Tourism operators and organizations that attend training by Todd, Celes and I will here us talk often about value pricing with experiences. Know ideal guest, what is important, meaningful and relevant to them, then set your prices accordingly. This is not a one-shoe fits all approach, but like customized to each ‘audience cluster’.

Dr. Rafi Mohammed, author of the 1% windfall: How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow, gives a few things to think about — and if they resonate with you – hop on line and buy the book! In a nutshell, a study of 1200 companies “Found that if companies increased prices by just 1% and demand remained constant, on average operating profits would increase by 11%”.   Now this book is not written for the tourism industry, but I do like the cross fertilization of ideas and thinking and in his blog “10 tips for better pricing” he talks about a few that we also teach at the Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism in our Experiential Travel Training Course

1. Stop marketing up costs and set prices that capture value.

2. Create a value statement — and I would go a step further and make sure it is aligned with the customer experience statement.

3.  Let people know that is is okay to earn profits, or high profits.  Remember, often we are not our customer, so avoid thinking “I wouldn’t pay that price”  … most people wouldn’t for a tourism experience in their home town, but on that exciting vacation, or once-in-a-lifetime trip, the purse strings do tend to open up!

4. Be careful with discounting – but understand different customers have different pricing needs — again it comes down to knowing your ideal guest.

5.  Offer different ‘product versions’  and differentiated pricing … also known at the “Edge” as tweaking for different audiences, different guests. The experience you sell to the cruise line for an shore excursion may not the be the same as the local VFR (visiting friends and relatives) traveller, but inevitably you will be using some core assets and attributes of your company/community.

That being said – why calculate costs – because knowing your margins is an important measure of success. The message here is not to be formula driven, but customer driven.

Happy pricing.

For years there has been a market opportunity for getaways of 2 to 4 days for busy people who can’t commit the time to a major vacation. According to a recent review in the Sydney Herald, it appears this trend is continuing and is supported by major travel trade players and smaller companies, all taking advantage of this new market!

What are you doing to strategically capture this growing market?  Do you have a solution – an invitation for people who want an enticing experience to get away? If not, think about how you can collaborate to compete and start crafting an exciting memorable weekend.  Here’s a few ideas reported that caught my attention.

• Intrepid Traveller is investing in a new product line for 2 to 5 day getaway experiences “Urban adventure tours”
• Luxury operator Abercrombie and Kent are targeting mini trips with two elements ‘luxury experience and relaxation’
• “Paddle and Pamper”  what a great title!  An Aussie kayak adventure that comes complete with a ‘ripple massage’

These are great ideas that we can use to kick start some niche thinking and product innovation!

What happens when a nation has a dream and takes collective action? They get stuff done! In 1999 the Canadian Tourism Commission struck a task-force on Learning and Enrichment Travel. They brought together industry and government to examine “How we could raise the base level of tourism in Canada”. Twelve years later we are doing it – complete with a refreshed brand for the Canadian Tourism Commission based on experiences. The 2010 Vancouver Olympics were testimonial to how far we have come as a nation in portraying the richness, diversity and incredible ways to enjoy Canada!

Joggins Fossil Tour

This week, Tourism Nova Scotia released their new Experiential Tool Kit for operators!  It’s hot off the press and free! Check it out, it has great information and worksheets to help you out!  This comes on the heels of a best practices mission to Manitoba where they witnessed how experiential travel can work — an opportunity that will be afforded to delegates attending Rendezvous Canada this year!

Other recent significant milestones and resources (just to name a few as there are so many now) include:

2010 – Alberta Tourism, Parks and Recreation invested in a customized experiential travel training program in Cypress Hills for their Parks staff and local community members as they look to anchoring experiences into their tourism strategy moving forward. Tucked into the beautiful Cypress Hills Inter-provincial Park, we enjoyed phenomenal training and guest experiences at the Medalta Historic Clay District, the Elkwater Lodge & Resort, and the Historic Reesor Ranch.  Plans to extend this opportunity are under way this year.

2010  Tourism Nova Scotia invested in a best practice mission, hosted by Earth Rhythms, to learn how experiential travel is being brokered with 50 community partners in the rural area around Riding Mountain National Park.

2010-09  Tourism New Brunswick launched their new Inner Journey’s experiential travel brand in April 2009 with a keynote address by Nancy Arsenault on “The Customer is Changing, So Must We” complete with investing in creating ‘experiential market readiness criteria’ for their new Experiences Collection! A year later, they now have 110 new experiences ‘in market’ for visitors in 2010!!
2009  Parks Canada piloted the use of the Explorer Quotient (EQ), a consumer friendly tool developed by the Canadian Tourism Commission in eight sights across Canada. Gros Morne National Park was one of the sites, and now they have a menu of a range of visitor experiences that appeal to nine different types of travellers interests!

