Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge

This audio course is built for arts and culture professionals ready to better engage with tourists and the tourism sector at large. In just five episodes, we cover marketing and management strategies, key terms, and emerging ideas, while hearing from industry experts on the ground, all to help you thrive in Ontario’s cultural tourism landscape.

The Departure Lounge course is Ontario Culture Days’ (ONCD) response to a gap between the tourism and culture sectors – a gap in collaboration and understanding exacerbated by the pandemic. This podcast aims to be an asset to sector recovery.

Got a question about the podcast? Email us at info@onculturedays.ca

Episode 1: Introduction

In the first of our five episodes, we start with pandemic-related questions. We also introduce regenerative tourism as a response to these challenges – the guiding framework for the series.

Shawn Newman dives into:

  • Public health’s effect on regional tourism, including vaccination rates and waves of infection
  • Ethical tourism
  • The benefits arts organizations enjoy from tourism

 Resources  |  Transcript  

Episode 2: Managing Tourism

Today, we dig into the visitor economy, destination competitiveness, and our sector’s stakeholders and key players. We are also joined by guest experts Tova Arbus, Meredith Armstrong, Tim Jennings, Kate Monk, Janis Monture, and Beth Potter,  who are leaders in Ontario’s arts and tourism sectors.

 Resources  |  Transcript  Glossary

Episode 3: Marketing Tourism

In this episode, we cover marketing tourism. Topics include destination marketing, selling points and value proposition to visitors, how to measure marketing success, and available government supports.

 Resources  |  Transcript 

Episode 4: Managing (the relationship between) Arts, Culture, and Tourism

How do you manage the relationship between the arts and culture sectors and tourism? Today, we define arts-core and arts-peripheral visitors, cultural tourism, and what it means to be a local.

 Resources  |  Transcript 

Episode 5: Marketing (the relationship between) Arts, Culture, and Tourism

In the final episode of Departure Lounge, we talk marketing attractions as cultural tourism destinations. Topics include the history of cultural tourism and how it evolved in the digital age. We also discuss cultural tourism demographics and ways to collaborate with your own community.

 Resources  |  Transcript

Featured Guests

Tova Arbus
Artistic Producer, Fringe North

Meredith Armstrong
Director of Economic Development,
City of Greater Sudbury

Tim Jennings
Executive Director,
Shaw Festival

Kate Monk
Senior Director, Regenerative Tourism Development & Communications, Explorer’s Edge (RTO12)

Janis Monture
Executive Director,
Woodland Cultural Centre

Beth Potter
President & CEO,
Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC)

Host and Collaborators

Shawn Newman
Consultant, Writer, and Cultural Producer

Frederic Dimanche
Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Ryerson University

Louis-Etienne Dubois
School of Creative Industries, Ryerson University

This podcast was made possible thanks to support from the Province of Ontario and the Canada Council for the Arts.