Our Tourism Workforce Recovery Toolkit offers a wide range of advice, resources, and guidance to help tourism operators safely navigate the gradual reopening of communities and businesses.
As the situation across Canada is constantly changing in response to fluctuations in cases, regional needs, and new research, the Toolkit will be regularly updated to reflect this reality and be as current as possible.
We’ve added a series of printable checklists to the Toolkit, providing tourism business owners with quick and clear reference documents to help them with a wide variety of changes to the workforce and business operations.
As a preview, we’re highlighting some of these checklists here. For the full range of materials, visit TourismRecovery.ca.
Tapping into New Visitor Markets Checklist
Focusing on the Domestic Traveller
International visitor markets will be slow to return, and tourism businesses need to look locally. This involves getting a good understanding of the local market and what it means to adapt the type of product or service offered. This checklist is a framework to help business owners revisit business strategies to attract domestic markets.
Define your new visitor markets:
- Who is your new customer? Ask yourself:
– Where do they live; how far is it from your business?
– What is their demographic/socioeconomic profile (e.g., age, income, education level, ethnic group, religious affiliation)?
– What is their psychographic profile (e.g., attitudes, values, beliefs, interests, lifestyle preferences)?
– Is this market growing or shrinking?
– What trends do they follow? - What are your new customer’s needs? Ask yourself:
– What type of travel (e.g., family holiday, business)?
– What are their buying habits and interests?
– Why would they be interested in what you have to offer; what differentiates you from the competition?
– Do they require special accommodations? - How can you meet those needs?
Get to know more about the target market and what you offer:
- Who uses your current product or service?
- Does your new target market have a need for what you offer, or how does it need to change?
- What is important to them (e.g., personal health, enjoying the outdoors, professional success, family time)?
- What are their lifestyle habits (e.g., healthy diet, exercise, avid reader, sedentary)?
- What would the new target market be willing to pay?
- What other products or services would they need or be interested in?
Get to know your competition:
- Who are they?
- Where are they located?
- What products and services do they offer?
- How do your products differ from your competitors’?
- What is their image or brand profile?
- What are they doing to attract the same target market?
- What is their current share of the market?
- What are their strengths and weaknesses?
- Can you establish a competitive advantage?
After analysis of the new market you are targeting, decide:
- Is it feasible to go after the new market?
- Are there alternative markets to consider?
- Do you need to change what you have to offer for the target market?
- Is there community support for the revival of tourism?
Enticing the domestic market:
- How will you get your new target market to know about your company? What promotion tactics are best to reach them?
- What are your customer service tactics for cultivating and sustaining new markets?
Click here to download a printable version of this checklist.
Click here for more workforce management resources on TourismRecovery.ca.