RTO4, the Township of Centre Wellington and Elora & Fergus Tourism have worked as partners over the past several years supporting Elora & Fergus’ growth and development as a must visit tourism destination in Ontario. A part of this work has involved workforce development. A challenge that was present prior to the pandemic, workforce was going to need a plan in place to be able to handle the expected pressure from Elora & Fergus’ growth as a tourism destination. All of which ended up on an accelerated timeline and exacerbated scale because of the impacts of the COVID pandemic on the tourism industry.

So, in 2021 RTO4 had the opportunity to begin working with MDB Insight (now Deloitte) to research and collect stakeholder input that would help inform a comprehensive workforce developed strategy that was specific to Elora & Fergus. The work completed covered a survey of the current tourism workforce landscape in the Township of Centre Wellington, identified obstacles that can place stress on further growth, developed a creative strategy to address gaps in the workforce landscape, and provided tools to set priorities on the strategic direction and implementation planning with regards to workforce.

With the project now complete, these final report documents are accessible to the public and can be found by clicking the links found below.

RTO4 looks forward to its continued work and partnership with the tourism stakeholders of Centre Wellington and to ingrate ideas from this plan into its local tourism initiatives.

Workforce Key Findings Report – LINK

Workforce Development and Retention Strategy and Labour Plan – LINK