Newfoundland and Labrador Product Development Strategy

- 129-o A serious shortage of rental cars in the summer periodo Few RV rentals available in the provinceo A reluctance of accommodation operators and others to pay commissions or providewholesale discounts on FIT bookings, particularly in high seasonThe first two issues are addressed in Section 10. The third is discussed in this section, laterbelow.Shoulder and Winter Season Packaging ProgramsAnother major opportunity in this vein is to assist tour operators with developing and marketingpackaged products to take advantage of the capacity available in the shoulder and winter seasons.The opportunity is to bundle value prices provided by tourism operators in the province in theseseasons with discount airfares negotiated with airlines, along with compelling experiencesappropriate to the season, to build compelling packages that will sell. These would, in the main,be of the weekend getaway variety, short duration trips to attend a major event or to have aunique experience, at a great price.The idea here would be to financially assist, at least initially, the efforts of tour operators todevelop and market new product in new seasons, recognizing that, without such assistance, itwould not be feasible for them to proceed at their own cost, given the extra level of effort andtime involved in both developing such products and in developing markets for them. In otherwords, we subsidize the start-up and initial market development efforts.The Marketing Division of the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and the regionalDMOs could be partners in supporting and funding this effort.Airlift ConsolidatorIn conjunction with this effort and in addition to seed funding, another initiative would be tocontract the services of a ‘consolidator’ for organizing air transportation at discounted rates fromkey origin markets. For example, a consolidator could charter aircraft from Britain to Deer Lakeon behalf of several tour operators, such as Vision the Atlantic Canada Co. who offers FITproduct in Western Newfoundland, and perhaps major tourism players, such as Humber ValleyResort and Marble Mountain, both having an interest in bringing Europeans to the region. Theoperators here would contract for and selling into blocks of seats.The same thing could potentially also be done with in-province airlift to improve connectionsand reduce costs of in-province air travel.The risks and costs would be borne by the Newfoundland businesses involved, however, it maybe that this kind of initiative could be financially assisted in its early stages until it developsenough volume to carry itself through revenues.THE ECONOMIC PLANNING GROUP of Canada Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism Product DevelopmentD. W. Knight Associates Strategy and Accommodation Needs Study