There is increasing awareness of the importance of broadening our lens regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). So embrace the small wins you can start today but focus on the strategic changes within your organization and industry to truly make a difference in creating a more inclusive snow sports industry.

10 Tactical Practical Take-Aways to Becoming a Diversity Champion

  1. Remember you are only an expert in your own experience.
  2. Introduce yourself with your pronouns: he/him, she/her, they/them.
  3. Include a land acknowledgement at events and meetings: native-land.ca.
  4. Diversify your content: imagery, stories, writers, contributors.
  5. Mentor or coach someone who doesn’t have the same lived experience as you; it’s the best way to diversify your team and friendship group!
  6. Think of Culture ADD vs Culture FIT.
  7. Educate yourself and others on current DEI issues and trends.
  8. Create brave spaces – by making them safe spaces.
  9. Embrace differences can lead to innovation.
  10. Support, celebrate and advocate for diverse organizations, communities, and leaders.

Presentation Highlights

  1. By 2036 in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal, immigrants and children of immigrants will represent 45 – 81% of the urban populations and Canada will reach a ‘minority’ majority as a nation.1 You may not ‘see it’ in your neighbourhood, but the trend is happening, and you just may not be reaching folks.
  2. The MEC case study revealed an untapped opportunity to make the outdoors more accessible to all people and reduce barriers to participation. Visible minorities and people under the rainbow umbrella were found to have a high propensity for activity in certain sectors that were important to MEC and illuminated opportunities for change. This included:
    1. Reflecting diversity in age, gender, physical abilities in marketing materials;
    2. Creating and publicly posting a DEI pledge;
    3. Ensuring their marketing investments truly represented the diversified audiences;
    4. Changing to gender-neutral washrooms and changing the sign on wheelchair accessibility and/or family washrooms to include ‘All Genders’;
    5. Incorporating gender respectful language into marketing and communications;
    6. Reflect on what “EPIC” ski experience is for different people. It will be very different from the able-bodied powder seeker to the adapted skier, from the seasoned Canadian skier to the new immigrant experience the mountain for the first time;
    7. Elevating and celebrating diversity in the lived and online experiences for guests and future guests.
  3. We all need to think ‘now’ about who we are marketing to and be reflective of those engaging in our spaces. There is a risk of relevancy if businesses don’t embrace this opportunity.
  4. Create an inclusive environment, and diversity will follow.
  5. Single actions are a great way to begin, but organizations need a strategy, plan, employee engagement and ensuring that everyone feels safe, valued, seen and heard.

Participant Ideas, Actions, Inspirations and Challenges

Participants for this one-hour session were invited to share a few highlight initiatives, opportunities, or challenges.

  1. What actions are you taking (or could you take) to create a more welcoming, inclusive, and representative environment for racially diverse customers?
  2. What insights (both highlights and challenges) can you share about what you have learned as you’ve implemented new practices related to broadening the diversity of your customer base?

The following summaries can serve as an inspiration for other ski hills/resorts and start a repository of ideas to inspire and expedite opportunities for everyone in the industry. When we begin relationships with ‘who we are’ instead of ‘what we do’, it opens the door for a different conversation.

Blue Mountain Resort

  • Took the first step as a company and confirmed diversity is a priority;
  • Assessed the diversity of their guests and is now consciously investing in social media influencers that reflect the desired audience, including the LGBT community. This has led to thank you notes from guests who appreciate ‘seeing themselves in the marketing’; and
  • Continue to host an annual ‘Rainbow Week’ (8 years offered to date);
  • Addressing affordable housing to retain employees, when wages can’t keep up with the cost of living, is a real challenge. This led to a conversation regarding diversity and how to attract more women into operations, offering residences or a shuttle service into town to pick up employees from a central location, developing a ride-share program, and creating a platform for people to create and join clubs/groups like a hiking group or a knitting club etc.

Chicopee Ski and Summer Resort

  • Taking an inside out approach (focusing on company change first) to change, ensuring the culture is welcoming and supportive environment for all;
  • Hoping this focus will make them an employer of choice and attract people who may not have considered working for their resort;
  • Onboarding training for Gender and Sexual Diversity training is completed by the entire team of 550+;
  • Investing in creating cultural sensitivity training in the rental areas was developed in consultation with the local Muslim and Sikh community leaders. This helped foster community involvement and helped us better understand the needs of religious groups who, for example, wear a headdress, so this can be addressed when renting a helmet.
  • Introduced a gender-neutral/universal washroom; and
  • Discovered that as they became more openly welcome, individual comfort was increased for guests and staff, creating an environment for more suggestions to come forward.

