term rental businesses, such as those found through airbnb.ca, participate in the tax — something that’s currently at the discretion of the municipality.
Thunder Bay’s accommodation tax was set at four per cent in 2018.
In January 2024, city council voted to increase it to five per cent. More than $3.7 million was collected in 2023 alone.
Paul Pepe, manager of Tourism Thunder Bay, said the tax is collected by the City with 50 per cent kept for tourism recreation projects and the other 50 per cent distributed to the Community Economic Development Commission Tourism Development Fund.
A large portion of the City’s share has been committed to the proposed indoor turf facility. Other attractions supported by the City’s share include the cruise line dock, rides at Centennial and Chippewa parks, the Centennial Conservatory and Fort William Gardens.
“We’ve been able to, support a really wide range of community tourism initiatives that help build a stronger tourism economy here in the city.” Pepe said.
“Through the Tourism Development Fund, we reinvested those dollars back into destination development initiatives in the community that supported business conventions, sports event attractions, cultural events, festivals that have a tourism value, and new experiences and attractions that help bring more visitors to the city and get them to stay longer.”
In 2024, more than 68 different community projects were supported by the CEDC fund, including the Central Canada Mining Expo, Wake the Giant, Festival of India, Cineplex Indoor Skate Park and Magnus Theatre’s improvements.
The Chronicle Journal / Local Journalism Initiative
