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Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge

Resources and Transcripts

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:

Resources

Transcript

Shawn Newman 0:00

Hello, welcome to the Ontario Culture Days Departure Lounge, an audio course podcast designed to teach you about the ins and outs and the trends and pitfalls of cultural tourism in Ontario. I’m your host Shawn Newman, speaking to you from Tkaronto.

The COVID 19 pandemic has dealt devastating blows to the arts and culture sectors as well as tourism. And now, two years in, we are seeing leaders from both industries coming together in new and innovative ways as they work toward recovery and rebuilding. This audio course produced by Ontario Culture Days is one way we hope to support collaboration between these sectors and to close the gaps between the two.

You might think that gaps between the tourism and the arts and culture sectors seem odd, and we agree. But there are fundamental differences in how these sectors work, even though they have so much in common. Over the next five episodes, we’ll explore the ideas at the core of cultural tourism, connect to these concepts to the arts, and hear from professionals on the ground.

This audio course podcast is geared towards arts and culture sector workers and organizations. But we certainly invite everyone to listen and learn with us. This podcast, its transcripts and the resources referenced throughout are all available on the Ontario Culture Days website. Whether you are new to thinking about or working with Ontario’s tourism sector, or feel like you want an inspirational refresher, the Ontario Culture Days Departure Lounge has something for you.

Tourism is at a crossroads: the pandemic that quite literally shut down Canada’s arts and culture sector overnight in March 2020 also forced us into our homes. It kept us from even connecting with our local neighborhoods. And while we have begun to enjoy gathering indoors for things like live dance and theater, concerts, and even weddings and social events, our ability to travel remains hampered. In fact, at the time of writing and recording this episode, questions about the ongoing impact of the disease and potential new variants remain unanswered.

Two years into this pandemic, we remain in flux. And with various vaccination requirements into travel restrictions, or even outright bans, we can see that COVID-19 has impacted the travel sector more than any other even more than arts and culture. Tourism industry leaders, along with their colleagues and other sectors created the hashtag #hardesthit when lobbying the federal government to get financial support to survive the crisis. Together, they have built the Coalition of Hardest Hit Businesses, which has tirelessly and effectively advocated and lobbied for increased federal support. Because of their work, in October 2021, Canada’s federal government announced much needed extensions to the support programs that have buttressed our devastated sectors. You can read the November 25th Press Release praising these new measures from the coalition at hardesthit.ca.

Yet, despite this support, the recovery will be slow and fragile. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, on a global scale, the COVID 19 pandemic is likely to cost the tourism sector 2 trillion US dollars in lost revenue in 2021 alone. In these conditions, it’s hard to predict or forecast what or when a return to so-called normal will be. And in fact, many argue that there may not be a return to what we called normal in 2019, as the pandemic will have long lasting effects on our social values and behaviors. And as the arts and culture sector has experienced firsthand, the pandemic has catapulted conversations and activism about issues like systemic racism, ableism and more into the spotlight. So while some are saying that we might not return to normal, many are also saying that we simply can’t.

But is that a bad thing? We don’t think so. Already, the pandemic has made many tourism experience providers and destinations rethink their purpose and mission. Of course, tourism has long struggled with issues like impacts of travel on the environment and climate change. The International Institute for Sustainable Development notes that annually, 7 million people die from poor air quality. Moreover, the environmental impacts of industries like tourism can reveal deeply embedded inequities related to race, class and more. So in a difficult context already heavily impacted by climate change, the COVID 19 pandemic has added yet another complex layer to working in and through tourism.

Certainly, arts and culture organizations can empathize with how deeply the tourism sector has been affected by the pandemic, whether or not our sector likes to it admit it, we rely heavily on tourism. Consequently, any limitations to mobility, if not full restriction means that gathering inside museums, performing arts venues, and more, has been deeply impacted, even when not completely forbidden. And as we have seen, one thing that has characterized the pandemic so far and has thrown a series of wrenches into arts and culture reopening plans, is the pandemic’s ebbs and flows as measured by the daily number of infections. When it seems that we are getting control of the virus through increased vaccination rates, another variant pops up, it wreaks havoc on society again, and incites governments to reimpose restrictions on movement and gathering. These so called waves are taking a toll on people’s confidence in traveling, in gathering with others, and simply in getting out of their home. The subsequent impact on our mental health is showing with growing anxiety for many. This situation will continue to affect people’s intentions to travel and to participate in arts and culture programming for many months, if not years to come.

Some say that it is time to call for the end of tourism as we know it – a destructive economic activity that has profound negative impacts on natural and cultural environments. In other words, the pandemic made many realize how mass tourism based on fossil fuels and excess consumption has a degenerative effect on destinations and communities. Whether it was because of pollution or overcrowding, tourism’s impact was that of a consumptive and extracting industry. In essence, this has acted as a trigger for positive change. Some of the best known examples of cities that are attempting to change with the pandemic and to rethink their business models are Venice and Barcelona, two cities that were overwhelmed by the consumptive nature of tourism that deteriorated their social and environmental capital.

And while destinations like Venice and Barcelona are changing, the pandemic has also led to changes in travel behavior, people fly less, they take shorter trips, and they tend to favor nature destinations as opposed to crowded urban environments. We are starting to see the reemergence of slow travel, which can generally be understood as a form of tourism that relies more on types of travel that leave smaller carbon footprints.

For example, in 2018, the flight shame movement emerged in Sweden. With this movement, people started to take the environmental impacts of air travel more seriously. Many abandoned air travel altogether. In one year, the flight shame movement resulted in a 4% decrease of international flights at Swedish airports. At the same time, perhaps partly as a result of flight shame, Europeans more broadly have an increased interest in rail travel, with new developments in sleeper train services as countries try to reduce short haul flights. At the same time, this slow travel is as much about feeling accountable for one’s carbon emissions, as it is about enjoying a different, slower and more experiential way to travel. And whether or not we are conscious of it, slow travel has actually been integral to the promotion of tourism and even resident lifestyles across Ontario. So while perhaps not new to us, these global trends towards slow travel will open doors and opportunities for cultural tourism in Ontario.

This brings us to regenerative tourism, a concept that will be the guiding framework for this podcast series. You might be more familiar with regenerative tourism’s predecessor sustainable tourism. For over 30 years, much has been said about sustainable tourism. Sustainability focuses on meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. And while this certainly remains important, some argue that regenerative tourism goes one step further than sustainability. If sustainability is about leaving an environment as it is, regenerative tourism is about leaving a destination or community as a better place than it was before. In other words, tourism should contribute to improving destinations, making them better and stronger with regenerative tourism. We move from a draining or extracting quality of tourism towards one that is restorative, one that concentrates on humanistic and ethical principles, and is concerned with the effectiveness of helping communities and regions thrive.

The term regenerative tourism was coined by Anna Pollock. For Pollock, regenerative tourism enables us to move beyond the difficulties presented by concepts like sustainability, which is based on restraint, more than on restoration or growth. In seeing tourism as an agent of transformation, regenerative tourism is very much community led. The tourist, and tourism more generally, are than tools with which the community can regenerate its local ecologies. From the environment, to health and well being, to the local economy and more.

Regenerative tourism is a great opportunity for the arts and culture sector. As noted in the Ontario Culture Strategy: Telling Our Stories, Growing Our Economy, culture provides, quote “important social and economic benefits. It contributes significantly to our quality of life and economic development in Ontario. And it is an essential part of individual and community well being,” end of quote. These realities are also found in tourism development. So, with shared objectives between tourism and arts and culture to positively influence wellbeing and the economy, both sectors can work together to ensure the responsible restart of inclusive cultural tourism in Ontario. But the challenge is to collaborate and make cultural tourism relevant to, and significant in, recovery efforts.

A key aspect of regenerative tourism is to include local decision making where local stakeholders are brought to the table. Together, everyone discusses and agrees on what is wanted in the community, what is of value to the community, and what the intended value of tourism might be. Some questions to consider are, how might tourism integrate with other economic development strategies? How much can the destination handle without seeing detrimental effects to the cultural, social or environmental fabric of the community? In the words of Zita Cobb, the entrepreneurial leader of Fogo Island Inn, people in the destination, need to ask, what do we have and what do we know? And can we put that forward in a way that’s dignified for locals, and creates economy, and connects us to the world? These are essential questions to ask for any community. Finding and agreeing on answers is the key to successful tourism development.

However, tourism can generate both positive and negative outcomes. Consequently, a collaborative approach between tourism and local communities, including arts and culture organizations, is necessary to generate outcomes that are beneficial to all. Together these two sectors can enhance the destination’s competitiveness, or the ability to simultaneously attract visitors and increase tourism expenditure. This creates value for both hosts and visitors. We can do this while providing visitors with satisfying, memorable experiences, and profitable ways that also enhance the well being of destination residents, and preserve the area’s environmental and cultural capital for future generations.

In addition to building partnerships at the local level, and exploring key questions that include a diverse range of perspectives, regenerative tourism development strategies are infused with ethical and humanistic approaches. They recognize the limitations and abuses of current management strategies. In today’s context of climate change the pandemic, and the tourism labor gap, more than ever, there is a need to adopt ethical and social responsibility principles to address human dignity and the promotion of community well being.

So, we can see that the core ideas and approaches of regenerative tourism reflect ethical values based in reciprocity, relationship-building, and both self- and organizational reflection. This means that ethical and responsible tourism are all about thinking through the consequences of tourism on the environment, on local people, and on the local economy. And together, we can plan to mitigate, if not prevent outright, any possible negative impacts.

