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.

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.

I have long been a proponent of house concerts.  When my wife and I built our home 13 years ago, we had a house concert to help celebrate by means of a “house warming”, the place that we had laboured  to build over a couple of years.  60 people showed up that wonderful day – friends, acquaintances, and those who had helped build the house.  The band – upright bass, guitars, voice, mandolin – was deeply appreciated by everyone.  They had fun.  We had fun.

We recently received a post from friend and songwriter Mark Berube (based out of Montreal) who has a stellar band called Mark Berube and the Patriotic Few.  At one of the morning workshops this year at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, they received a standing ovation!  Mark has been through our place several times.  He brought our attention to this short video piece from CBC TV – The National, about House Concerts across the country

Since that time, we have been having house concerts, at first on an infrequent basis.  Then, more frequently when our daughter and partner Toronto based-bass player Michael-Owen Liston (Check out his unique piece Carry On Crow – beautiful melody), kept introducing their cross-country traveling musical colleagues and professionals to “stop over” in Manitoba at our home, as they traveled east or west doing various gigs.  When they “stopped over”, they would play a house concert.  We were hooked on doing this on a regular basis.

Then, one day, we heard CBC and Mitch Podolak talking on Winnipeg CBC Radio One about introducing a new concept to the prairies – house concerts on a circuit, where songwriters would be able to be guaranteed of a dozen homes or so on a two-week circuit in the fall and winter months.  We called in and shared our perspectives about why we loved House Concerts.  Called Home Routes, artists stay with hosts over-night, being fed and watered.  Our “house concert guests” have brought richness into our homes.  As my wife says…”their spirits are dancing around our home adding to why our home feels so good”.

When I reflect on what makes this part of “The Canadian Experience”, I think that this is part of the quintessential essence of Canada where small, intimate settings are available to re-connect with friends and community (regardless of whether it is rural or urban).  To appreciate our Canadian artists, to appreciate music, to slow down.

I have to tip my hat to Mitch Podolak, founder of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, who seems to make a habit of “founding” new Canadian musical experiences on a continuous basis all across this country.  Mitch founded Home Routes, to which we have belonged, since its inception two years ago.  Six house concerts in eight months.  Stellar artists – Tom Wilson, John Mann, Rose Cousins, Bill Bourne – we love meeting these people, learning from them, and being close to them and their music.

Tom Wilson - member of Blackie & The Rodeo Kings and Lee Harvey Osmond

But, the thing that I enjoy just as much is that our home becomes ” a community” within our community for a night – where music lovers gather to listen and soak in the deeply personal stories, music, and performances.  This is the nature of experience – authentic, first-hand, deeply personal, and we each leave a little bit moved or transformed or enlightened.  If you have time, we invite you to sit back with a coffee or a glass of wine and take in this marvelous 20-minutes of high def video with Stephen Fearing who brought poetry, incredible guitar playing, and a warm-ness of humanity into our home for a couple of days.

Last week, I was watching the amazing business conference GoingGreenEast on live streaming Ustream.tv video, which if you have not yet viewed, I would highly recommend keeping on top of.  The compression, bandwidth, quality of this live streaming video channel available on DSL Internet is amazing.

I was amazed and inspired by David de Rothschild, who has founded an amazing company called Adventure Ecology.  You are going to get lots of ideas from this site.  But, I really want to direct you to his talk.  Take a cup of coffee, or tea or a glass of wine and sit back for a few minutes….you’ll want to have your notepad or a laptop open with notes page. We need a dose of this kind of inspiration every once in a while, to help us really focus on what’s important.  I was having a conversation with my colleague Nancy Arsenault today, and after I finished, I realized that I needed to share what I have learned from this video with the tourism industry.

You will want to go to this talk – Equation of Curiosity.

What I will not forget are the following words.  Think about them in your own business enterprise and then do what you need to do to…

Every change begins with a question.

Curiosity is a great driver of change.

