Good Day,
I want to talk a little bit about success and that is because, for the most part, I tend to focus on owner/operators when discussing it. But the truth is, regardless of your role within the industry, there is success to be had and measured. Take Central Counties as an example. We don’t own a storefront or attraction. There are no consumer revenues that we can use as a measure of success. And yet, we are constantly measuring our impact and success, based on your success.
One of the reasons I love this job so much is that the “your successes” are all along the funnel of visitor development and growth. I get to work with the owner/operators whose livelihood relies on attracting and retaining the right customer mix. I get to work with BIAs and associations/societies who are directly supporting clusters of owner/operators by telling the bigger story, creating consumer events and striving for more collaboration. I get to work with municipalities that are setting strategies in place to support coordinated growth of the visitor economy within the framework of creating and maintaining vibrant communities.
The interesting part is that, to one varying degree or another, all these successes are measured against how successful the owner/operators are. That is why the visitor economy works from the bottom-up. But the bottom is murky. Different businesses are at different levels of readiness. Businesses are different sizes. Businesses are selling to different clients in the same community. Business capacity levels are different.
Businesses that want to grow, welcome new visitors and be successful have at least one person on staff whose role it is to peak above the murk and lock eyes with others doing the same thing. Hopefully, the people you find provide all of ‘The Ingredients’ for a successful reason for a person to visit:
The Catalyst
This is the reason a person has decided to get off the couch and go somewhere. It can be a single entity like an attraction, conservation area or event, or a cluster of businesses like a historic downtown or organized route.
The Food
Everyone has to eat and if you can keep them in the same area for a meal or two, there is a greater chance that visitors will then spend additional time after their meal exploring.
The Shopping
Sometimes shopping is the catalyst. But even when it is not, it is an integral part of most visitor experiences. Connecting the catalyst to food and shopping can bring visitors from further away because it is worth the drive.
The Accommodations
Don’t sell yourself short when it comes to the experience you can create and its ability to convince people to spend even more time in your area. Short one- and two-night getaways are often what people are looking for. Linking what you are doing to accommodators demonstrates that what you have is worth the visit.
Those are the ingredients. It doesn’t matter what ingredient you are. When you poke your head above the murk, try to find neighbours who fill the other ingredients.
The brand-new Headwaters Crafted Journey is a great example of this.
Phil from Goodlot Farmstead Brewing wanted to get more people coming to enjoy his beer, food and ambiance. On his own, he knew he would be limited in terms of the number of people he could reach and how far someone would travel to see him. So, he called all the other breweries, wineries and cideries in the area to see if they wanted to work together to create a craft-producers route. Seven of them agreed. They now had an eight-stop route – The Catalyst. Phil didn’t stop there. He then reached out to us at Central Counties asking if we could set up a meeting with all the municipalities and the BIAs so that the downtowns could be connected and promoted as part of the new route. They all thought it was a great idea and, through their participation, the route now had The Food, The Shopping and The Accommodations. It was a full visitor package.
Better yet, it now had twelve partners, plus Central Counties Tourism splitting the cost to develop and market the route. The Headwaters Crafted Journey launched in June and is receiving a lot of media attention because of its uniqueness. This is a stakeholder-driven project that has several municipalities working together to attract and retain visitors to the entire region. Success is measured by the number of people visiting the locations with passports in hand and the number of completed passports. The first 2,000 passports were distributed within three-weeks of launch and the first completed passport was entered into the contest a week after the program launched. The businesses and municipalities are working together to deliver a full visitor experience with no missing ingredients.
Knowing that BIA, municipal and CCT success is based on our collective ability to support the success of owner/operators, if you are one of the ingredients, reach out to let them know how they can assist.
CCT recently partnered with the Town of Stouffville to host a stakeholder networking event. I was thrilled to see several of the attractions chatting and trying to figure out how they could work together to increase their visitation. It’s brilliant. And, once they have some ideas together, they should reach out to the town to get them to help with promotion of whatever they put together.
That’s exactly what we did for the Brampton GlowZone 360.
We have had a partnership with several other Brampton attractions for a few years and this year we asked the tourism person from the city to join one of our meetings. We talked with him and told him we would like the city to promote our group of attractions to all sports teams coming in and to people planning their visits to Brampton. Knowing that metrics are important, we each provided a discount or added value under the promo code “Experience Brampton” so that we could all track the success. The city has printed postcards that are distributed to all athletes in town for various tournaments (and the team managers in advance) as well as promoting our attractions in their Stay and Play section of the website. Brampton’s success is measured by the support they provide stakeholders in their attempts to grow and be successful. By coming to them as stakeholders with a plan and program that we believe will be successful, they have met their mandate.
The great thing about working with your municipality or BIA is that they have the rest of the ingredients needed to get people to come visit and spend more time. So, as owner/operators, you just need to be one key ingredient. In the Brampton example above, the main catalyst for travel is sport tourism. By having the restaurants, shopping areas, attractions and hotels all participating and ready to welcome the players, it is now easier for Brampton to bid on, and win, new tournaments year-round. As the number of tournaments increases, so do the number of players and their families that visit GlowZone 360 and the other attractions that are part of the program.
Markham also does a great job of this, working with stakeholders to create fun routes that can act as either the catalyst for a visit or be an ingredient that helps keep people in town longer. I have no doubt that the thousands of people heading to Markham for the big open-wheeled car race in July will find all sorts of other things to see and do while visiting.
We are entering the busy travel season but it is not too late to poke your head above the murk and find new ways to work together for collective success. We are only an email away.
Durham Region: Lisa @ ljohn-mackenzie@centralcounties.ca
York Region: Sara @ ssterling@centralcounties.ca
Headwaters Region: Rebecca @ rlandman@centralcounties.ca
AVTR1 & Immersive Experiences: Mohammed @ mejner@centralcounties.ca
And, of course, I love chatting with you all, so reach out anytime at cthibeault@centralcounties.ca.
Have a great day!
Chuck