2008-09  The Canadian Tourism Commission launched their Experiences Tool Kit for industry, a Photo guide and a number of excellent tools. They can be obtained for free, in French and English through a formal online-request. It takes a little digging around the site and separate requests to get each document, but it is worth the time.

2008  Experience PEI was launched to “create unique, personal experiences designed to provide lifelong memories” and they are doing a smash-up job, complete with community collaboration and working as a collective to “collaborate to compete”.

Zach Saccary, Retired School Teacher and Local Area Story Teller in Norris Point, NL

2007  Tales, Trails and Tunes Festival was launched in the picturesque community of Norris Point Newfoundland. A community collaboration and celebration of the wonderful musical talent of the region blended with daytime walks in spectacular Gros Morne National Park, afternoon workshops with artists and photographers, and evening entertainment by very talented local musicians and storytellers performed in churches, halls, theatres and pubs throughout Norris Point.

2005 – The Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism was created (GMIST) and the signature course “Edge of the Wedge” that delivers leading edge experiential travel training to Atlantic Canada. Twenty courses, 500+ people later, there are excellent examples of business applying the principles and making a difference!

… since the beginning of this evolution, the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site in partnership with the Halifax Citadel Regimental Association have been developing, offering and expanding the range of experiential travel programs for a wide range of FIT (fully independent travelers) to CMIT (corporate, meeting and incentive travel) groups to the site. They work in multiple sectors and optimize the assets and attributes of the historic site in admirable ways that protect and ‘present’ the site in engaging, meaningful ways, customized to different traveler interests/market segments.

I could go on and back track a decade … but this is just a sample of what is happening in Canada on the experiential tourism product and market development front and there is more to come!

What happens when you take an innovative internship coordinator  (Margaret Doyle … aka Mags), a very cool GM of a major hotel property (Martin LeClerc), great hospitality students in a BA in International Hotel Management, awesome staff at the Fairmont Empress and mix it with EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING?

RRU007 Interns demonstrate why they are a tremendous new resource to the tourism and hospitality industry as they look forward to graduate in the fall, and an award winning hotel property demonstrate their knowledge and appreciation for supporting training and education to ensure our labour force remains strong with qualified professionals!

As part of their preparations and learning, Mags set up a wonderful training and marketing opportunity for her students.  Check out the video. I love when creativity mades learning fun, uses people, technology and makes learning relevant. This is this stuff tourism is made of — innovative, entrepreneurial, creative people. Leaders dare to be different, and they are remembered for it.

Jonathan Foster is the executive director of The Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism. Celes Davar interviews Jonathan just before the 21st edition of The Edge of the Wedge, in Gros Morne National Park. He is sitting at the Lobster Cove Lighthouse, overlooking the entrance to Bonne Bay.

Training and professional development opportunities can be a valuable investment. Jonathan shares some of the benefits and results of the training for tourism operators, from taking part in The Edge of the Wedge, Canada’s leading training program about experiential tourism.

How do you use sound to create the desired experience for your guests?

A few ideas:

• Ensure soundscape is congruent with the atmosphere you are trying to create.
• Use sound to add value to your experience.
• Mitigate against undesirable sounds, insulate walls and close doors when sounds may be a distraction.
• When guest support services have to be noisy, plan these activities for times when they will not interfere with the guest experience.
• Talk to your clients about their appreciation for the sounds you provide.
• Attract birds

I found the video below created a very strong physical response and not in a good way.  If I’m reacting just listening to this, imagine how your guests would feel if the soundscape detracts from the visitor experience you are trying to create.

Yahoo!  What fantastic news for the Canadian tourism industry and traveller from China.  Approved Destination Status, or ADS, as we call it in the industry means that Chinese tour operators and travel agents will be able to organize tours to Canada and advertise. We will be able promote directly to tour operators and market our destination to people in China, our second largest trading partner.  While this will definitely open the door for increased visitation — which doubled for Australia when they received ADS status — is that we can begin to share our stories, our culture and this beautiful land with our friends in China, many of whom have family, friends, and roots in Canada.

As product and market developers of experiential travel, we have an opportunity to invite a new guest, create meaningful and relevant travel experiences that will create fabulous memories of Canada. Start examining your programs, services, and market opportunities now — and lets ensure as the people of China begin coming to Canada in increased numbers, they leave feeling tremendous, enriched, and thankful for their choice to visit.

