Visitors arriving in Cape Breton for the Celtic Colours International Festival will be greeted by some new faces at McCurdy Sydney Airport this week — and for a group of people, it marks the start of a new opportunity.
Breton Ability, the McCurdy Sydney Airport and Cape Breton University have partnered to launch The First Hello, a supported employment initiative creating paid employment for people with disabilities in Cape Breton’s tourism sector.
The First Hello launches during Disability Employment Awareness Month and as visitors begin arriving for the Celtic Colours International Festival, an annual celebration of Celtic music and culture that brings performers and visitors from around the world to Cape Breton.
First Hello Greeters will welcome arriving passengers, answer questions, help with directions, and share information about Cape Breton.
“The First Hello is really about creating real opportunities for people to work and contribute,” said Adam MacNeil, CEO of Breton Ability. “There are people with disabilities in our communities who want to work and have a lot to contribute. When organizations are willing to look at what people can do and create opportunities around that, everybody benefits.”
For Breton Ability, the initiative is also about the role employment plays in connecting people to their communities.
“Our greeters are earning a paycheque, building skills and meeting people from all over the world,” said MacNeil. “That connection goes both ways. A visitor gets to meet someone from the community they’ve come to experience, and our greeters get to be part of that experience through their work.”
The McCurdy Sydney Airport is employing the First Hello Greeters, who will work as part of the airport’s visitor experience.
“Cape Breton is world-renowned for its warm, welcoming hospitality, and for many visitors, their first experience of that begins right here at our airport,” said Myles Tuttle, CEO of the Sydney Airport Authority. “The First Hello is a wonderful opportunity to reflect that spirit of community from the moment people arrive, while creating meaningful employment opportunities within our community.
We’re proud to welcome the greeters to our airport and to have them play such an important role in sharing the warmth and character of Cape Breton with visitors.”
The World Tourism Institute at Cape Breton University provides tourism and hospitality training to prepare the greeters for their roles, while Breton Ability is providing the supported employment services.
“It was a pleasure to meet the First Hello Greeters and support this fantastic project as we welcome visitors to our Island,” Jennifer Currie, Senior Instructor, Bachelor of Hospitality & Tourism Management.
Each partner brings an important piece to The First Hello: training, employment and ongoing employment support. Together, they are creating a model designed to help people not only find work but succeed in it while filling gaps across our tourism industry.
The First Hello is beginning as a pilot project at McCurdy Sydney Airport, with the goal of learning from the experience and developing a model that could grow across Cape Breton’s tourism industry. As tourism operators look for new ways to build workforce capacity and deliver great visitor experiences, the partners see an opportunity to connect more employers with an often-overlooked pool of talented people who are ready and eager to work.
And for visitors arriving this week, their first Cape Breton conversation might be a simple one:
“Hello, welcome to Cape Breton.”
