Every year our region hosts a number of amazing festivals and events. All enhance community pride, create a sense of community identity, and provide us with a lot of fun in the process. In addition to all that, there are some festivals and events which leave a significant economic impact and sustain the economy. They can mean the difference between a year of profit or loss for many local businesses.  But how can we know this for sure? And how can it be successfully measured? These questions are important because in this period of scarce resources, festivals and events which can prove that they significantly impact the economy will be in a better position to attract funding from governments and private sponsorships. Traditional economic impact studies are fraught with inaccuracies and can be difficult to interpret. Nova Scotia Tourism has partnered with consulting economists Gardner Pinfold to come up with the Tourism Economic Impact Model (TEIM), a mathematical model that simulates the impact of certain tourism conditions on the total economy of Nova Scotia. You could almost call it “Economic impact analysis for dummies”. More on this to follow!

Have you seen the new Nova Scotia Tourism TV ads? I think they’re pretty good. They are being broadcast in Atlantic Canada and in select markets in Ontario, Alberta and New England. They play to our strengths, i.e local characters, colour, cuisine and culture, with generous helping of gorgeous Nova Scotia scenery, of course. This is where people tend to FIRST hear about a destination and where their interest is piqued. And these pieces cost a fortune to produce and to air.

Now let’s consider another medium. It’s absolutely free; anyone can use it. It’s called word of mouth, and for research purposes it includes social media such as Facebook. This free online publicity tends to work well to influence people who ALREADY want to know about a particular destination.  

I encourage you to join one of the Nova Scotia fan pages on Facebook; this encourages your out of province friends to check out the fan page as a “lure” to our province. And of course for those who haven’t already done so,  a vote for the Bay of Fundy as one of the Seven New Wonders of the World will keep us in the running . Our success in attracting votes to date has already garnered millions of $ in free publicity for our region. Check out www.new7wonders.com  and vote for the Bay of Fundy today!

Nature remains the main catalyst to get Canadians to travel in Canada. While experiencing Aboriginal culture is a weak motivator for Canadians to travel, it is a huge motivator for overseas visitors.

We have an incredible resource in Kejimkujik National Park. We also have world class trails such a Balancing Rock on Long Island, among others.  My personal favourite is the Delap’s Cove trail, with its amazing (and unexpected!) waterfall. We need to make the most of our high ranking on perceived “local colour” and instill more excitement and “buzz” to attract more visitors for longer visits. Next, how we might do that…

Among Canadians, Canada ranks highest in “Brand Image Perceptions”, and this is something which has to be exploited to keep Canadians at home. This shows that Canada evokes positive emotions, pride and patriotism among domestic travelers. And Canada is perceived as delivering very well on the nature component of travelers’ stated desires. More good news – Canadians see British Columbia and the Atlantic Region as the two areas they would most like to visit within Canada, and the Atlantic Region ranks the highest in being able to offer “local colour”.

Check out our blog over the next few days as overviews from NS Tourism’s Research Forum, held last week at Oak Island Inn, are highlighted.

NS occupancy rates are about the same as the other Atlantic provinces, and NS is in the middle of the pack vis a vis all Canadian provinces. While declining visitation from the US and abroad is projected for 2010, visitation from other parts of Canada is expected to increase by at least 2%. People are continuing to book closer to their departure dates, so we are still in an “anything can happen” mode for the summer season.

2009 is the first year in a long time when more people moved to Nova Scotia than left the province – mostly all of them from Alberta! This may be part of a longer term trend and augurs well for tourism in our region, as the majority of our visitors to Annapolis Digby come from within the province.

… the USA. Fewer Canadians travel to other regions of Canada than to the US! Canadians’ trips to the US correspond directly with the $ exchange rate, so our high dollar presents a huge challenge for tourism businesses this year.

Value/price perceptions by Canadian travelers presents another challenge, primarily because of high domestic airfares. In declining order, Canadians are looking for experiences that highlight culture, nature, urban life, and cuisine. Surprisingly, research shows that we feel we can’t get culture in our home country! We are not perceived as being “exotic enough”. The perception is that we are lacking unique characters and stories, and “local flavor”. In Annapolis Digby, we KNOW we have lots of local flavour (literally and figuratively!) and that many of our stories are unique, so we need to work at polishing our product and getting the word out there so that perceptions are changed…. Next, the GOOD news…