For those of you who are involved in making strategic decisions, consider the types of tourism products you want to develop and promote. This will help you to identify the types of visitors and tourists you want to attract. This process also imbues a sense of responsibility into drawing tourists to your community. Some destinations really benefit from tourism economically without sacrificing nature and culture because of some of the strategic choices that are made. If we think back to Zita Cobb’s line of questioning, it’s all about finding the adequate mix that fits the community or destination and its inhabitants.

If we agree that we should favor regenerative and ethical tourism, we should aim at designing a form of tourism that will encourage both tourism businesses, and tourists themselves, to consider the impacts and ethical implications of their actions. Avoiding developing and promoting activities that would contribute to abuses and negative impacts in the community is difficult, particularly if you haven’t worked with tourism organizations or supports before. In this podcast, we’re going to offer you a host of resources and starting places to get you going.

So now that we’ve set the stage and understand better what tourism can be and how it can support the ethical development of a community, let’s introduce some of the benefits that arts and culture organizations can enjoy from engaging with tourism. If you are someone who works at an arts and cultural organization, or are an artist yourself, you know how important our sector is to our local communities, our province, and the country as a whole. Arts and culture related industries, which are also known as creative industries provide direct benefits to communities. They create jobs, attract investments, generate tax revenues, and stimulate local economies through tourism and consumer purchases. But the role of arts and culture is also about enhancing the quality of life for locals, enriching their communities and attracting new residents.

The pandemic situation may be providing a unique opportunity for regional arts and culture organizations and businesses to contribute to and to be part of tourism, development and communication efforts. Many travelers choose travel destinations for the combination of natural resources and cultural offerings. They may plan to extend their stay in a region to enjoy the area’s unique heritage and cultural attractions, be they related to people, visual or performing art, history, or food. Think, for example, about how rural Louisiana has become an attractive destination by putting forward cultural assets such as Cajun and Creole food, as well as Zydeco and Cajun Acadian music. Tourism that focuses on these kinds of activities is called cultural tourism. It is travel for experiencing places and activities that authentically represent the history and the stories, past and present, of the people in a community or region.

While some in the art sector are resistant to seeing their work as a tourist attraction, the reality is that people traveled the world to view classical and contemporary art museums and galleries, see both avant-garde and commercial live dance and theater, and discover the works of local artisans and craftspeople. So, cultural tourism is already a major driving force within our sector and our livelihood. For arts and culture to not think about our work as tourist attractions, means that we are missing out on opportunities to reach even more people than we already do.

So, what are the benefits to approaching your organization’s activities and programming as cultural tourism? First, communities and destinations are increasingly recognizing arts and cultural activities as key factors of attractiveness and competitiveness for destinations. As a result, our organizations play a prominent role in generating economic benefits for our communities. As our organizations get recognized for their attractiveness, they become stakeholders with a stronger voice around the community decision-making table. Tourism, in turn, provides a significant incentive for communities to protect and enhance local arts and culture, and to generate income that will support and strengthen artistic and cultural heritage, production, and creativity.

In Ontario, arts, culture, heritage, and tourism are already intricately connected and feed off each other. As you know, our provincial ministry houses these sectors within the same ministerial portfolio. Moreover, even within the portfolio, a single division exists for heritage, tourism and culture. It makes sense then, that we work with tourism and learn to speak its language, navigate it’s systems and collaborate with tourism organizations and professionals.

Well, this brings us to the end of the first episode of Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge. We hope you found what we’ve started to explore interesting and thought-provoking. On our website, you’ll find links to additional resources on the content discussed today.

In the rest of the series, we’ll further explore what tourism is, how tourism attractions and communities can be managed and marketed, and we’ll learn about people and organizations across Ontario that are leading the way in cultural tourism. In Episode Two, Managing Tourism we’ll give you some working definitions of common tourism industry lingo, describe the kinds of tourism organizations that exist in Ontario, and paint a picture of how the system within which they exist works. You’ll also get to hear interviews with deeply passionate and brilliant tourism and arts and culture professionals already working across sectoral boundaries. We hope you listen in. I’m Shawn Newman, host of Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge. This podcast was made possible thanks to support from the Province of Ontario and the Canada Council for the Arts. And thanks to you for listening.

Ontario Culture Days is a province wide organization dedicated to supporting the vibrancy of Ontario’s arts and culture sector as a means of enriching our communities. We envision a sector in which each and every person has the opportunity to participate, where arts and culture are integral to everyone’s day-to-day lives and recognized as essential to a thriving society. We lead the annual Ontario Culture Days Festival, while supporting organizers from the smallest hamlets to the largest cities. We support the success of our sector colleagues through resources and network development while highlighting the breadth and diversity of Ontario’s arts and culture to the wider public. The Ontario Culture Days network is active throughout the province and across multiple Indigenous territories. We would like to acknowledge Indigenous peoples as the original occupants on this land on which we gather. The Ontario Culture Days office is located on the land on which the city of Toronto is situated, which we acknowledge is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. Ontario Culture Days is committed to creating meaningful relationships and supporting a diversity of Indigenous practices, art forms and cultural expressions. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

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

Brian Mullis. “The Growth Paradox: Can Tourism Ever Be Sustainable?” World Economic Forum, 10 August 2017. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/the-growth-paradox-can-tourism-ever-be-sustainable/

Transcript

[Shawn Newman]

Hello! Welcome to the Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge, an audio course podcast designed to teach you about the ins and outs, and the trends and pitfalls of cultural tourism in Ontario. I am your host, Shawn Newman speaking to you from Tkaronto.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt devastating blows to the arts and culture sectors, as well as tourism. And now, two years in, we are seeing leaders from both industries coming together in new and innovative ways as they work toward recovery and rebuilding. This audio course, produced by Ontario Culture Days, is one way that we hope to support collaboration between these sectors, and to close the gaps between them.

You might think that gaps between the tourism and the arts and culture sectors seems odd, and we agree! But there are fundamental differences in how these sectors work, even though they have so much in common. Throughout this series, we’ll explore the ideas at the core of cultural tourism, connect these concepts to the arts, and hear from professionals on the ground.

This audio course podcast is geared towards arts and culture sector workers and organizations. But we certainly invite everyone to listen and learn with us! This podcast, its transcripts, and the resources referenced throughout are all available on the Ontario Culture Days website. Whether you are new to thinking about or working with Ontario’s tourism sector, or feel like you want an inspirational refresher, Ontario Cultures Days’ Departure Lounge has something for you.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about managing tourism by way of introducing you to some of Ontario’s tourism structures. In the first half, we’ll define some terms so that we’re all on the same page about what tourism is and who tourists are. We’ll also talk about the structure of the tourism sector in Ontario and tell you about the kinds of tourism service organizations that are out there. In the second half of the episode, you’ll hear us talking with tourism professionals that are doing exciting work on-the-ground. We hope that in hearing directly from them, you’ll not only be inspired to engage with the tourism sector, but also see how the ideas that we’re introducing you to can extend into your own work.

In addition to this podcast, we’ve compiled resources and stories about cultural tourism and the innovative ways that people and organizations are working collaboratively across sectors, across communities, and even across the globe. This podcast and the resources that we discuss are all available on the Ontario Culture Days website.

Let’s dive in!

First, what exactly is tourism? Well, it depends on who you ask. But typically, tourism is understood as the economic activity related to travelling, no matter the purpose for travelling. It can be for pleasure or business. Even activities as mundane as visiting friends or relatives are considered forms of tourism. And the tourism sector as a whole comprises all the activities and organizations that provide goods and services that facilitate tourist travel. These economic activities help to create demand by attracting tourists and catering to all travellers’ needs.

Second, who is a tourist? From a tourism industry perspective, a tourist is typically defined as a person who, unlike locals or most commuters, travels away from home for at least an overnight trip be it for business, leisure, or other personal reasons such as visiting friends and relatives. Even people who travel back to the place they grew up, but no longer live, are considered tourists. This is called VFR—visiting friends and relatives travel. So, whenever you leave your home and go to a different place for an overnight stay, you’re a tourist!

You might also encounter language that refers to the tourism sector as the “visitor economy.” This perspective takes a broader definition of “tourism” and considers the larger economic impact of all visitors, including local ones like day-trippers who don’t stay overnight in their destination. So, in this series we use “tourist” and “visitor” interchangeably. In a later episode, we break down the types of cultural visitors, some of whom travel specifically for a given cultural offering while others simply happen to be around and choose to partake in the experience. Understanding these different types of tourists, and what drives them, is obviously very important from a marketing standpoint. But for now, we’re talking big-picture tourism.

Third on our list: how does tourism, as a sector, operate? Specifically, who are the key actors and organizations that people working in arts and culture are likely to interact with? I’ve got to admit here that navigating through all these acronyms can be quite daunting. On the Ontario Culture Days website, we’ve provided a glossary to these terms. You might pause for a moment to download that resource and follow along with it as we go. All of this is going to set the stage for the deeper discussions throughout the rest of this series.

The most common type of organization in the tourism sector is the DMO, or Destination Marketing Organization. Typically, DMOs promote the destination in order to attract travellers at the national, provincial, territorial, regional, or local level. For example, Destination Canada, Destination Ontario, and Destination Toronto are all DMOs. And in Ontario, the provincial ministry identifies 13 Regional Tourism Organizations, or RTOs. But we can consider these 13 RTOs as DMOs.

Already it’s a bit complicated, but in the long-run these acronyms will be helpful!

Some DMOs are also involved beyond marketing by contributing to the planning and managing of tourist products offered by the destination. In this capacity, DMOs contribute to developing strategies to make destinations more competitive and sustainable, including concerns for social equity and economic development, as well as for environmental issues. In this way, we may also refer to them as Destination Management Organizations. So, while there are two distinct kinds of DMOs—marketing and management—their activities might be intertwined. This means that for the arts and culture sector, it’s important to know if DMOs in your region are focused on marketing, management, or both.

