Reminder HST Visitor Rebate Cancelled as of January 1, 2018
As you may remember, last spring, NOTO alerted our members about the Federal Government cancelling the HST visitor rebate program or Foreign Convention & Tour Incentives Program (FCTIP) effective January 1, 2018. That date has now arrived and much to our disappointment the cancellation is moving ahead. However, we have not given up entirely just yet.
As this is a Federal issue, NOTO’s work on this issue has been through our seat on the Canadian Federation of Outfitter Associations. In the fall, we met with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) to discuss potential solutions and actions that we can work together on. Through our discussions, we learned there appears to be some willingness from the Minister’s office to see what the impacts of this change may be. TIAC has hired a specialist to conduct an economic study and compare to other jurisdictions. We all agreed that if the program was indeed underutilized in the past, it was because the process was complicated. Currently the plan is to propose a different initiative that will have more benefits to tourism which may very well see us all asking that GST not be applicable to tourism packages at all.
For those of you who have guests that have applied for this rebate in the past, it is critical that you keep our office informed of their reactions (good or bad). We need to keep a log of these reactions so that we can best present our case to our partners in other Provinces and the Federal Government. We of course as always will not name names but will use a summary of what we hear.
If any of you have any recommendations for improvements to the program, please forward them as well.
Good luck to all of you during your marketing season and I hope to see some of you out at Sportshows.
Take good care,
Laurie Marcil
NOTO Executive Director
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