Body: Council Type: Document Meeting: Committee Date: 2018 Collection: Agenda Attachments Municipality: Frontenac County
[View Document (PDF)](/docs/frontenac-county/Item Attachments/Agenda Item/2018/May/2018-072 Community Development Advisory Committee Ignite Program Recap and Next Steps This report is for information purposes only./IGNITE Program Recap and Next Steps Report.pdf)
Document Text
Report 2018-072 Committee Information Report To:
Chair and Members of the Community Development Advisory Committee
From:
Alison Vandervelde, Community Development Officer
Date of meeting:
May 10, 2018
Re:
Community Development Advisory Committee – IGNITE Program Recap and Next Steps
Recommendation This report is for information only. Background Through the Year One Program Survey, ambassador networking events, and one-onone conversations with Frontenac Ambassadors, staff have identified areas of significant interest to local businesses. One of those areas of interest is enhancing Frontenac’s reputation as a great destination for visitors. Report 2017-125 informed CDAC that “Many businesses in Frontenac rely on visitors almost exclusively, which means their high-season revenue must be sufficient to support them through the off-season. For other businesses that serve a mixture of residents and visitors, the revenue generated by visitors is the income that allows them to re-invest in their business.” With the closing of the Land O’ Lakes Tourist Association in late 2017, Frontenac County staff have been working to improve our relationship with Ontario’s Highlands Tourism Organization (OHTO) and RTO 9 (known as The Great Waterway). These two Regional Tourism Organizations (RTO) provide support through training, funding, marketing and product development to Frontenac and its neighbouring destinations. The OHTO region encompasses the area from Haliburton Highlands to the Ottawa Valley including the Townships of Central and North Frontenac. OHTO offers marketing and product development support to tourism operators in this region, and always encourages them to focus on the emotional connection with guests through a visitorcentred, experience-based approach.
OHTO offers a program called IGNITE, a three-day immersive workshop for tourism operators to learn the principles of experiential tourism. Participants come away with new inspiration to align more closely with the motivations of their ideal customers and to collaborate fiercely with others operating in their community. Frontenac County and Lennox & Addington County (L&A) partnered with OHTO to offer an IGNITE workshop for tourism operators in our region. 19 participants from Frontenac, L&A, and Tweed attended the program April 24 – 26, 2018. Comment During the three-day Frontenac-Lennox & Addington IGNITE program, participants were introduced to 12 different services providers who immersed program participants in unique, authentic experiences connected to the community. In addition to this hands-on ‘doing’ of experiential tourism, the group regularly came together to discuss the successes and shortcomings of each experience, and the logistics of developing memorable, meaningful activities. One of the main observations was that often the things we need in order to offer a really remarkable experience are people who already in our communities, existing “infrastructure” (like a forest or community hall) and/or fairly low-cost material goods. During the session, many operators reflected that they were inspired to re-examine what they have already in their business or community, to start thinking creatively about building new product offerings, and to begin collaborating in earnest with other local business owners and service providers. The group also engaged in various discussions in regard to the identification of their ideal customers, marketing to those customers and establishing a price point that aligns with the value of the experience offered. Frontenac staff plan to maintain the momentum generated by the IGNITE program by supporting the product development process for the operators who attended the session. They will also work with OHTO to develop tools to help other operators in our region understand the value of experiential tourism, and how they can begin introducing it in their businesses. The IGNITE program participants will continue their training with 4 follow-up conference calls on the following topics:
- How are we evolving connections to people, places, and/or experiences to achieve our goals?
- Developing a Visitor Experience Statement / Telling a story with great photos
- Pricing Experiences: Setting the right price for the right customer – how much will our guests pay for our experiences?
- What do we need for our toolkits? Identifying what we do best.
Information Report to Community Development Advisory Committee IGNITE Program Recap and Next Steps May 10, 2018
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Sustainability Implications The IGNITE program feeds into the long-term goal of enhancing the quality of the tourism products in Frontenac, which will, contribute to the region’s reputations as a great place to visit. Financial Implications All program costs associated with the IGNITE program – aside from travel to and from Northern Edge Algonquin – were paid for by the Ontario Highland’s Tourism Organization. Organizations, Departments and Individuals Consulted and/or Affected Members of Community Development Advisory Committee County Council & staff Township of Frontenac Islands Township of South Frontenac Township of Central Frontenac Township of North Frontenac Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation Local Businesses Frontenac County Residents
Information Report to Community Development Advisory Committee IGNITE Program Recap and Next Steps May 10, 2018
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