So, we have DMOs that can be at various levels of community, and we have RTOs in Ontario that are also DMOs. And while the DMO acronym is the most widely used, at the local level you might also encounter CVBs, or Convention and Visitors Bureaus, which are DMOs at the municipal level.

Other important groups in tourism are the professional associations such as the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, or TIAC, the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario, or TIAO, as well as sector associations such as Festivals & Events Ontario or Attractions Ontario. There are also many private groups in tourism, such as tour operators or destination management companies that can help you bring visitors to your community and to places of interest, also known as attractions, to showcase your community’s natural, cultural, or entertainment value.

So, while the arts and culture sector might not think of everything it does as attractions, reframing your thinking about your activities and programming as such will help you to see your organization as part of the tourism ecology. And being able to speak tourism language will help open doors to resources, partners, and collaborations that will benefit you and your organization.

Taken together, these three elements—what tourism is, who a tourist is, and how tourism operates—paint a high-level picture of the sector. There are of course a lot of local nuances and specificities to consider. But generally speaking, when we speak of tourism, we refer to the sum of all the products and services that are proposed to tourists and consumed by tourists, and that support their tourism activity both directly and indirectly. Some of the more obvious components to tourism as an activity, and to tourism as a sector, are: travel communication and booking; transportation; accommodations; and food and beverage. But also—and importantly for us—natural, cultural, and arts attractions, destination visits, shopping, events, and more. These are all part of the tourism sector.

We can see that this sector is a dynamic and competitive industry! Before the pandemic, tourism made up over 10% of global GDP and employment and 6% of Canada’s GDP. In Ontario, the tourism, culture, and heritage sector generated $43.7 billion in economic activity, or 4.9% of Ontario’s GDP in 2019 alone. Clearly, tourism is a main driver of our provincial economy. And as a sector, it requires the ability to always adapt to changing visitor needs and desires. In addition, attracting visitors from outside Canada requires understanding international trends and specificities. Today, more than ever, the key to success in attracting and satisfying visitors is to propose unique and different enjoyable experiences in a safe environment.

However, despite its economic significance, the tourism industry is not always taken seriously. Some even think of tourism as a frivolous sector—and that’s a sentiment that the arts and culture sector fully understands! As a result, national and provincial strategies can lack consistency. Some aspects of the sector may even be lacking support or direction, and objectives may simply be to increase the number of travellers instead of focusing on the quality of experience. For the World Economic Forum, Brian Mullis notes that the tourism sector and governments should understand that “the narrow focus on increasing numbers is a problem and creates issues and negative effects that diminish the quality (and value) of the experience for travellers and visitors alike.” This is why we introduced regenerative tourism in the first episode. Understanding how tourism itself is changing, and the similarities in values that we share with the tourism sector, positions us all to make stronger, more beneficial contributions to the communities in which we live, work, and play.

Mullis’s quote reminds us of the ways that the arts and culture sector also struggles with purely quantitative measurement. Our own reporting structures to governments and funders are so heavily focused on statistics about numbers of ticket sales or attendees instead of on the experiences that our attractions provide. So here we find yet another point of connection around which we might work with tourism—how can we leverage our shared knowledge and struggles around demonstrating our impact beyond statistics and build collaborative strategies that tell better stories?

Of course, to work in a collaborative approach with tourism, it’s essential to get to know the other professional and institutional organizations operating in your region.

[Segue music]

For a quick recap of where we’re at, in part one of this episode on managing tourism, we defined some terms pertaining to what tourism is and who tourists are. We also talked about the structure of the tourism sector in Ontario and told you about the kinds of tourism service organizations that are out there. On our website are transcripts of both parts of this episode and some additional resources to go along with this audio course.

In this half of episode two, we’re going to introduce you to six cultural tourism professionals and experts living and working here in Ontario. These people will join us throughout this series to share their expertise and experiences working in cultural tourism. On our website you’ll find more information about them and their organizations. I spoke with each of these incredible people one-on-one over Zoom, and over the rest of the series you’ll hear a kind of mash-up of my conversations with them organized around each episode’s theme.

No matter what region they are in or what kind of organization they work at, one of the things I wanted to know was how they go about understanding who attends their attractions. Tova Arbus is the Artistic Producer at Fringe North in Bawaating, also known as Sault Ste. Marie, which is on Anishinaabek territory and also within the Métis Nation. She talked about some of the struggles for very small organizations in collecting information about their visitors. However, she and her team have come up with some personal and creative ways to do this and that centre some important components of regenerative tourism.

[Tova Arbus]

In the past, we’ve engaged typical tools, right – surveys, asking people at the door to identify where they are coming from, offering opportunities for feedback and then trying to track that data. I find that that’s a really simplified way to do it and it doesn’t always give you the deeper understanding of why did someone come there and how does it move them to engage with something like this – which personally I feel you need to know if you’re going to encourage that they come back again.

It’s all fine and good that someone stops by once and says, “oh yeah, here’s my postal code” but it’s a whole other thing to say, “I came here with intention and here’s what it is, this is what I would come back for.” You know, like I mentioned, we have a whole series of surveys and feedback forms that we give to folks. But it leaves a little to be desired.

So, I’m trying to bring things into a more relational-focused opportunity, so that we are consistently hosting artist talks and gathering points to welcome audiences, so that they can talk about their experiences as well.

And then we would have identified folks within our team who that’s their job – to go out, chat with audience members, ask them a few key questions about where they came from and what they are doing here. Then try to get into that conversation about why would you come back, what would you like to see, or what hooked you this time that you would be excited about coming and engaging in again. So, we are going to try it that way and do a bit more person-to-person engagement this year.

We also in the past have really relied on our local tourism hubs and the city to support us in tracking kind of more general numbers: watching the growth that happens as tourists come through Sault Sainte-Marie; identifying was this a stopover for you on your way west or east, or were you staying here with intention; and was this an urban visit, did you take part in the arts and culture opportunities that are here or were you spending time in nature – which are usually the two reasons people come up to Sault Sainte-Marie.

[Shawn]

You can hear how conventional metrics like surveys and other data collecting tools are insufficient as Fringe North wants a more nuanced profile of who their visitors are. But one of the ways that Tova and Fringe North go about collecting data on visitors is by working with the city. We also heard here the importance of relationships with their visitors. As we know, centring relationships is a key feature of regenerative tourism.

In speaking about visitors to the Woodland Cultural Centre, Executive Director Janis Monture described who their visitors are and the impact they have on the community. She also described some of the ways their relationships with the local community provides an opportunity to refer visitors to other areas within the region. The Woodland Cultural Centre is on the Six Nations of the Grand River territory, which is also within the City of Brantford in Southern Ontario.

[Janis Monture]

I think in a typical year, pre-COVID, the majority of our visitors are coming within probably an hour drive radius – people from the GTA, people from Hamilton, Niagara, London, Kitchener, Waterloo, Kitchener-Waterloo area, or the friends and family demographic. So, I would say that is still a large part of our clientele, it probably makes up about 70% of our visitorship. When friends, family, and relatives come and visit, they’re bringing them to our site to look at, learn about Indigenous culture and history specific to this region.

And then we do see international visitors as well, primarily in the summer months. A lot of them come for the day, we see them come to our site for a couple hours and they’re going onto a number of other, whether it’s historical or arts and cultural sites within the City of Brantford. They’re staying overnight typically or they’re going into restaurants and local stores. So, there are definitely more day trippers who come to visit us.

For some international visitors, they’re coming very specifically, they came to the region, for example, to go to Niagara. Then [we are] one of their stops all the way back to the airport kind of thing, so we tend to see that as well.

You know, typically when they do come, you know, they’re not just necessarily coming to just go through our museum and galleries. They’ll stop in our gift shop, or they’ll also request, “where can I get this in the community.” They’re looking for an Indigenous item that’s handcrafted or handmade, and that’s what we typically like to promote.

[Shawn]

Janis mentioned visiting friends and family tourism, or what we called in the first half of this episode, visiting friends and relatives. Regardless, there are key tourist group particularly during and emerging from the pandemic.

On a different scale, the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake has a very large and international reputation with a very dedicated visitor base. The Festival is on the traditional lands of the Haudenosaunee, the Mississauga, and the Neutral Nation. I spoke with Tim Jennings, Executive Director of The Shaw Festival, about their organizational capacity to track where their visitors come from. Like Janis at the Woodland Cultural Centre, Shaw has a great sense of other activities their visitors engage in besides attending Shaw programming.

[Tim Jennings]

We are very good at relationship management. We know exactly how many people came to our shows, we know where they’re from, we know quite a bit about them. We ask questions, we send surveys out there before and after each of the shows to get more information and we keep track of that information.

In a normal year like 2019, we saw that about 325,000 people came to the Festival. Most of our attendees – because we’re a festival – see multiple performances in the course of a week. In high season, we have something like 12 separate productions all running in a week. Frankly, you could go see three or four productions a day, if you really worked out the timing of it. So, we have that advantage: Canadians buy about six tickets per household, Americans buy about 10 tickets per household, and they stay a long time.

Most people coming down here for longer stays anchor their stay in Niagara around going to the Shaw Festival. They use this as a hub-and-spoke framework. They go out for a series of day trips to go do other activities. Because Niagara is literally the number one tourism destination in the country, there’s a lot to do around here. They’ll go out to wineries, they’ll go out to restaurants, they’ll go out to agritourism, like peach picking, they’ll go to the parks, there’s so many historic parks in the area.

