Wannawafle is one of Victoria BCs newer businesses and has received tremendous publicity since their acceptance by the Dragon’s Den.

Great – I’ve travelled extensively in Belgium, love Belgium waffles, this is a Belgian family business, Groupon even had a sale so I purchased $20 of waffles for $10 and then waited for the ideal moment to go enjoy!  My husband and I cycled 24 km and ended up in the inner harbour on Canada Day where I know they have a kiosk as I’ve walked by many times in the past when I was downtown on business.  We locked up our bikes, worked our way through the mid-day crowds, and were looking forward to a little decadence to break up our cycling for the day.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Our coupon was for $20, but the waffles only cost $4 so we opted to not use the coupon and purchase 2 at $4.00 (yah, they got biz, groupon worked for them good stuff). But unlike their website, there was NO choice at the kiosk, only one round waffle without even any icing sugar and it was a higher price than in their restaurant. Ok – that’s the price you pay for curbside convenience.

But there was a lost moment. When I inquired about variety and told them I had $20 to spend – they could have recommended their restaurant – I could have walked a little farther, but they didn’t, so we popped out $8 and went for it anyway thinking we’ll use the coupon with guests the next time we have visitors. Still OK with my experience expecations. Friendly service during the wait, after purchasing they announced wait times “1 minute till the waffle’ for us, 3 minutes for the person behind us”

Then came the moment – biting into the Waffle and anticipating the WOW moment, and travelling back to Belgium and the many waffles I had enjoyed travelling in Europe.  GONG … not meant to be. The waffle wasn’t cooked all the way through! My first thought was ‘ewwww dough’ and my bubble was burst.  I approached the vendor and asked ‘are these supposed to be uncooked in the middle?’  He answered, yes that happens often, its just the way they are.  Having always enjoyed cooked waffles my entire life, including being in Belgium, I thought YUK and was communicating it to my husband. As I was doing so several other people asked me ‘how is it’. I told them the truth – they are only partially cooked … several people said thanks, I won’t bother waiting in the line, and customers were lost.  (They lost customers as a result of my experience and standing beside their stand commenting on the raw dough). My husband loves raw cookie dough so he was content to eat it semi cooked, and munched mine, but we will never go back. We gave away our groupon coupon and hope someone else likes semi-cooked waffles.

Could there have been a recovery moment for the business – sure! When I returned and showed the fellow a partially cooked waffle, and said I don’t fancy raw batter, he could have offered to cook one all the way through.  Unfortunately he didn’t, rather attended to the line of people waiting for one. The message to me, “I already have your money so you aren’t important, there are more people in line with money waiting to buy.”

So I have a new teaching example of how to ‘almost be great’ but then drop the ball at the very moment of customer impact – the lure worked, the publicity worked, the staff were great until the moment of purchase.  The product didn’t meet my expectations (and cooked food should be a reasonable expectation). To be told by their staff “‘that’s how we make them” made me think they should communicate this on their advertising “Partially cooked waffles for all you dough lovers out there.”  This way everyone out there  who likes semi-cooked waffles could go for it. But, if you are like me,  have travelled extensively in Belgium, and enjoyed many wonderfully cooked waffles, you may wish to call up your airline and book a trip to Belgium!  Or, as we did, hoped on our bicycles and cycled to a place where we know they have excellent customer service, excellent management, excellent ownership, and healthy fast food – Quizno’s on Douglas Street owned by Karen Rickets.

And after reflecting for a day or two on what to do – I’ve decided to share it on trip advisor and forward a personal letter to the owner as well with an invitation to chat if they like. Thinking about the customer is not new – but the customer lifecycle concept is new for many people. Some businesses and staff don’t  realize success relies not only on a great product, but the customer experience. Businesses that manage customer experiences have to mange every touchpoint – in this case, from the time I started dreaming about an authentic  Belgium waffle in my own home town, to that first bite …

The multi-media handout for The Power of a Great Story to accompany the the Travel Manitoba keynote address at their conference is now online. Their conference theme:  “Sharing the Manitoba Story … Building the Visitor Experience” has resonated well with people.  Check out the handout and listen to four stories by Edge Graduate Marie-France Doucet of Le Pays de la Saguoine (NB), Tyler Schroeder of the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre (MB), Louise Stitt of the Meandher Pumpkin Patch (MB) and Shel Zolkewich – free lance travel media writer (MB).

