Coastal Experiences- Northern Georgian Bay Coast, Ontario
September 30th - October 4th
This mission will be designed to educate the tourism community about marketing and product development initiatives beneficial to "coastal communities". The destination will be one that has demonstrated product and market success based on high quality attractions, services, and accommodations. The focus will be on various coastal activities: coastal scenic drives, swimming, sailing, wildlife viewing, accommodations, etc.
Participants for this mission would be mid to senior management persons, from the Atlantic Provinces, interested in developing or expanding a current coastal tourism destination/operation (waterfront development corporations, tourism operators located on the coast, harbor authorities, cities, sustainable tourism initiatives, etc.).
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
• How existing businesses in coastal communities have partnered and developed product
• How to promote social and economic development in coastal communities
• How to capitalize on our coastal location to develop tourism friendly water-based experiences
• To learn of successful development initiatives for coastal communities
• To gain more knowledge and useful ideas for encouraging sustainable tourism coastal development.
• How to build partnership opportunities among various stakeholder groups for marketing and product development purposes
• How to determine the appropriate mix of high quality products for a tourism destination (attractions, services, etc.)
• To learn of the growth of artists, artisan and cultural sectors and how they can impact the coastal experience
• To learn how to develop high quality waterfront product, and how to expand a current coastal tourism community.
• What are successful branding and marketing initiatives used to promote coastal communities
• What have these destinations done differently to make their region known and respected as a “seacoast destination”
• How does a coastal community transform themselves to stay relevant as the demographics and characteristics of their region and the consumer change over time
Develop self-guided tours for visitors, provide more opportunities for our tourism coop members to meet and work collaboratively, and keep developing partnerships
I will attempt to organize a tourism summit/meeting with participants from our area to discuss the future for our area. It is important to know how everybody is doing, what could be changed, improved, so that we are all on the same page. It would be great to create new partnerships in the coming years
- It is my opinion the solid and cooperative contacts made during this mission would rank of usefulness of this experience. Seeing most of the facilities and attractions from the tour, application to PEI should not be a difficult thing, especially with the offer of personal assistance from people like Rob Thorburn and Dawn Madahbee to expand our possible facilities for entertainment type rides/attractions or developing native museum and marketing.
We are going to investigate ways to further develop our business into a tourist attraction- we are already an economusee- hopefully by working with eco-friendly building experts to make our building an example of energy efficiency
We have to work on expanding our “experiential travel” product offerings. More committed to partnering with locals to offer guided fishing, hiking, interpretive walks etc. Continuing our plan to become a “barrier free” eco-tourism destination