But they also go to places like Toronto. They’ll take a bus into Toronto or they’ll drive up to Stratford to see shows there. In fact, Stratford and we talk about this, a lot of the folks who go to see their shows stay in Niagara and see our show and see [Stratford’s] shows. There’s quite a crossover. Then they’ll go up to the Kitchener-Waterloo to the farmers’ market or they’ll try things. They’re cultural omnivores – they go to different activities and try different things.

[Shawn]

Cultural omnivores—this is a great way to describe cultural tourists and offers us a way to reframe how arts and culture organizations fit into the tourism ecology. As you heard Tim say, Shaw visitors aren’t there just for theatre.

We’ll hear more about the variety of tourism activities and products that intersect with arts and culture a bit later. Let’s go back to Tim as he talks about Shaw as a business.

[Tim] 

When I taught arts management, one of the things that I say a lot is that the largest not-for-profit or charitable theatres in North America are small businesses. Stratford at 1000 people is almost a medium-sized business. The Shaw Festival is a small business. We have a $34 million a year budget with 550 plus people working for us. We’re one of Niagara’s 20 largest employers, but that still makes us a small business.

I know that’s a hard thing for people to get their heads around. There are people running banks with 50,000 employees under them, not the whole bank, just under their department. We don’t exist in that world. Our budget is still the pen-and-paper budget of TD Canada Trust.

But for the arts, we’re a large organization – or at least for the charitable art [sector].  It’s an interesting space to be in. I talk a lot about the commercial theatre industry and we don’t look anything alike. We look alike from the point of view of an audience member watching a show. But from a structural point of view – like The Lion King’s $10 billion of business over 20 years – the rest of the not-for-profit theater sector makes about one tenth of that a year. It’s not the same world.

[Shawn]

Tim makes a great point about the structural differences between not-for-profit and for-profit and how to an audience member, those differences don’t matter. What this means from a tourism perspective is that the same tourist that goes to big-budget musicals like the Lion King, as Tim mentioned, also go to not-for-profit or even charitable attractions like the Shaw Festival.

Another perspective on the business end of arts and culture within the tourism ecology comes from Meredith Armstrong. She’s the Director of Economic Development at the City of Sudbury. Sudbury is in Robertson-Huron treaty territory and is the traditional lands of the Atikameksheng Anishnaabeg and the Wanabate First Nations, and it’s also part of the Métis Nation.

Meredith spoke directly to the importance of cultural tourism and she highlights how the sector has a wide breadth of types of business models and some of the ways they fit together.

[Meredith Armstrong]

Whether we’re talking about a single artisan who creates an experience by showing people how a product is made and engages with an audience on different levels – whether it’s digital or in person with studio tours – all the way to something like a symphony or an art gallery, where there’s an experience that may drive tourism, or maybe a nice add-on to extend a stay. So, it’s a lot more fluid and it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. We can foster that and promote it as something very unique to our community, but it also depends on so many factors to make it more consistent.

We’re lucky to have resilient organizations and the brick-and-mortar partners who can provide that cultural experience. Then we can add on those interesting, innovative, start-up entrepreneurs and organizations that are sometimes more vulnerable because they do depend on public dollars.

[Shawn]

Kate Monk is the Senior Director of Regenerative Tourism Development & Communications at Explorer’s Edge, or Regional Tourism Organization 12. Her organization is branding their region as the Great Canadian Wilderness Just North of Toronto. The area is the traditional lands and waterways of the Anishinabek, the Algonquin, the Mohawk, and the Métis peoples, and is part of the Robinson-Huron and Williams Treaty territories.

Kate spoke to some realities for arts and culture organizations that I’m sure many of you can relate to. But she also makes a great case for thinking more broadly about impact and gives some interesting examples.

[Kate Monk]

For them, to be able to measure and have the resources, if there’s one person working in an arts organization with 20 board members, they can’t do everything! There is so much benefit in them being able to measure the economic impact that is not directly related to somebody interested in choral music or dance.

How many artists do they book into hotels? How many meals do those artists go out and have while they’re here? How many people come? Where do they come from? What is the distance they travel? What does the potential spend in the region? And being able to quantify that, you’re getting into this sort of commerce-mode.

[Shawn]

Kate also spoke about some shifts in business models within tourism that really point to the potential for arts and culture to be more intentionally included by tourism. It also demonstrates how the arts and culture sector already has a wealth of products that we can offer.

[Kate]

Our tourism industry was built on the resort industry. But the resort industry has taken a bit of a hit because of short-term rentals and unregulated cottage rentals – which I’m not making a judgement on, I’m just indicating.

So, we’ve seen sort of these independently-run, family-owned resorts, many of which are still going strong but not near as many as used to be probably. If they’re just looked at as accommodation, they got to make sure they’ve got all the bells and whistles. But, if we look at them as built heritage, because then the stories get to be really, really incredible.

I would love to see the providers here of accommodations or experiences connecting with arts to use supply chains. For instance, to have local artisans’ craft wear or quilts in resort rooms. Or have the art of the artists – which a lot of craft breweries do this up here too – on the walls, all exuding place. And that’s where the culinary arts obviously become very obvious, because of what are the local plants that can go onto the dishes – in our case, blueberries. That type of thing really builds destination more than anything.

[Shawn] 

Stepping back a little bit for some national perspective, Beth Potter is the President & CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, or TIAC. She lives and works from Ottawa, which is built on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. What she’s seen underscores the value that arts and culture bring to tourism at a local level, and how what we do is deeply valued by tourists.

[Beth Potter]

One of the things that I’ll say, another kind of shining light or legacy pieces that came out of this pandemic is I have never seen our industry, including arts and culture, work so well together. The collaboration has just been amazing.

With certainly a focus on domestic and support local, now more than ever we are seeing Canadians really value local creators and local producers more than they ever have. I’m also seeing Canadians value Canada as a travel destination more than they ever have. We’ve heard this time and time again through this pandemic, where people weren’t able to travel because of border restrictions. They’re exploring different parts of their country that weren’t even on their bucket list and that and they’re blown away.

I think that that is one of the shining stars of the last two years – this locals-first approach and the supporting of each other. I don’t know how many interviews I’ve done, where I’ve said, “get out, support local, because local is your neighbor.” And it really is, that’s the truth of the matter.

[Shawn]

What I also hear from Beth in this piece of my conversation with her is the importance of local relationships. With the pandemic completely disrupting both the tourism and arts and culture sectors, we’ve had to look much more closely to our local community connections. Building local relationships across sectoral divides is a central tenet of how to manage tourism.

In later episodes you’ll hear about some ways to connect with tourism, and some ideas on what kinds of resources might be available in your region.

To end this episode. I’m bringing Tova Arbus from Fringe North back into the conversation, as she spoke very genuinely about something that so many of us are feeling that so much of this is new terrain.

[Tova]

I’m really curious and interested in this period of discovery for all of us, as we figure out ways to, to reopen and renew post-COVID as we figure out ways to reconnect with our communities, with each other as collaborators, and to discover new aspects of what we’re creating, as especially as far as how they relate to each other.

[Shawn]

And again, we hear how important relationships are and will be.

Well, we’ve reached the end of the episode on managing tourism. We hope that the ideas from part one, along with the resources on the Ontario Culture Days website, have given you some concrete tools to begin thinking about how to work with tourism in your community or region. We also hope that through the conversations we had with folks on the ground in part two that you can see some connections that you can extend into your own work and organization.

In the next episode, we’ll explore how to market tourism. You’ll hear about destination marketing, defining selling points to attract visitors, measuring marketing success, and some governmental supports for arts and culture organizations. And, again, we’ll talk with some of the same folks in the real world doing amazing things.

We’d love to hear about anything that you and your organization are building, especially when it comes to working with the tourism sector. To tell us about your work, or to hear more about ours, visit our website at onculturedays.ca or email us at info@onculturedays.ca.

I’m Shawn Newman, host of the Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge. This podcast was made possible thanks to support from the Province of Ontario and the Canada Council for the Arts. Thank you, also, to our six experts featured in part two, and thanks to you for listening.

Glossary of Terms

Terminology

Acronyms 

Additional Resources

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

John Wertheim. “Fogo Island: Bringing New Life to a Remote Canadian Fishing Community.” 60 Minutes. December 12, 2021. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fogo-island-60-minutes-2021-12-12/

Transcript

[INTRO MUSIC]

[Shawn Newman]

Hello! Welcome to the Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge, an audio course podcast designed to teach you about the ins and outs, and the trends and pitfalls of cultural tourism in Ontario. I am your host, Shawn Newman speaking to you from Tkaronto.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt devastating blows to the arts and culture sectors, as well as tourism. And now, two years in, we are seeing leaders from both industries coming together in new and innovative ways as they work toward recovery and rebuilding. This audio course, produced by Ontario Culture Days, is one way that we hope to support collaboration between these sectors, and to close the gaps between to them.

You might think that gaps between the tourism and the arts and culture sectors seems odd, and we agree! But there are fundamental differences in how these sectors work, even though they have so much in common. Throughout this series, we’ll explore the ideas at the core of cultural tourism, connect these concepts to the arts, and hear from professionals on the ground.

This podcast on cultural tourism is geared towards arts and culture sector workers and organizations and is designed as an audio course. But we certainly invite everyone to listen and learn with us! This podcast, its transcripts and the resources referenced are all available on the Ontario Culture Days website. Whether you are new to thinking about or working with Ontario’s tourism sector, or feel like you want an inspirational refresher, Ontario Cultures Days’ Departure Lounge has something for you.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about marketing tourism. You’ll hear about destination marketing, defining selling points to attract visitors, measuring marketing success, and some government supports for arts and culture organizations. And, again, we’ll talk with people in the real world doing amazing things.

