When Kashish Sharma left her home in India to study hospitality at Barrie’s Georgian College in September 2023, she was filled with hope — hope that she would gain knowledge and build a career in an industry she loved.
But last week, even as the 20-year-old was on track, having completed her final project for her two-year diploma and looking ahead to a job at a local resort, she was acutely aware that much had changed in her field of study. That sense of optimism among her classmates, 95 per cent of them international students, had been replaced by dread.
“Nobody wants to come with uncertain plans anymore,” says Sharma, who is graduating from Hospitality — Hotel and Resort Operations Management. “I can’t blame them.”
Colleges have been hit especially hard, and few areas have felt the blow more deeply than hospitality and tourism education — grappling not only with a precipitous drop in enrolment, but also the setback of being excluded from the list of programs eligible for post-graduate work permits.
“There’s a devastation being felt by these students,” says Alyson Swarbrick, program co-ordinator of Georgian’s flight services. She has bookended the academic journey of Sharma and her peers, having taught them in first semester and now at the end. Even while soon-to-be graduates like Sharma are grandfathered under old rules, they remain, Swarbrick says, wracked with uncertainty.
“There is a distinct difference between the feeling of this (cohort’s) end and that of previous years.”
Since these students began their studies, colleges across Ontario have shuttered hospitality and tourism offerings, including at least 22 culinary programs. Sharma’s program has been put on pause — Georgian won’t be taking in any new students at its Barrie campus this summer or at its South Georgian Bay campus this fall. Some colleges are projecting as few as 10 new international students in hospitality programs that are going ahead this fall.
All this, in turn, is raising alarm in a sector that has come to rely on the student-to-worker pipeline that flows from these institutions.
“Without Ontario’s public colleges, the province’s tourism and hospitality industry is heading for a staffing crisis,” says Maureen Adamson, interim president and CEO of Colleges Ontario.
“For example, culinary programs offered in eastern Ontario have been cut dramatically with only one college left, at a time when Ontario and Canadians are voting with their feet to stay in Canada,” she added.
The Tourism Industry Association of Ontario (TIAO) estimates the province could see 20,000 fewer international students in workplaces this year, exacerbating an existing labour shortage.
Industry experts say customers could find themselves waiting longer for their coffee orders — or they might discover their favourite restaurant has had to scale back its menu and hours. The trend is likely to worsen as fall program suspensions bring in no new students.
But experts note it could also be the wake-up call that finally gets the public to recognize that the fallout from the changes to international student policies go beyond higher education.
“When people begin to realize the impact on their daily lives,” says Swarbrick, “they might start to really care.”
Student Kashish Sharma of the Hospitality – Hotel and Resort Operations Management program, embraces instructor Alyson Swarbrick on the last day of class at Georgian College in Barrie on April 11.
Nick Kozak for the Toronto Star
Tourism in Ontario turned a corner last year.
Despite inflation, the industry returned to pre-pandemic levels of sales and growth, and visitor spending exceeded approximately $33 billion, according to TIAO. Employment is expected to grow to 763,000 jobs by 2027. Yet labour shortages persist, with vacancy rates projected to climb to nearly six per cent. The demand is particularly high for food service supervisors, cooks and hotel front-desk clerks.
“International students have been a crucial part of our workforce in the past — especially in culinary and housekeeping roles,” says Hani Roustom, CEO of Friday Harbour Resort, an upscale waterside community on Lake Simcoe.
Roustom, who regularly employs Georgian College students, has noticed a decline in summer applications. While he describes it as “not drastic,” it’s enough to spark concern for the future.
“Hospitality is a growing industry with incredible career opportunities, and international students have played a key role in that success,” he says, noting colleges have become the main conduit for skilled employees.
International enrolment has been high in this field. Niagara College had 466 international versus 64 domestic students across four hospitality/tourism programs last fall; at Humber Polytechnic, this winter, there were 352 international and 49 domestic students in Hotel and Restaurant Operations, Management and 197 international students compared to 49 in its travel services; meanwhile, at George Brown, 40 per cent of the 3,000 students enrolled in hospitality and culinary arts are from abroad.
Fanshi Du, a 33-year-old from China, came to Georgian College two years ago to blend his accounting background with hospitality and tourism. He was drawn by the program’s hands-on approach: “Everything’s for real. Theory first, then practice.”