Building the Manitoba Story

Travel Manitoba just completed their provincial conference on the theme “Sharing Manitoba’s Story: Building the Visitor.” Edge of the Wedge experiential travel graduate Laurenda Madill was a major driver behind the successful event with her colleagues Wayne Copet and Karla Pratt.

I was thrilled to be invited ‘back home’ to give the keynote address on “The Power of Storytelling”.  Travel Manitoba not only had a ‘theme for the conference’ but invested in weaving all the speakers together to harmonize the event and ensure everyone giving a presentation linked their contribution to the provincial objective for the conference. At the end of the day, all speakers returned to the stage for summary  comments, followed by my parting words, Wayne Copet – Director of Industry Development, then Colin Ferguson, CEO of Traval Manitoba.

What was interesting though interesting, was after finishing the day, I had many requests for the presentation I loaded it up to Slide Share. What a surprise it was to me,  shortly thereafter, to receive a notice from Slide Share saying:

“Your presentation The Power of Storytelling is currently being featured on the SlideShare homepage by our editorial team. We thank you for this terrific presentation, that has been chosen from amongst the thousands that are uploaded to SlideShare everyday.”

There were approx 150 at the conference, but so far 700 views on the presentation – so Manitoba’s story will go on!! How cool is that!

I am appreciating being involved as a tourism operator in a planning process to provide advice to Riding Mountain National Park about an eastern sector of the park, as part of their new approach to more broadly engaging stakeholders in a meaningful and productive conversation. This conversation involves a lot of very talented people, with backgrounds as business people, other government agencies, local users of the park, First Nations community members, and many others.

East escarpment area, Riding Mountain National Park

As we move through the various issues, one of the most important to be discussed is communication, and what kinds of communication are helpful and relevant to stakeholders. Inevitably, discussions lead to the challenging constraints that government agencies have to respect. And, in the current reality, that makes for lively discussion about whether social media have a place within government.

In this article by Brian Solis, Government Social Media: Five Questions For 2011, guest writer Dr. Mark Drapeau (Director of US Public Sector Engagement at Microsoft) and the editor of SECTOR: PUBIC, asks five very important questions and outlines their significance and relevance for government staff to effectively use social media to put technology, government, social engagement, citizens, and business together into a larger perspective.

My big take-aways are that he created insights into how governments can build stories for the things that they do so well, and advocate better for these issues and treasure troves of information that they have. For example, if I related this to the national park that I live beside, there are several questions that come to mind:

1. How could diseases in elk, moose ecology, beaver ponds and the significance of them as vascular plant “gene banks”, the conservation of bison, and the habitat of golden-winged warblers become presented as issues using a variety of social media in ways that are relevant to citizens?
2. What kind of constructive narratives could be provided to citizens who care about the park and park issues, and build a greater community and educated constituency in the process?
3. Who better to advocate the information about this than government staff who are working on these issues closely, with care, and with the expertise to share good information with citizens? In fact, the US EPA has set up a Facebook page called Water is Worth It. As a tourism operator, I would immediately link to this content, as a way of helping travellers to become better informed about the area.

The second take-away is that I can also learn from this article is that as a private operator, I can learn how to better use social media and become more “personal” in the way that our brand and story is communicated.

One of the best take-aways from this article is the response/comment from journalist/correspondent digiphile providing examples of how good government narratives in Government 2.0 are being developed in the US, how next-generation technologies are being deployed in partnership with others, and explaining that there is progress being made. A very insightful read.