Okay—already in this series we’ve used some language and proposed some ideas that we know arts and culture organizations can be resistant to. It can be difficult for artists and arts organizations to consider the fruit of their passion as products. But bear with us and consider using this vocabulary for your work. Throughout this series’, we’re not suggesting that you only think about your work as a tourist attraction. How you situate and market your organization and your work to your local community can and should be different than to people from outside your region.

What we’re offering in this series is a re-framing of the work you already do. We want to provide you with another language to use and introduce you to a greater pot of resources that exist outside of our sector. I can speak from my personal experience as a former contemporary dancer and choreographer that I would have never spoken about my work as an attraction or a product. Nonetheless, I have some to see that how I valued my work didn’t have to be in contradiction to the ways other people saw it. This is the spirit with which we’re adding tourism into the conversation and the ways that we at Ontario Culture Days understand the potential of our sector.

With pre-pandemic tourism being such a strong engine for economic development, tourism marketing has received a lot of attention in the past few years. But it hasn’t always been positive. Often, people think of tourism marketing as the tools to attract more visitors to a destination, and this is certainly one objective of marking. And attempting to attract ever more people has led to a phenomenon called overtourism, or overcrowding. With it, there are many negative impacts on the wellbeing of communities. Think for example of traffic jams, noise, pollution, or even price inflation. These are very real problems, and as we discussed in the introductory episode, contrary to regenerative tourism. So, we’re going to define destination marketing a bit differently. This will help us to see how marketing tools can actually be used efficiently for the benefit of the community and its residents.

Think back to when we talked about regenerative tourism in Episode 1. Embedded within regenerative tourism are values of reciprocity. So, instead of trying to draw the most people possible, what if we considered aiming for fewer people but who are most likely to really enjoy their experience, possibly stay longer, and leave behind them a positive impact on the community? How can we think about creating and marketing products and activities to the kinds of tourists that will give back?

Identifying the best fit between what the community has to offer (or, to use tourism lingo, the “destination’s attractions”) and the types of tourists the community seeks to attract is one starting place. Finding the right mix of attractions and markets that will ultimately optimize benefits for the destination and its population creates the opportunity for tourists—and tourism—to give back to the community. And as we described in episode one, this giving back starts with discussion and agreement on what is wanted in the community, what is of value to the community, and what the intended value of tourism might be to the community. With this in mind, one of our key marketing activities will be to identify and value the destination assets, and to identify and attract the visitors who are most likely to help the destination enhance the positive benefits of tourism and minimize its negative impacts.

To again refer back to Episode 1, Zita Cobb of Fogo Island offered some great insights into the kinds of questions communities and organizations can ask when thinking about how to engage with tourism: what do we have? What do we know? These questions identify the assets, be they tangible or more ephemeral. But let’s add to that some other questions that allow us to add some valuation into the mix: What do we miss? What do we love? Focusing on the intangible qualities can help potential tourists to differentiate between your offering and another community’s. For example, theatre companies abound in Ontario. But asking what you miss and what you love opens up the potential for narratives to emerge that identify your community or region as unique and differentiate your theatre company from another. From there, we can ask ourselves, what can we do about it?

Essentially, this line of questioning looks at where are we now and where we want to go. Once we have answers to those questions, we can develop marketing strategies to showcase products and services and attract the visitors that will fit the mix.

So—once we collectively agree on what our destination should focus on, and once we know what the assets are that we can use, we can start creating and shaping the products to market. These products—including the intangible elements—are what make us unique. They are the reasons why travellers will take the road towards us and stay with us over another community. They are historical and cultural attractions. They are art galleries that curate local artists and craftspeople and their work. They are event venues that specialize in performing arts and sell local culinary fare. In business, this is called “value proposition.”

Stepping back to see our individual organization’s offerings and experiences as part of a larger intersection of a variety of products—including food, accommodation, shopping, local history, and more—also situates us as organizations within a more knowledgeable and adaptable framework from which to think about the tourist experience. As well, designing such products through collaboration and partnership will give you the opportunity to combine talents and resources. In our conversations with industry folks throughout this series there are ideas and examples of how to get started.

Dreaming up exciting and impactful tourist experiences can be fun and even easy. But, how do you know what a reasonable cost for the tourist is? Pricing is difficult, as it’s not only about covering your costs and generating revenue. What will visitors be willing to pay? What price, even if you’re thinking of creating a free event, would be in line with what other artists, organizations, or destinations sell? Think back to the questions we asked earlier that are aimed at identifying the intangible value that you’re offering. What value do you want the prospective buyer to place on your work? Some obvious considerations are things like the cost of producing the product and the price of comparable products in similar destinations. But there’s also the intrinsic quality and value of your product—the things that make your work, your organization, and your community unique. A good thing about cultural and arts products is that they typically are one of a kind—uniqueness, quality, creativity and local (or authentic) are all great selling points that attract people. In other words, don’t sell yourself short!

Although there will be pricing variations within a destination, consistency and coherence are important. Together, all service providers—from accommodation to food services and attractions—contribute to collectively establish the image and the reputation of the destination, both in terms of quality and in terms of price.

Let’s say that we’ve found the right balance between price and value. How do you communicate to potential visitors what your products are and what your destination has to offer? How do you choose the strategies to sell what you’ve got to them? These are questions whose answers are also best determined by working with the tourism sector as well as other arts and culture organizations. We know that organizations in our sector are often vastly under-resourced, and people wear many, many hats. Combining forces with others helps to share the workload while growing the potential benefit.

In the marketing world, “communication” is often about designing and posting brochures, buying advertising space in a magazine or a website, or buying time on a radio station. You might even advertise or announce your organization or destination on a billboard. Most communication strategies cost money, so budgeting is key. However, there are some communication strategies that only cost time and effort. And while time is money, finding ways to incorporate communication planning and execution into existing staff duties cuts costs. If you’re a not-for-profit organization, perhaps a Board member can help write press-releases to announce events. The media, if interested, will then tell your story to their readers or listeners. To again recall Fogo Island Inn, they have a story to tell. That story is about the demise of the fishing industry, community-centred regenerative tourism, and the leadership of a woman returning to her childhood home in Newfoundland. This mix of despair, purpose, and hope is so compelling that media around the world are echoing it. Most recently, Zita Cobb was the focus of a very popular segment on 60 minutes in the US. So, back to product development: what’s your story and what would compel people to visit you?

After you’ve figured out how you’re going to tell your story, how will you distribute it, or give potential tourists an opportunity to purchase or experience your work? Do you wait for people to come and visit or do you organize tours that are packaged and sold though tour operators and travel agents? If you are an artist, do you wait for customers to come to your gallery or workshop or do you also sell your work online or in a local restaurant or hotel? One thing that the pandemic has taught us is the importance of discoverability in virtual space. But even with in-person events and products, thinking about how you can make it easier for people to find you and to engage with or purchase your work is key to distribution.

Of course, once people find you, they have to get to you! Think, for example, about the agreement that Explorer’s Edge (the Muskoka tourism region) negotiated with Porter Airlines to open a route from Toronto to Muskoka—this partnership gave easier access to the region for visitors coming from Quebec and the United States. This is just one example of how working with your RTO, or Regional Tourism Office, connects you with opportunities to connect with visitors.

Before our last piece of the marketing puzzle, let’s review where we’re at.

Marketing tourism starts with identifying and focusing on the fit between what you’re offering and the kinds of tourists you and your community want to attract. Through this, you can hone in on the values of your community, tease out your unique mix of tangible and intangible qualities—your value proposition—and build your story. The marketing strategies you devise will demonstrate the alignment of your products or services with target markets, pricing, communication, and distribution strategies for everyone involved. And as with any collaboration, common objectives and purposes are key success factors.

How, though, will you know if what you’ve done is successful? This might seem obvious—wouldn’t success be an increased number of visitors and increased revenues? Yes, that’s one metric. But as the arts and culture sectors know very well, success isn’t just about ticket sales or number of people coming through the doors. And as we discussed in the first episode, regenerative tourism is so much more. It prompts the visitor and the destination to think about the impacts of tourism, both positive and negative. It centres relationship-building and community-engagement. And it’s about helping communities and regions to thrive.

So, when thinking about how to measure success, remember that marketing activities are designed to satisfy your patrons. Ultimately, success is measured by satisfied and loyal patrons and customers who will generate positive word of mouth and improve your reputation. However, making a sale or attracting an audience is not enough to generate satisfaction and loyalty. People have to be happy to buy your product or service, experience your work, and engage with your community—and to do it again! Think about the energy and effort that goes into creating your artistic or cultural programming or products. How can you infuse this same drive into connecting with tourists? Providing service and attention to your customers and patrons is also part of marketing! And in the conversations throughout this series with tourism workers in Ontario, we hear that there are resources, people, and organizations that are there to help you.

And as discussed before, success does not necessarily mean more visitors, more sales, or more revenues. Use objectives that are in line with what you, your partners, and your community, want to achieve. Those objectives might be related to employment, quality of life, crowding, or pollution. Tourism is only a tool, among others, to help achieve the goals of your community at large.

What we’re saying is that marketing efforts should not all be geared towards attracting customers. You can also use marketing strategies to “sell” the projects and ideas of your arts and culture organizations to get government funding, sponsorships, and—if you’re a registered charity—even donors. The means are different, of course, but the principles remain the same: you will tell a compelling story to attract attention that allows you to share measurable goals and objectives. This will help funders, sponsors, and donors assess the soundness and rationale for your projects. Here as well, collaboration is important. Choose your partners and share resources and respective strengths.

