Tourism directional wayfinding signage drives visitation and economic impact by pointing people to the areas a municipality wants people to see, explore and experience and connecting existing visitors to discover more. A properly developed and executed Tourism Wayfinding Plan has a positive effect on the community, both financially and its reputation as being welcoming to visitors and locals alike.

Is Your Municipality Ready for a Tourism Wayfinding Plan?

Central Counties considers municipalities that have completed a Community Tourism Plan as ready to move to the next step of tourism wayfinding planning.

Key Benefits of Developing a Tourism Wayfinding Plan

• Increase visitors to key attractions and assets and connect multiple markets
• Boost the local economy and increase spending in community centres
• Coordinates and enhances the overall image of the municipality as a destination with a consistent and attractive design standard
• Increase confidence to walk, promote multi-modal transit and reduce auto use in the downtown area while maintaining safety for road users
• Improve sense of community, pedestrian safety, health and environment while mitigating interference with regulatory traffic signage
• Provides gateway signage from major corridors and links between outlying and rural assets
• Provides direction to but not advertising for businesses

Get Started

The first step is to formulate a Wayfinding Working Group. This group brings together people with intimate knowledge of current traffic patterns, municipal/regional signage requirements and the Municipality’s key trip motivators such as attractions, shopping districts, cultural and natural assets, and agri-culinary offerings. The Wayfinding Working Group will meet over four monthly sessions and cover the following topics.

1. Purpose of working group
2. What is Tourism Wayfinding
3. Types of Wayfinding Signs
4. How can it help your municipality
5. Current municipal signage assets
6. What attracts visitors to your municipality
7. Current transient travel patterns
8. Current car parking lot trends
9. Top destinations
10. Preferred in-town traffic flow
11. Downtown Directional signage placement
12. In-town directional signage
13. Marque sign placement
14. Trail sign placement
15. Required signage information

Support for our Partners

Central Counties applauds and supports all efforts to drive more visitors to the region. Design, fabrication and installation of tourism wayfinding may be eligible for support through our Partnership Program.

Contact your region’s Industry Relations Manager to learn more.