The equation for curiosity is

D + A/S = I

The equation can be translated loosely as follows:  Dreams are the breeding grounds for adventures (and everyone has dreams).  Those dreams create adventures.  Those adventures create stories.  Those stories inspire more dreams.  If we follow this model, the equation for curiosity becomes more compelling…

“My dream or question was …could we build a boat built entirely out of plastic water bottles (the Plastiki Expedition) ?  To try to showcase a smart way of thinking – that waste is a resource.”  This has exploded into an exciting opportunity to change an entire industry.  - David de Rothschild (Adventure Ecology)

You see, we have a problem today in the world’s oceans.  The ratio of plastic bits (disposed plastic) to phytoplankton (uni-cellular plants) is 6:1 (plastic to phytoplankton).  Waste is fundamentally a design flaw.  Plastic bottles are not smart design.  We need to re-think waste as a “resource stream”.

In experiential tourism, we have the opportunity to share stories, which are what travelers connect to.  (Dreams lead to adventures which lead to stories).  These stories are fulfillment of the dreams of those who created the story in the first place (the experience provider), but offer fulfillment for the traveler as well.

What are you doing to create adventuress, share stories, and most important of all, to create stories that are about being sustainable in your business?  Reducing waste, making the planet a better place, and doing this makes good business sense and good ecological sense.

The first step is the first step:

The first thing that we can all do as an action is to ban plastic bottles from our businesses, how we serve visitors, and from all of our supply chains.  Ban them completely from our businesses, our communities, our grocery stores, our gas stations, our convenience stores.  Yes, this will take leadership.  But, that’s the stage our planet is at.  Tourism can lead the way in doing this.

Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Stan Cook the new chair of TIAC (The Tourism Industry Association of Canada).  We were in Whitehorse, Yukon where he was handing over his previous responsibilities as chair of the Brand Experiences Working Group with the CTC to the new chair Andrew Lind, with Jonview.

Our meetings were intense, with a full agenda.  After completing our meetings, we took time to experience the start of the Yukon Quest and go dog-sledding with Rod Taylor of Uncommon Journeys (now, here is a man with a vision for sustainable tourism).   We had just finished dog-sledding and were putting the dogs away.  I asked Stan to share some of his views about the emerging opportunities for experiential and sustainable tourism in Canada.

I think that you will agree with me and find this video interview quite fascinating.  Short and to the point as Stan always is, you’ll see his optimism and smile as the new chair of TIAC.  This wonderful man from the east coast of Newfoundland brings his humour, his Canadian identity and his passion for tourism to the main stage of tourism in Canada.  How timely, given the changes in the global economy and a global recognition of Canada’s emerging prominence in tourism, both as a brand and as a place for tourism business development.

The experience of Canada – through Stan Cook’s Lens from Celes Davar on Vimeo.

Bill Kendrick, who owns and operates Experience PEI has a lot of experience in shooting and editing video. He keeps dipping his hands into this medium within Atlantic Canada, and applies his expertise in video to various other unique projects.

He wanted to share a neat tip about vlogging and experiences. “I came across a website called Tripfilms.com. You or Todd have probably already heard about it given your interest in the use of video. It seems to be fairly new but has quite a few interesting travel videos on it. ….I’ve uploaded one of mine on our Tong & Shuck experience (Oyster Fishing Experience on PEI) and there were already two others there on a couple of our experiences. They were shot last summer by a videographer from Toronto. It seems like a good site for uploading videos too, since it is aimed at people looking to use this type of site when planning their vacations.”

What you’ll notice on the website is that there is a category called “Experiences” that the videos can be searched within. This is a perfect opportunity for Canadian tourism operators to start shooting good quality video about distinctive Canadian experiences that are part of our Canadian identity. Whether nature, cuisine, art, culture, or adventure, this is a great way to start building visitor interest in your unique tourism experience well before-hand.

You’ll notice that if you use the search bar at the top of the web page with the keyword PEI, that there are already nine (9) films about PEI experiences. Bill, as a member of the tripfilms.com film-making community has clearly found a way to partner with a film-maker to enable some of Experience PEI’s unique experiences to be featured. Atta boy Bill! Thank you for sharing your video tip.

Video is increasingly being used as a key technique for story-capturing the essence of travel experiences. It is a great medium for building awareness and interest about your own experiences, but most of all is a great way to tell a story that is captivating as well.

Check out www.tripfilms.com