[SEGUE MUSIC]

In this half of episode three, you’ll hear from some of the cultural tourism professionals we introduced you to in the last episode, and their insights on marketing tourism.

Let’s start with Tova Arbus, the Artistic Producer at Fringe North. Her organization has had an interesting journey, as they have gone through a kind of restart in the last few years. Tova told me about some of the struggles they encountered their first time around as a festival, and marketing was definitely one of them.

[Tova Arbus]

We didn’t really know who we were as an organization or what we were trying to do. The reputation of what a fringe festival is far outpaced where we were at as a festival – and I mean that by reach and engagement, I mean that by our own capacity as a team. We tried to do way too much!

So then when we would reach out to tourism agencies and try to engage and say, “hey, we need you so people will come to our festival,” they weren’t sure what we were doing. That didn’t translate well for them to be able to pay it forward. So, they’re just telling folks, “well, there’s a festival, it’s arts-based and here are the dates.” Beyond that they couldn’t speak to the sell of why folks should plan to be here.

[Shawn]

This is key—Tova’s describing how the lack of a clearly articulated mission or purpose that describes precisely what the product is, prevents any kind of marketing. She’s also planted a seed here that we’ll pick up in the next two episodes on the relationships between our sector and tourism. But for now, hear what Tova and the rest of her team learned about this:

[Tova]

The clearer that a project can be, the clearer that we are as an organization to say, “here’s who we are, here’s exactly what we’re trying to do, and here are the hooks for you, 1 2 3,” the easier it is for those agencies to plan with us.

Tova’s described another really key point, that being succinct in what your product is that you’re offering tourists, or “the hook” as she described it, helps tourism partners effectively market that product.

But as we’re exploring throughout this podcast, there are differences in terminology between the tourism sector and ours. Kate Monk from Explorer’s Edge, RTO 12, gives just one example of how terms that we use don’t necessarily mean the same thing in tourism.

[Kate Monk]

Both tourism and arts and culture use the word experience – we call it Experiential Tourism, they can call it an experiential program, event or performance.

[Shawn]

Experiential tourism generally has a more participatory element to it, whereas when we talk about experiencing arts and culture, we’re generally alluding to a more passive or spectatorship kind of relationship. This points to the importance of making sure that you and your tourism partners have shared definitions and meanings for a variety of terms.

I want to change direction a little bit here and bring in Meredith Armstrong, Director of Economic Development at the City of Sudbury. Meredith spoke to me about the role that arts and culture, and therefore cultural tourism, have to the economic life of a region and the power they have, through tourism, to draw new residents.

[Meredith Armstrong]

I think that people understand now that a strong and vibrant sector of cultural organizations is absolutely a key to economic recovery. We need fun things to do that nurture our souls because they make money and they drive tourism – and tourism needs all the help it can get.

And the workforce – our unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in many, many years. Our job market is tight and we are competing with every other fantastic city for talent. And where are you going to live? You’re going to live somewhere that offers the quality of life you’re looking for.

I see often the tie between tourism and talent attraction. Because a city that is a fun place to visit has the same ingredients as a city that can attract talent to live and become residents there – and culture is smack in the middle of that Venn diagram.

[Shawn]

Here there are direct links back to some of the ideas that we introduced you to in episode one. Regenerative tourism contributes to the vibrancy and livability of the region and helps to attract new residents. So, there clearly is some overlap in the ways that we can market ourselves to tourists and how we market ourselves to people that are already here.

Tim Jennings from the Shaw Festival spoke with me from the perspective of a charitable organization, but regardless of what kind of organization you are, the way he understands how arts and culture contribute to civic life gives us some great examples that can support marketing through a regenerative tourism framework.

[Tim Jennings]

We’re so intrinsic to the life of the community! Again, we’re not a commercial entity – we’re a charity, so it’s our job to put good back into the world. For a lot of last year, in 2020 and then even through 2021, we’ve been aggressively programming in the community and doing other things to try to drive business back.

In 2020, I think we were the only company offering any kind of live performances. We did a whole bunch of outdoor concerts for free, in partnership with FedDev Southern Ontario – the federal development agency – to try to drive economic impact, get people to come and stay over and to do things 50 to 60 people at a time. But to just try to get the stores to have some customers and to keep people afloat, so that they could use the government programs. But they could also get enough income to not lay everybody off and to incentivize the workers to come back and things.

Our thought was how do we help people. All of my wardrobe in 2020 went to work making gowns and masks and gloves for the hospitals and the hospices in the area. We as a charity, we managed to get all of the fabrics donated. So, we were able to then donate all of that on and with the wage subsidies didn’t have to charge the hospitals. It was like a virtuous circle.

There’s this sort of community relationship of how do we help and that is certainly driven people to understand just how intrinsic we are to the Niagara culture, as well as it’s economy – that’s certainly become clear.

[Shawn]

Tim just described the Shaw Festival as “intrinsic to the life of the community.” How might you describe your organization through this kind of framing? How can you articulate what your organization does as contributing to the regeneration of your region? How, even if you’re not a charity, can you demonstrate the ways that your attraction “puts good back into the world,” as Tim said?

The piece here about contributing to community is a way to position arts and culture to tourists that also invites them to feel part of the community themselves. And this overlap is helping to, in some way, redefine who a tourist is. Think back to our last episode where we defined this and listen to how Tova from Fringe North described a new trajectory that her organization is taking.

[Tova]

We often look outside and you say, “oh, tourism! The only folks who are going to come and check out these tourist hubs – guided tours, fishing tours, fly and things, who are going to stay at hotels, who are going to do stuff – they’re only people from away.” But what I’ve noticed within my own kind of group of contacts is that folks are looking to stay at home. We’ve done it in my family, where we’re going half an hour outside the city and staying in a cabin there and “playing tourist” in our own backyard.

And it’s been really exciting to discover the things that we would always miss, because we’d say we’re going on a trip and it meant that we were going to Sudbury or farther east down to Southern Ontario or up the North Shore, like north up Lake Superior. But there was all this really great stuff in our backyard that was geared for tourism, that we were missing as locals.

And I’m really hoping to find a way to balance both of those things and how we promote the festival and look to engage folks. Not only welcoming folks from other places to come and spend time here and discover what Sioux St. Marie has to offer, but also to look at folks who are already here and invite them into the experience of seeing their city through a completely different lens.

For me that lens is tourism, if you will: seeing it through a different kind of arts and culture experience than that they would normally choose.

[Shawn]

Whether you’re an individual artist operating your own business, or part of an organization that offers programming or other experiences and attractions, being able to market to tourists means recognizing that we’re already part of the tourism sector. It also means understanding what it is that tourists want, or the demand, and how they plan their trip. The pandemic has influenced changes in behaviour and planning, and Tova described this to me in very clear terms.

[Tova]

People are even more particular about how they go places and when. We can’t rely on just “let’s do something! Okay, let’s take a trip!” anymore, because that intentionality has crept into all aspects of our lives. We are going to have to get more intentional on our side about what we’re offering and why folks will engage. Whether it’s safe – can they feel good about coming here? Is this the right way to spend maybe their only vacation in the summer?

[Shawn]

Intention. This loops back to what Tova was saying earlier on being clear about what your product is and how that is necessary to drive marketing.

A few minutes ago, Kate talked about sustaining marketing through the pandemic even when nothing was happening. She also mentioned to me a common misstep that arts and culture organizations often make during tough times.

[Kate]

From my own background in the arts, in troubled times the first thing to go is the marketer. A lot of smaller entities – which we have in rural destinations, you have a lot of underfunded organizations – you don’t have access to capital that a business would. And you rely on grants and this type of thing. It’s a constant seeking of the grants, as we all know.

It often means that a not-for-profit board that is interested in the expression, rather than the commerce, will not see the benefit of keeping on a marketer or hiring someone who’s got a great deal of skill and investing in that.

I think it would be better if they held that position there and switched on a little bit of the commerce-thinking, instead of just the sort of survival-thinking, because that will lead to more revenue.

[Shawn]

But what happens if your organization has let your marketing person go, or you don’t have one to begin with? Meredith from the City of Sudbury talks about training resources that are available in many regions of the province.

[Meredith]

We have a Regional Business Centre, which is a small business enterprise centre in Sudbury. These are found in lots of municipalities. And we have a fantastic team available to talk about business planning. We offer some seminars like marketing on a shoestring, how to use social media, or how to develop a business plan, a business model canvas for instance. That is a free resource and it’s available to entrepreneurs.

But there’s nothing stopping a sharp organization or an artisan or a cultural enterprise from stepping forward and making use of that. What happens is not only does that organization go away with stronger business planning skills, but our staff are always talking about interesting and unique things that they’ve heard about. You never know where that conversation can take you, in terms of partnerships in the future.

[Shawn]

We know, however, that there are many individual artists and small organizations that just can’t take the time to train in marketing, let alone develop and carry out marketing plans. And that’s where RTOs can step in. As Kate says, part of their purpose is:

[Kate]

To offer our services and say, “okay, we’ll do it because it’s too much for you.” We do the same thing for a B&B, because a B&B owner has a lot going on: they have to do the check-in and they got to go clean the room, and then they got to get the breakfast ready.

[Shawn]

So, there are supports out there. People like Meredith and Kate, and the organizations they work at, want us to know that they have our backs.

[Meredith]

Things are tough, but you’re not alone. There are folks who you might not have thought of who would be interested in talking and supporting. I do think that there are lots of great staff at the municipal government level who want to talk to these groups and provide some feedback and some resources.

I also think that we need to continue hammering that message home, that recovery depends on cultural experiences and the wellbeing of our cultural sector. I think all of us together continue to hammer that message home.

