By Chad Ingram

The Ontario Highlands TourismOrganization of which Haliburton County is a part is asking thearea's tourism stakeholders to respond to surveys on how the COVID-19pandemic will affect them in order to help shape a recovery packagefrom the provincial government.

“During the evolving situation facingour communities and region as a whole OHTO is working closely withcounty partners provincial government and other third-party partnersto monitor COVID-19's immediate and lasting impact on stakeholders”a release from OHTO reads. “We recognize this is an exceptionallydifficult time and we are working to do whatever we can to make iteasier on you. Remember we are all in this together and you have astrong community behind you.”

Tourism operators are being askedto fill out two online surveys one from OHTO which can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/98XZ2D5 and must be filled out by Friday March 20 and one from the TourismIndustry Association of Ontario which can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HXXC9Y6 and must be completed by 8 a.m. on Monday March 23 .

“Our next step is to focus onrecovery” the OHTO release reads. “We will work with countypartners to develop a recovery plan that will help get the tourismcommunity back to normal as soon as possible. Nobody knows how longthis will last but we will be ready to bounce back when that timecomes.”