Parks Canada (the federal agency responsible for Canada’s national and historic parks) has recently invested in some structural changes and staff throughout its organization across Canada to help develop the communication, education, and social media tools to share the amazing stories that are found throughout our parks and sites in ways that create relevance for our parks. There are some helpful suggestions in this article that all of us can learn from.

For years, Justin Bieber sat outside the Avon Theatre of Stratford with his guitar and busked for change from Stratford Festival attendees.  Today, Bieber is well known around the world as a teen pop star.

Stratford Tourism has been quick to provide the inside scoop on Bieber for families visiting Stratford.  Now visitors to Stratford can see all the places Justin Bieber hung out at on a new tourism map produced by the Stratford Tourism Alliance – Bieberiffic map of Stratford.

The map, a free, downloadable guide to the history and hangouts of the 16-year-old pop sensation, features the schools he attended, his family’s favourite restaurant, hockey arenas and more. The Bieberiffic Map is sure to be a must-have item for families traveling to Stratford with giggly school girls charmed to death by Justin Bieber.

Eugene Zakreski told the Toronto Star, “We wanted to create something that’s kind of funky and cool, that’s fitting for somebody between 10 and 25 and has a different look and feel than what we normally would have on our site. He’s a phenomenon.”

Indeed, at  the Tourism Café we think anytime you create something unique focused on the interests of your ideal guest you are heading in the right direction.

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!

If you are in the tourism industry you know the importance of storytelling to a great guest experience.  Increasing the visitor experience means perfecting this aspect your ‘business to consumer’ (B2C) relations.

What about your B2B ‘business to business’ corporate storytelling capability — the one that builds fans, interest, followers and partners wanting to collaborate or align with you on a different level?  If you are looking to learn from the best, then Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple should be your idol. In the new book by Carmine Gallo title “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience” his three-part framework on how to ‘wow audiences’ is shared:  (1) Create the Story  (2) Deliver the Experience  (3) Refine and Rehearse.  This book is so ‘hot-off-the-press’ it’s copyright is 2010!  If you give a lot of presentations to business, to your guests, at conferences, or within your community, this is a definite must.

If you just want a taster however — “The 10 Ways to Sell you Ideas the Steve Jobs Way” was just posted as a free download by GoToMeeting.  Talk about a clever way to build a data base for your own business by aligning with the best!

Thanks Celes for bringing this to my attention and living our mantra “Collaborate to Compete” which also happens to be a great book by Logan and Stokes if anyone is interested. Together “We” is always stronger, and more rewarding than “Me”.

John Lubbock once wrote “Reading and writing, arithmetic and grammar do not constitute education, any more than a knife, fork and spoon constitute a dinner. “  Similarly tourism is not just a hotel + restaurant + attraction + transportation = vacation!  It is so much more and as businesses in the industry, it is our responsibility to weave together great visitor experiences that engage the senses, bring unique elements of a community to life, and set the stage with places and people for excellent, memorable travel.

We need to move from a ‘packaging’ as the way we think about product development to ’storytelling’ .  What is the story of our region, our community?  What are travellers wanting to learn, discover and immerse themselves in while on vacation?  Never before has it been more critical to ‘listen’ to our guests, then craft experiences for niche markets that provide the best invitation possible to visit Canada. Our job is now the art of weaving together expectations, activities, interactions and delivering on the customer promise at every moment contact – from the time someone thinks about travelling, till the time they are sharing stories back home with their friends.

Pine and Gilmore introduced the concept of the Experience Economy in 1999 and gave us both an economic model with financial rationale, along with four main types of experiences: Entertainment, education, escape, and esthics.  At the Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism training operators to shift their thinking and adopt new ways of generating business for themselves, and their community has been occurring for five years now!

Linked by themes, aligned with visitor interests, new ways to invite and connect with travelers is happening in wonderful places such as  “Experience PEI”, Gros Morne Adventures and a full suite of 110 new experiences in New Brunswick! Check it out and then ask yourself – what I can I do differently!  How can experiences enrich my business, provide a better travel opportunity for my guests.

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.