That resonates with people as they realize that this is the stuff they want to do when they can get out and about again. This is where the pent-up demand is for people who create. I send my love and support to the cultural organizations out there because it hasn’t been easy, and we want to do all we can to keep things strong.

[Shawn]

This last point is a great way to wrap up the episode. The demand is there. How can you position your work in ways that meet that demand?

In the next episode, we’ll explore ways to manage the relationship between arts, culture, and tourism. You’ll hear about managing the relationship between arts, culture, and tourism and some current trends and opportunities. And, again, we’ll talk with people in the real world doing amazing things.

I’m Shawn Newman, host of the Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge. This podcast was made possible thanks to support from the Province of Ontario and the Canada Council for the Arts. Thank you, also, to our experts featured in part two, and thanks to you for listening.

We’d love to hear about anything that you and your organization are building, especially when it comes to working with the tourism sector. To tell us about your work, or to hear more about ours, visit our website at onculturedays.ca or email us at info@onculturedays.ca.

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

Jian Ming Luo and Chi Fung Lam, 2017. Entertainment Tourism. New York: Routledge.

“Culture Shock: COVID-19 and the Cultural and Creative sectors.” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 7 September 2020. https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=135_135961-nenh9f2w7a&title=Culture-shock-COVID-19-and-the-cultural-and-creative-sectors

“Theme Index and Museum Index: The Global Attractions Attendance Report.” Themed Entertainment Association/AECOM, 2020.

Stefan Gössling, Daniel Scott, and C. Michael Hall. “Pandemics, Tourism and Global Change: a Rapid Assessment of COVID-19,” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 29(1): 1-20. doi: 10.1080/ 09669582.2020.1758708.

Mark Muro, Robert Maxim, and Jacob Whiton. “The Places a COVID-19 Recession Will Likely Hit Hardest.” Brookings. March 17, 2020. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/03/17/the-places-a-covid-19-recession-will-likely-hit-hardest/

Howard Hughes, 2000. Arts, Entertainment, and Tourism. New York: Routledge.

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

Christian Simenc. “6 millions de personnes ont vu l’Arc de Triomphe empaqueté.” The Art Newspaper. November 19, 2021. https://www.artnewspaper.fr/analysis/6-millions-de-personnes-ont-vu-l-arc-de-triomphe-empaquete

Greg Richard. Rethinking Cultural Tourism. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021.

Transcript

[INTRO MUSIC]

[Shawn Newman]

Hello! Welcome to the Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge, an audio course podcast designed to teach you about the ins and outs, and the trends and pitfalls of cultural tourism in Ontario. I am your host, Shawn Newman speaking to you from Tkaronto.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt devastating blows to the arts and culture sectors, as well as tourism. And now, two years in, we are seeing leaders from both industries coming together in new and innovative ways as they work toward recovery and rebuilding. This audio course, produced by Ontario Culture Days, is one way that we hope to support collaboration between these sectors, and to close the gaps between to them.

You might think that gaps between the tourism and the arts and culture sectors seems odd, and we agree! But there are fundamental differences in how these sectors work, even though they have so much in common. Throughout this series, we’ll explore the ideas at the core of cultural tourism, connect these concepts to the arts, and hear from professionals on the ground.

This podcast on cultural tourism is geared towards arts and culture sector workers and organizations and is designed as an audio course. But we certainly invite everyone to listen and learn with us! This podcast, its transcripts and the resources referenced are all available on the Ontario Culture Days website. Whether you are new to thinking about or working with Ontario’s tourism sector, or feel like you want an inspirational refresher, Ontario Cultures Days’ Departure Lounge has something for you.

In this fifth and final episode, we’re going to talk about marketing the relationship between the arts and culture sector and tourism. As always, we’ll begin by introducing a few definitions, making important distinctions, and highlighting trends of interest. We’ll then talk about some of the ways to effectively market that relationship. And as with the previous three episodes, in the second half you’ll hear us talking with tourism professionals, social entrepreneurs, and arts and culture folks that are doing exciting work on-the-ground. We hope that in hearing directly from them, you’ll not only be inspired to engage with the tourism sector but also see how the ideas that we’re introducing you to can extend into your own work.

In addition to this podcast, we’ve compiled resources and stories about cultural tourism and the innovative ways that people and organizations are working collaboratively across sectors, across communities, and even across the globe. This podcast and the resources that we discuss are all available on the Ontario Culture Days website.

In September 2021, an estimated 6 million visitors flocked to Paris over a 16-day period to see its famous Arc de Triomphe beautifully wrapped up in light textile, an artistic installation imagined by the late Christo and Jeanne-Claude. According to the Paris Tourism Office, one million of those visitors cited the installation as the primary motivator for the visit, which is said to have injected 235 million euros into the local economy.[1]

Those are big numbers, obviously. Regardless of how much similarity, if any, the market in which you operate shares with the City of Lights, one thing remains: art and culture’s incredible drawing power. As discussed in the previous episode, cultural attractions are powerful and increasingly sought-after, especially those that are ephemeral and can only be appreciated from up close—like a gigantic, textile-wrapped monument.

Now, no need to go wrapping local landmarks here! A temporary exhibit, a one-off concert or annual festival, a pop-up craft market, are all smaller cultural attractions that carry both novelty and urgency, which tourists are still likely to respond to. In tourism lingo, the decision to position cultural attractions as unique opportunities is known as “eventification,” and it’s one of the different marketing strategies used in cultural tourism.

Cultural tourism is a fairly recent concept. In its infancy, the term was used to describe the influx of baby-boomers interested in monuments, heritage sites, and museums. And while boomers are still the largest demographic of cultural tourism, we increasingly have to account for both Millennials and Gen Z, who are said to crave authenticity and experience. They still want to learn, but they’d rather do it by doing, by being active and creative, instead of passively observing.

Also, boomers (maybe because of their age) like to travel in groups, whereas younger demographics don’t mind solo adventures. How you price and position your attractions, but also how you craft your value proposition—which we talked about in Episode 3—should reflect those preferences. However, it’s important to also stay true to your organization’s values. If your marketing doesn’t operate in ways that are aligned with your values, people will see that. And this frequently gets interpreted as being inauthentic.

It might be obvious, but it’s still worth stating outright: a strong online presence is an important start—prospective visitors should be able to find you. We talked about discoverability in the last episode. But you also need to develop a strong social media game: Facebook and Instagram for starters, but also YouTube and even TikTok when deemed relevant. Consider the image that your organization and your specific products—or attractions—project. How can you best communicate about the experience you’re offering? What’s the story? How can potential tourists see themselves reflected in what you’re trying to sell them? Even better, why not invite a vlogger, blogger, or influencer to document their experience in a style and tone that may be more “conducive” with your target demographics?

Generally speaking, cultural tourists tend to be well-educated, comfortable with technologies, rather affluent, and frequent travellers. From an economic impact standpoint, they typically spend more time at a destination, and also spend more money during their trip. From an experience standpoint, cultural tourists are said to be craving contact with the local community, to have a genuine interest in better understanding its culture and customs, and to be more willing to make other smaller or short trips in the attractions’ vicinity.[2]

That suggests a range of implications for marketing. How does your attraction cater to those needs, specifically when it comes to connecting with locals and learning about them in an active, genuine, and non-extractive way? Recall one of the central tenets of regenerative tourism—attractions should be developed in collaboration with the community. This not only generates revenue for the community, but also empowers the community to be an active participant in determining the development of tourism in their own region towards preventing exploitation for tourism development. For the tourist, this kind of collaboration also enhances authenticity.

Moreover, by collaborating with community and other organizational partners, you can develop attractions and packages that span a few days. And this is very much in line with the concept of slow tourism that we introduced in Episode 1. So, you’ll want to know who else is in the same cultural tourism space as you—not because you compete with them, but rather because tourists are likely to engage in several cultural attractions. That’s good news for attractions outside of metropolitan areas: motivated, affluent visitors will go out of their way if what you have to offer speaks to their needs and interests.

This also implies a form of active curation of cultural attractions, in which arts organizations and tourism boards should work closely to identify underrated or undervalued places that hold potential for tourism.[3] If you think of yourselves as cultural curators, you might begin to see your role as a trusted guide for tourists seeking to experience and understand your community. Cultural tourists prefer authenticity to commodity, exclusiveness to mass tourism, and welcome the opportunity to step outside of the traditional circuits to explore unique, real, hand-picked attractions.

There are many threads that we’ve been weaving together throughout this series. Some of them are going to re-appear here, as we close the loop on some of the ways that the arts and culture sector, and the products and attractions in it, are uniquely positioned to not only participate but be a leader in regenerative tourism.

Let’s zoom out from the Ontario context to get a bigger, national picture from Beth Potter, President & CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. She talked to me about stories, and certainly, marketing is about storytelling. But also, she points to opportunities that we in Ontario might consider focusing on.

[Beth Potter]

The opportunity for us to better market the ‘Canadian story’, Canadian art and culture globally, is something we’re always looking to do as an industry. We are different, we are unique, we have a unique story to tell. There is somewhat of a lack of awareness on the world stage for just how much Canada contributes culturally, compared to places like Italy or France where you always think about art and culture.

We do have a long cultural and artistic heritage and particularly within our Indigenous communities. We want to do a good job at making sure we bring those stories to the forefront.

[Shawn]

And of course, arts and culture are about storytelling.

In our last episode, Kate from Explorer’s Edge talked about how arts and culture’s focus is expression whereas tourism’s focus is commerce. Here’s more of my conversation with her where she explains how these are not actually at odds, but rather complement each other. And in fact, she makes it very clear how central the arts are to creating a sense of place, and how creating arts and culture products that draw on local settings also enhances the artistic experience.

