Thursday, October 22, 2020
Tourism operators are putting research into action and marketing packages that showcase the unique experiences Nova Scotia has to offer. The new RADIATE Tourism Program is supporting 51 partners from across the province to create and promote packages to travellers in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
The RADIATE Tourism Program offers partners coaching, market research insights, and marketing support to help tourism businesses and organizations raise their profile in the local and Maritime region. Knowing that Nova Scotians and Maritimers are the most likely to be willing and able to travel in the province in the immediate future, Tourism Nova Scotia conducted market research to determine what is appealing to these travellers and what sets Nova Scotia apart from other destinations in the region. Based on these insights, we’ve worked with program partners to develop and promote compelling travel packages to local and Maritime travellers.
While Maritimers are familiar with Nova Scotia, we want to encourage them to go beyond the familiar and explore more of what Nova Scotia offers. A travel package combines two or more tourism activities, experiences, or products for one single price to make it convenient and easy for travellers to purchase and plan their visit around Nova Scotia. It can also provide travellers with easy access to new places or experiences in Nova Scotia, or lesser visited parts of the province. This is important, as research indicates that while local and regional visitors will naturally gravitate towards familiar places and experiences, they will welcome opportunities to discover aspects of Nova Scotia that are new to them.
Developing new packages through RADIATE Tourism Program has led to great collaboration between business in communities across the province. For example, Amos Pewter is working with Rebecca’s Restaurant to offer two new packages to encourage visits to Mahone Bay this winter. The packages include an artisan tour of Amos Pewter’s workshop in Mahone Bay and a new hands-on seasonal pewter experience paired with a delicious meal featuring local flavours at Rebecca’s Restaurant. Although Amos Pewter is used to working with other businesses to promote Mahone Bay through festivals and events, the RADIATE program presented a new partnership opportunity to create packages, according to Lynn Sheehan, co-owner of Amos Pewter.
“This has been a great opportunity to work closely with another local business, Rebecca’s Restaurant, to develop a uniquely Mahone Bay experience for regional travellers to encourage tourism in winter months,” says Lynn. “Not only will we create awareness of all there is to do in Nova Scotia, we are building our inventory of packages for the longer-term.”
Taste Halifax Tours is also creating a new experience by partnering with Chain Yard Cider to offer a package featuring a flight of cider tastings with food pairings led by the first pommelier in eastern Canada. Taste Halifax Tours has experience creating a variety of foodie tours for a variety of travellers, and this new package is built around regional market interests by showcasing Nova Scotia flavours through an urban culinary experience guided by local expert insights.
In addition to developing the packages, participants are receiving marketing support to increase awareness of the packages. Marketing activities include social media advertising, influencers, and professional services such as photography. Some participants, like the Cliffs of Fundy UNESCO Geopark, are working with Tourism Nova Scotia to host local influencers who will create content and awareness by sharing stories about their experience with their audiences on Facebook and Instagram.
Digital ads started rolling out in October, and already some partners are seeing the results. Within days of her ads going live on Facebook, Nancy Rogers from Seaweed Tours in Lunenburg reported, “I have six people booked already and lots of new page followers!”
See all of the RADIATE Tourism Partners at https://tourismns.ca/radiate.
If you’d like to learn how to use Tourism Nova Scotia’s research to create your own experience or package to appeal to regional travellers, check out our webinar.