It was instructive to see recently a post from The Gold Coast Business in Australia. Tourism Australia has just recently appointed a new tourism board member Grant Hunt, the former CEO of Voyages Hotels and Resorts. His primary role at the national peak body will be to build a $300,000,000 nature-based tourism fund. In this article, I found the following quote illustrates how experiential tourism is climbing much higher in its profile world wide. “I have a disciplined focus. It’s not city hotels and high rises – it’s nature-based tourism and it won’t all be hotels. Some of them will be experiential businesses,” says Hunt.
In Canada, we are seeing evidence of a shift to more experiential tourism. Travel Manitoba offered six distinctive experiential pre and post-conference outings with RVC this year. New Brunswick’s Experience Collection, PEI’s Once in A Lifetime Experiences, and the growth of a number of experiential tourism companies in different parts of Canada are all indicators of this shift. Check out the following unique companies:
Cape Race (Newfoundland Cultural Experiences)
Experience PEI (PEI)
Yours Outdoors (Ontario)
For me, this shift is instructive because it helps to confirm that the big players are starting to implement experiences “as revenue generators” that have a high potential for return on investment, without needing to spend as much on infrastructure. This is important in economic times in which consumers and industry partners are very cautious about how they spend and what they invest in. People are still traveling.
The Opportunity
The opportunity that is still in its infancy in Canada is for more tourism SME’s to develop experiences as part of their offering. By adding value to what they already have, or by creating new experiences or by developing new programs, they are able to generate new revenues without having to put out a whole lot of capital investment. As well, when these tourism operators are able to do this, by partnering with others in their community, it drives a spirit of community-based tourism that travelers desire.
