Industry Collaborations
Cape Breton Island’s tourism industry is home to many collaborative projects. Industry collaborations have long been recognized as an important factor for creating career opportunities for our students as well as for strengthening CBU’s tourism studies, research and helping to grow and enhance the tourism industry locally, regionally and globally. Private operators work with communities and government partners to build and strengthen their products and services to meet market demand and remain competitive. Strategic industry collaborations have been developed between key industry partners and Cape Breton University with the goal of helping to grow and enhance the tourism industry locally, regionally, and globally. These collaborations are in the form of tourism industry research, Memorandum of Understanding designed to preserve and protect cultural and heritage assets across Cape Breton Island, and Academic Articulation Agreements with universities throughout the world for recruiting students to the Canadian tourism sector.
Internationally, CBU has forged Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) and Articulation Agreements with numerous universities in China, Hong Kong and India to enable students to transfer into our BHTM program. Closer to home, three wonderfully productive examples of industry collaborations which are nurtured through Memorandums of Understanding include:
- The Gaelic College (the only one in North America) is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of traditional Gaelic culture, offering instruction in over ten disciplines. It is a cultural destination, celebrating and sharing first-hand the living culture of the Nova Scotia Gaelic.
- Parks Canada offers numerous opportunities to work together, especially via a relationship with The Fortress Louisbourg, which is the largest historical reconstruction in North America.
- Destination Cape Breton and its marketing association provide many research opportunities on one of the best Island destinations in the world, which just happens to be our home!
Other forms of collaboration include the IHG Academy which is a partnership with the global accommodation giant IHG to open up work term opportunities for Bachelor of Hospitality and Tourism students, and the World Tourism Institute which was created in 2019 to enhance industry and community relationships to bolster industry results.
The World Tourism Institute has joined forces with Destination Cape Breton to host two major industry conferences. A Tourism Innovators Summit was held in Wagmatcook in October, 2019, and in November, 2020 hosted a virtual conference entitled Tourism Destination Marketing and Management in a Post-Covid Cape Breton. An International Conference is slated for November, 2022. These are important events for the collection and sharing of research and updates from both industry and academic experts directly and indirectly involved in the tourism industry.