Resorts of the Canadian Rockies

  • Introduced an ethnic adult learn to ski programs through to the stay in school programs offered;
  • Continuing to work on the para-Alpine athletic training program
  • Starting to reach out to the adaptive cycling community and build an adaptative trail network in Kimberly, BC where CATS – Canadian Alpine Disabled Association – was founded.
  • Collaborating with the Calgary Immigration Center to attract new Canadians, outfit them with ski gear and clothing and bring them to the resort to participate in ski programs.

Association des Stations de ski du Québec (ASSQ)

  • Investing in understanding diverse cultural groups through a collaboration with a Montreal community centre; and
  • Rented buses to bring up to 40 people at a time to the slopes to introduce them to skiing for two seasons, followed by a focus group after each experience to better understand what can be done to increase their appeal to people of different cultures who typically shy away from cold weather activities; and
  • Invited some people to speak at the annual conference and learned important but very basic things like new Canadians may not know what a ski chalet is, that you don’t have to be outdoors for 6 hours, you can come in and get warm. This was huge in shaping communications.

Mount St. Louis Moonstone

  • Acknowledged that we have many areas to grow to become more diverse is our first step taken;
  • Succeeded in making special efforts in the rental department by advertising with persons of colour for we are challenged by finding staff in general in our rural area. People are happy to be in our photos when invited; and
  • Repurposing an employee-only washroom into a gender-neutral washroom is a priority for this year.

Lake Louise Ski Resort

  • Focusing on listening to each other, our guests and creating open safe spaces for dialogues is how we approach DEI. It can feel daunting to step back, question our own biases and creating an environment for positive change;
  • Active listening sets the stage for learning about where to invest in specific tactics; and
  • Collaborating with immigrant services in Calgary to welcome new Canadians and establish ambassadors within some communities is one project we are working on to create genuine and authentic connections and welcome them to our community.

Panorama Mountain Resort

  • Learning more through bias training can foster personal and organizational growth to help illuminate blind spots.
  • Increasingly our guests are becoming more diverse; we hear multiple languages, people are excited about coming to the mountain, “you can see it in their eyes.”
  • Investing to understand the emerging diversity at the resort is an opportunity.
  • “There is strength and power in all of us working together to attract more diverse people to the mountain, talking to all communities, diversity equality inclusion is one of the best things that we can all do.“

Popular themes during the session:

  • Culture ADD vs. Culture FIT;
  • Universality and inclusivity leads to diversity; the theory of change – support individuals, leads to creating collective action, results in making an external impact;
  • Inclusion is having people feel seen, heard, and valued in everything we do; it opens the door to new customers and employees.
  • Taking incremental steps is better than taking no action at all; and
  • We all have room for personal growth, learning and additional training on DEI.

“I think it is the fear of being called out that often stops us from embracing a DEI objective.”

So we can worry about not doing enough, making errors, or we can take one step at a time with a commitment to respectful learning along the way.

 What actions can you take?
Will you initiate?
Will you embrace?

Want to Continue the Discussion?

Contact Paul Pinchbeck, President and CEO
Canadian Ski Council

1 Source: Immigration and Diversity: Population Projections for Canada and its Regions, 2011 to 2036 – Stats Canada (Jan 2017)

Industry Topic Specialist

“Educate yourself and others to embrace differences and create safe spaces for all because this fosters innovation, celebration and the acceptance of all people.”

Amil ReddyAmil Reddy (they/them/iel), DEI Consultant / Amil Reddy Consulting

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Disclaimer: In providing your business with the information above and other support or advice, including information, support and/or advice relating to your business operations, Covid-19 recovery, The Canadian Ski Council, Tourism Café Canada, session sponsors and topic specialists are not responsible or liable for decisions made, strategies adopted or third party program results, and specifically disclaim any responsibility for any consequences, financial or otherwise, of a business relying on our advice or using information we provide. Companies must understand and agree that they are responsible for all actions they take and decisions they make and must do their due diligence and seek appropriate legal, accounting, tax, or other professional advice as they may require.