[Kate Monk]

Whether we’re talking about tourism product, or we’re talking about expression, the likelihood is in our region – which we call The Great Canadian Wilderness Just North of Toronto – in both those instances, in the commercial product side and then in the arts expression side, they are both going to, at some point, feature heavily the natural landscape, in a rural destination.

For our destination, the natural landscape is the biggest product. It is the biggest draw for people. That is the first thing they think of. In fact, that’s why we brand the destination as The Great Canadian Wilderness Just North of Toronto: we want to signify very quickly, if you head just north of Toronto, you can have a very quintessential, iconic Canadian wilderness experience.

Algonquin Park over to Georgian Bay for a UNESCO-designated biosphere – all those things that one would associate with a real interaction with the natural landscape, including just lying on a dock, it’s here.

The artists in a rural destination will weave that, probably whether they even know it or not. The greatest example of that would be the Group of Seven. I can give you another example: the artwork itself and the crafting, will often feature the sunsets or the landscapes or whatnot. But even a concert hall like the Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts on Georgian Bay in Parry Sound, they are home to one of Canada’s most popular summer classical music festivals: The Festival of the Sound. They will time their concerts so that the intermission takes place when these legendary sunsets are going down on Georgian Bay, on the patio outside the concert hall. So, there’s always this interaction of the landscape in some way.

The group of seven would be the most interesting case point of that because it started with artists learning to interpret and to bring back information to the rest of Canada about what they saw in Algonquin Park and points north. But then it flipped now to where tourism people will say, “well, how do we have people experience the Group of Seven who aren’t painters?” So, you can go out and explore where they painted by going in a canoe. You can go on a guided tour that somebody will say, “well, this is where Tom Thompson painted this,” or these types of things. So, there’s this sort of always an interaction that the landscape is the product, but the landscape is also the expression.

That’s bridging the sort of way we can communicate with people in the arts and culture sector – to see those similarities. The other thing that is very interesting is when you’re in a – it’s not like an urban centre where things can be quite concentrated, where there’ll be a theatre district – here it’s very spread out – space, wilderness, distance! But it also means once again, you will find products based on the landscape uniquely.

[Shawn]

These examples from Kate aren’t directly about marketing, but instead demonstrate how our attractions benefit from intentionally incorporating place into our work. This also then makes it easy for tourism marketers to promote our sector.

Marketing tourism is all about creating a sense of place, and the easier we can make it for tourism marketers, the better. For example, think back to Tova Arbus from Fringe North and what she said in episode three about the ways that lacking clarity of purpose impacts marketing. Here it is again.

[Tova Arbus]

The reputation of what a fringe festival is far outpaced where we were at as a festival – and I mean that by reach and engagement, I mean that by our own capacity as a team. We tried to do way too much!

So then when we would reach out to tourism agencies and try to engage and say, “hey, we need you so people will come to our festival,” they weren’t sure what we were doing. That didn’t translate well for them to be able to pay it forward. So, they’re just telling folks, “Well, there’s a festival, it’s arts-based and here are the dates.” Beyond that, they couldn’t speak to the sell of why folks should plan to be here.

And the clearer that a project can be, the clearer that we are as an organization to say, “here’s who we are, here’s exactly what we’re trying to do and here are the hooks for you, 1 2 3,” the easier it is for those agencies to plan with us.

[Shawn]

Tova and Kate are in different regions of the province, and yet in both instances, they’re speaking to similar strategies. Tova’s practical business approach to clearly identifying what Fringe North is and does set an important foundation for being able to loop into larger tourism marketing campaigns. And what Kate described are ways that RTO 12’s branding of the region has prompted a really beautiful and authentic way for arts and culture to create their products.

Beth from TIAC speaks to how that kind of experience is exactly what cultural tourists are seeking—they want to feel like a local. And artists are the ones who tell the stories about our communities and create a sense of belonging for tourists.

[Beth]

So many people want to experience that sense of place. They want the authentic experience.  They want to go down into the community level and really experience beneath the sheen if I might say.

That’s where arts and culture can really help. They can be the lore, they can be the draw, and they help animate those spaces. And they really do our local artists, they are the backbone of our communities. They’re the ones that are filling our shops on Main Street. They’re the people that are volunteering in our communities. They’re creative thinkers, they’re problem solvers. They are contributing to our community in other ways that we don’t even think about sometimes! But the nuts and the bolts of it is they’re the ones that really can help drive people to that destination.

You think about how many small towns how, you know, even in downtown Toronto, where murals have really become a way of telling the story of that street, that community, the history that’s there, you know, I can visualize a number of murals that I’ve seen, that absolutely tell the story of the town that I’m in. And those are local artists that are doing that. They’re knowledgeable about the history, they’re knowledgeable about how this community came to be.

If you look at all those bedroom communities outside of urban centres, you know, they become commuter hubs. Now, artists help remind us that they weren’t always that, that they were founded for a reason. There was a real community there that came together to help basically design and build our country.

[Shawn]

We’ve talked in this series about demand and appealing to what cultural tourists want to experience. This is a very business-centric approach, and one that we do believe is an important strategy for our sector. But let’s not forget a central value nearly ubiquitous across arts and culture—that the arts are an undeniable human need. This is where we can start to think of demand, from a tourism business perspective, as just another way of saying need, as we understand it in our sector. That is, we demand what we need.

Tim from the Shaw Festival speaks very strongly about this. You’ve heard him before on the arts as charitable work, but I want to share with you another part of my conversation with him. As our sector is leaning into complex issues like climate change, Indigenous-settler relations, systemic racism, accessibility, and more, a perspective like Tim’s really drives home a way of situating ourselves as central to community building. This brings us right back around to the very central pillar of regenerative tourism: that any tourist activity makes a place better than it was.

[Tim Jennings]

I think that art-making – and theatre in specific – serves basic human needs. I talk a lot about this, it is a specific point of view: I do not see what we do as work of a not-for-profit. Although we have a not-for-profit status, that is a corporate entity thing. But we’re a charity. And the acts related to what we do are charitable and there are reasons for that.

I spent a lot of my life trying to look back and saying why is art charitable? What about it is serving these basic human needs? And, in Canada at least, most charitable activity theoretically is serving some version of basic human needs.

Art was one of those things right off the bat that was named intrinsic to society, we need to support this. If you look back at the Renaissance, you’ll think about all the patrons who supported artists and made beautiful architecture and all the rest.

For me, all of the things that we do – and at the Shaw Festival in particular, probably because of the civic provocations of George Bernard Shaw – it becomes very easy for us to look at that and say how does this serve people? How are people included in this place?

When the theatre talks about its not-for-profit status, I think they’re missing a chance to be more involved in their community. That’s why I talk about us as a charity, and I tried to get all of my folks here to talk about it as a charity. If we’re a charity, how do we help?

What I’m finding – and we certainly have found at the Shaw prior to the pandemic but it’s carried us through the pandemic – is that in shifting our focus that way, our donors, the people who were deeply involved with us, got more deeply involved with us and have contributed more money to our causes. Because ultimately, they see the programs we’re delivering as in service to a larger community. That has helped us deliver more programs – more art and more community program or education programs. People want to get involved with something that they feel is reflecting their values – and I hope we do that.

One thing I would say to everybody listening is that uniquely identified brands are actually really strong. Here’s a tourism tip: if you stand out, if you don’t look like everything else around you, more people will gravitate to you because they will see themselves in your business.

For a very long time, I would say Stratford and Shaw look very alike, I think people would compare them as being fairly similar festivals. Because we had a very similar framework of how we were built – we’re both built on a US, destination theatre model. It was a very straightforward thought process. But I think now actually if you look at the kind of work we’re doing and the kind of work they’re doing, they’re quite different. Stratford’s done a really good job of digging into new Canadian work, they’re doing all sorts of interesting things with video and television. We’re very focused on a live experience. We’re branching into concerts and outdoor activities. There’s a very different vibe, but they’re compatible vibes. It makes us part of a better ecology.

I wish the theatre industry would describe itself as a charitable movement, as opposed to a series of individual theatres. If more of us were all working toward the same common goals, we get a lot more done.

[Shawn]

The piece about people seeing themselves reflected in your work—it has so many applications. From a social justice perspective, it centres diversity and inclusion. And yet, people seeing themselves reflected in your business, as Tim said, is what tourism is all about.

Braiding together these threads addresses so many key components of regenerative tourism that also allows us in arts and culture to change our own creative and business practices towards building better, more inclusive communities. As Tim said, if more of us were all working towards the same common goals, we’d get a lot more done. And that goes for working with tourism, too.

Well, we’ve reached the end of our episode on marketing the relationship between arts and culture and tourism. And also, the end of the first Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge audio course podcast! Thank you for joining us on this journey. And an equally big thank you to the experts who shared their insights with us: Janis, Tova, Kate, Tim, Beth, and Meredith. For more on who they are and the work they do, visit our website.

Writing and producing this series was very much a team effort. The people you haven’t heard but who were so much a part of making this happen are my colleagues Louis-Etienne Dubois and Frédéric Dimanche, as well as Ruth Burns, Meaghan Froh Metcalf, and their team at Ontario Culture Days. And this podcast is only one part of a larger project on cultural tourism in Ontario with an advisory of many people from across the province. Thank you to all of them.

I’m Shawn Newman, host of the Ontario Culture Days’ Departure Lounge. This podcast was made possible thanks to support from the Province of Ontario and the Canada Council for the Arts. And thanks to you for listening.

[1] Christian Simenc. “6 millions de personnes ont vu l’Arc de Triomphe empaqueté.” The Art Newspaper. 19 November 2021.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Richards, 2021