Financial assistance for tourism festivals and events — Stream 4

• For Volet 3, a detailed project description.
• For Volet 3, a complete financing package, including project-specific projected expenses and revenues and a full breakdown of federal, provincial, and municipal government contributions.
• For Volet 3, the applicant organization's full financial statements, including the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement.
• For Volet 1, the completed summary of the provenance and attendance study attached to the study report, as well as the completed indicator calculation tables attached to the study report.
• For Volets 2 and 3, the completed summary of the provenance or provenance and attendance study attached to the study report, as well as the completed indicator calculation tables attached to the study report.

Who is eligible?

• For-profit organizations.
• Non-profit organizations.
• Cooperatives.
• Municipal entities.
• Recognized Indigenous communities or nations, and any grouping of these eligible entities.

Who is not eligible

• State-owned corporations, and ministries or agencies of the governments of Quebec or Canada.
• Businesses listed in the Register of enterprises ineligible for public contracts (RENA).
• Organizations that failed to meet obligations under previous financial assistance granted in the two years preceding their application.
• Organizations that do not meet the public's high integrity expectations for recipients of public funds.

Eligible expenses

• Event preparation and management costs.
• Programming, promotion, marketing, and communications.
• Site and facilities management costs.
• Resale products, salaries, and benefits tied to the event.
• Eligible in-kind sponsorships and sustainability-related costs.

Ineligible Costs and Activities

• Capital projects and infrastructure.
• Working capital, debt service, operating losses, capital losses, and capital buybacks.
• Costs and activities not related to delivering the event.
• The regular programming of a tourist attraction, trade shows, tourism exchanges, conferences, congresses, shows, and fairs or markets that do not target gourmet tourism.
• Exhibitions whose programming is limited to activities directly related to the exhibition.

• For Volet 1, tourist performance is assessed using tourist participation days, the share of participation days by tourists from outside Quebec, the event attractiveness index, and economic impacts.
• For Volet 2, tourist performance is assessed using the share of participation days by visitors, the share of spending devoted to client experience, and total attendance for events with eligible costs of $500,000 or more.
• For Volet 3, assessment considers the elements that support event growth or development, innovation, and increased revenues.
• For Volet 4, projects must show potential to generate additional tourism revenues, increase Quebec's notoriety nationally or internationally, and present a complete financing package with financial viability.
• For Volet 4, tourist attractiveness, tourist origin, and the event's visibility potential on the national or international scene are also taken into consideration.

• For Volets 1 and 2, complete the web form available on the new Ministère du Tourisme Aide financière portal.
• For Volet 3, wait for the filing instructions to be released and, in the meantime, prepare a detailed project description, a complete financing package, and the applicant organization's full financial statements.
• For Volet 4, contact the Ministère du Tourisme team to obtain filing instructions.

• The Ministry of Tourism analyzes applications under a dedicated framework and management rules.
• For Volets 1 and 2, financial assistance is granted for three years or, at the latest, until the program end date.
• Meeting the eligibility criteria does not guarantee financial support from the Ministry.
• Promoters with cumulative surpluses exceeding 20% of their annual eligible costs must submit a plan to allocate all of those surpluses in Quebec in connection with the event.
• Promoters with cumulative deficits exceeding 10% of their annual eligible costs must submit a deficit-reduction plan to bring the deficit below 10% within a maximum of five years.

• A maximum of 40 calendar days is considered across the full duration of an event when the application is evaluated and the amount of financial assistance is calculated.
• The Ministry offers a support service to verify study methodology when it is submitted sufficiently in advance before the study is carried out.
• Applicants may use a firm outside the Ministry's qualified list, but they remain responsible for ensuring the selected firm follows the Ministry's methodology.
• When requesting proposals for a study, the Ministry recommends contacting at least three firms.