Newfoundland and Labrador Product Development Strategy

- 127-Provincial/Regional Itineraries, Packages and ToursTours and other forms of packaged travel products play an important role in generating travel toand within the province, extending stays and spending and also encouraging repeat trips. Webelieve they can play an even larger role in future in this regard, as discussed below.Newfoundland Experiences ProgramAs travel professionals who understand the marketplace probably better than most others in thetourism industry (as they must in order to survive), there is an opportunity to harness thecapabilities of tour operators more extensively than they are today in mobilizing demandinfluencing tourism product development. What we are proposing is establishing a provincewideprogram in which tour operators would be contracted to work more broadly, beyond theirown products, in developing suggested itineraries for visitors and packaged travel products incollaboration with the regional and provincial destination marketing organizations (DMOs).(See Section 13 for a more extensive discussion about regional DMOs.)To give it an identity, we have named this program-to-be ‘Newfoundland Experiences Program’.Three kinds of products would be developed:o Suggested itineraries for visitors, of from one hour to a full day in duration, with most of2 to 4 hours in duration (These would not be packages that people would book and payfor. They are simply itineraries of interesting things to do and see that logically linktogether in a particular area, perhaps under a theme associated with special interests, suchas history for example.)o Short, experience-based packages offered by individual tourism operatorso Longer tours and FIT packages in the regionIn the first case, the tour operator would work with the DMO in a consulting capacity in planningsuggested itineraries for visitors in different regions and involving different kinds of activitiesand themes. The DMOs, both the provincial Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreationand the regional DMOs, would then develop marketing materials and promote the itineraries tovisitors. The idea would be that visitors could mix and match combinations of part dayitineraries as they so choose in planning their trip, either before they come or while they are here.Websites, trip planners and visitor information services would be used to assist the traveller.In addition, accommodation operators and other tourism businesses in the regions would begiven collateral materials and encouraged to recommend these experiences to their guests. Itserves their interests to do so in that it will encourage extended stays in the area.In the second case, experience-based packages, the tour operator would work with individualtourism operators in the region in developing short packages, much like the ‘day adventures’ inNew Brunswick. (This program in New Brunswick brought a lot of new, experiential product tothe market and helped the province diversify and grow its tourism. A weakness of that programwas inadequate coaching to ensure that the products were, in fact, of appeal to tourists and likelyTHE ECONOMIC PLANNING GROUP of Canada Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism Product DevelopmentD. W. Knight Associates Strategy and Accommodation Needs Study