According to the Tourism Industry of Canada news release, “China is expected to be the world’s largest outbound market, producing some 100 million outbound tourists.”  This is a tremendous opportunity for everyone in the tourism and hospitality to respond to — terrific news, in a year with so many challenges.

I started my day with a cup of fair trade coffee, sunshine pouring into my home, and a morning walk with my wife.  It is November.  It is Remembrance Day.  We see on the media many stories of remembrance, usually about war, or about saving other countries.  What is important is that the stories are told, re-told, and shared and new stories presented.  I was restless, looking for a way to start my day with inspiration.  As often happens, I look to TED for inspiration (the incredible alternative to television that presents the most amazing stories about technology, entertainment, and design).  And, I found something that I knew I needed to share with our tourism partners across the country.

Recently, when reading a short article about global sustainable criteria and accreditation by Justin Francis, whose company ResponsibleTravel.com is known for its small group travel experiences that “make a difference“, he suggested…”..we find tourists are far more interested in the infectious stories in our Making A Difference sections – such as the local guide whose family have lived in the village  for four generations offering a village tour and opportunity to learn to cook local dishes with his family …”  I agree.  I believe that one of the most amazing things about the Internet is that it has empowered us with the possibility to write and share infectious stories.   This, to me, is one of the most important responsibilities in writing good blogs about travel and travel experiences.

Chimamanda Adichie suggests in her poignant and powerful talk on TED called The Danger Of A Single Story, “...That when we reject the single story, when we realize there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise“.   I believe that this is our responsibility as tourism practitioners who wish to bring alive “the authentic travel experiences in our backyards” for travelers – to write infectious stories in which there is never a single story, that we reach in and reveal many stories about many people and many things within our community, and invite our ideal guests to experience our paradise.  I invite you to view Chimamanda’s story at TED.

Last week, I traveled to Saint John, NB and decided to try my hand at using Air Canada’s mobile boarding pass feature to save some paper as well as learn how well it works.  A couple of thoughts went through my mind.  What if the weblink went down, or I could not get it and I was standing in line waiting to board and a whole pile of impatient people are behind me, or the agent checking my mobile pass is anxious.  How could I keep a backup copy of the barcode on my iPhone.  Bingo.  Just use the easy iPhone image capture technique of holding down the Off/On Button at the top of the iPhone, and hitting the Home Button right after.   A screen capture is made and stored instantly in your camera roll.  A quick check of my camera gallery revealed the bar code was indeed stored there.  A relief!  Unless, of course, the battery fails.

Mobile boarding pass Air Canada

Oh, yes.  There was no problem with using the bar code for check-in and boarding.  I was in, checked through at the Air Canada terminal by the agent, the bar code and itinerary information were again checked at security, and again on boarding the aircraft along with my passport.  Seamless, effortless, paperless!

Mobile devices will increasingly help us to travel sustainably as well as offer us new ways to engage and experience travel.  How we use these mobile devices to simplify our lives will be an important part of the learning process.  Could bar codes help us get into the local visitor centre or the local movie, or attend a music concert?  Instead of running to a ticket office to get a printed ticket, what if the ticket vendors started issuing bar codes and sent them to me?  Wouldn’t that make it easier to get into a SongWriter’s Circle that I decided to attend on the spur of the moment while visiting the Harmony House Theatre in Hunter River, PEI?

Oh…did you want the story of Harmony House?  Right…of course, it’s the story that is the heart of every great experience. Originally constructed as a church in 1846, its proud owners undertook many months of renovations in order to arrive at the neat show place it is today! This very charming, hip yet mature, rustic yet modern, completely comfortable, 140-seat venue is now the perfect setting for a cozy and intimate, high-quality performance. Harmony House Theatre is equipped with a professional sound and lighting system, large screen and movie projector, sloped theatre seating, air conditioning, reception area and concession stand, and is also wheel-chair friendly. New for the 2009 season is a brand-new downstairs lounge and on-line booking with select-seating!

This summer, my wife and I had the opportunity to experience a Songwriter’s Circle with Lennie Gallant with several additional songwriters.  Harmony House was all it promised, and more.  Lennie was full of stories.  And, his incredible guest Meaghan Blanchard blew us away with incredible songs full of the wisdom of someone 10 years her senior.

Where will this mobile technology lead us to next?  Hopefully, one experience after another….some with careful planning, some much more spontaneously.

Sometimes, it just takes a little creative spark to turn ordinary into an Experience.