A new program out of York University's entrepreneurship hub, YSpace, will help businesses and individuals in the tourism and hospitality sector to rebuild their ventures with a digital focus.
Business Bounce Back, created and offered in partnership with the Town of Georgina and the Town of East Gwillimbury, is a three-month program that provides business owners with the tools, skills, and connections they need to scale and thrive in the tourism and hospitality industry.
Participants are expected to dedicate the necessary time and effort and use the education and skills provided to create new revenue opportunities for their existing or new business.
The program offers three components:
- Business validation – A two-part, six-hour workshop delivered over two days that enables participants looking to pivot their current business or start a new business to: identify business ideas; validate these ideas; and build the skills needed to implement new and sustainable revenue streams.
- Digital skill bootcamp – In partnership with General Assembly, participants will have access to award-winning courses and bootcamps that will build their digital skills and test their ideas, such as social media marketing and e-commerce development.
- One-on-one mentorship – Recognizing that each participant will have their own unique ideas and business challenges, the program will provide individualized mentorship with a structured "objective and key results" approach.
The program will be broken down into three cohorts. Applications for the first cohort have closed, and 25 businesses are currently participating. Applications for the second cohort open July 19, with the program running August to November. The deadline to apply for the second cohort is Aug. 8.
For applicant criteria and program information, visit yspace.yorku.ca/business-bounce-back.
To apply to the program, visit app.tieit.io/pages/live/619/BusinessBounceBack.