Critics argue the field is a shortcut to permanent residency, but educators say it’s much more. Students learn to translate financial statements, communicate effectively, solve problems and build connections — skills that go beyond making a bed.
“Am I going to say it is as difficult as a diploma in paralegal studies or accounting?” says Bryan Hunt, Georgian’s dean of hospitality. “Probably not, but it’s a different skills set we’re trying to cultivate.”
As an international student, Du worked his allowable 24 hours a week as a kitchen helper in a fast-food restaurant. Before graduating in August, he’ll complete a co-op in guest services and as a night auditor at a Muskoka resort. He hopes to apply for permanent residency.
“It’s a challenging industry to work in,” acknowledges Hunt, whose newly expanded title includes automotive and business, reflecting the kind of structural retrenchment occurring on college campuses. “The hours are long; you don’t get the traditional holidays off and generally pay tends to be on the lower end of the scale.”
But that’s just getting your foot in the door, say industry experts. “Entry-level positions are not where people end up; it’s where they start,” says TAIO president Andrew Siegwart, dismissing the notion that tourism careers don’t offer the progression or salary of other sectors. “We need to do a better job articulating those career pathways.”
Swarbrick partly blames a common narrative in Canadian households, where if a teenager expresses interest in working at a hotel, the response tends to be, “Well, I think you can do better.”
This misperception, coupled with a dwindling population of Canadian-born youth, led to a scarcity of domestic students entering this field.
Meanwhile, more than a decade of government underfunding and a provincial tuition freeze drove post-secondary institutions, colleges in particular, to turn to international students — who pay significantly higher tuition — to fill seats and keep programs afloat.
“Our location within one of Canada’s premier tourism destinations gives us a unique perspective” on the impact, says Niagara College spokesperson Michael Wales. “This is an industry that employs tens of thousands of people locally, and area hotels, restaurants and attractions rely heavily on (our) graduates. We simply can’t meet their labour needs with domestic students alone.”
Last November, Nolan Quinn, Ontario’s minister of colleges and universities, pressed to have nine fields of study in hospitality and tourism added to the post-grad work permit list. “Unfortunately,” said ministry spokesperson Bianca Giacoboni, “the federal government did not recognize the necessity for regional and local lenses to be applied to the list, particularly for Ontario’s hospitality and tourism sectors.”
Industry organizations and colleges have been lobbying for change, but with a federal election and tariff war, it has been difficult to gain traction, they say.
The immigration department would not answer specific questions from the Star, but a spokesperson said the ministry “will continue to work closely with provinces and territories, designated learning institutions and national education stakeholders to develop a sustainable path forward for international students.”
Rémi Larivière added that while the department would not speculate on future policy decisions, “we anticipate refreshing the list” every year of fields of study eligible for postgrad work permits.
Student Fanshi Du of the Hospitality – Hotel and Resort Operations Management program, left, in class with instructor Alyson Swarbrick.
Nick Kozak for the Toronto Star
In the meantime, the message the decision sends, says TAIO’s Siegwart, is clear: if you study in this field, your chances of staying in Canada are slim. So why, he asks, would anyone enrol in a specialized hospitality program only to be shut out of the job market? “The drop in the number of students was bad; this made it even worse.”
Some of the province’s most recognized colleges for hospitality and tourism education say they expect international enrolment to drop this fall by 60 to 100 per cent.
At Georgian, the signs are already there. An annual job fair in February that normally would have attracted 1,000 students saw 600 show up to seek co-op or post-graduate work in the industry. Hunt predicts next year there will be 300.
“Our students often take jobs domestic students don’t want: the night shift at the gas station, the early bakery shift at Tim Hortons,” says Swarbrick, adding people are already starting to wonder, “Where’s the staff? Why is my coffee taking longer?” She expects resorts and hotels will begin to feel the pinch this summer, too.
And in a year’s time, she warns, it will be clear “something is broken.”
Correction — April 21, 2025
This article has been updated. In a previous version, Maureen Adamson, interim president and CEO of Colleges Ontario, stated: “There is no longer a single culinary program offered in eastern Ontario.” In fact, Algonquin College, in eastern Ontario, does still offer a few of these programs. Incorrect information was provided to the Star.
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