Experiential Tourism: Delivering Tourism Experiences
Travel is not just about where you’ve been anymore – it’s about what you did while you were there, how it made you feel, the people you met while you were there, and the memories you took home. A product is what you buy; an experience is what you remember.Through crafted experiential tourism opportunities, experiences provide our visitors unique, entertaining, and/or educational activities that make it possible for them to have a personal connection to Nova Scotia and its people. It is about visitors becoming an active participant where they can try a new skill, learn about who we are or how we live, or challenge themselves. It is about meeting the locals – the fishermen, farmers, chefs, artisans, guides, musicians, storytellers, and all of those people in our communities across the province that have a special skill to share or an interesting story to tell and which make Nova Scotia a great place to live and visit.
The Experience Collection
The Experience Collection is a free marketing opportunity which allows tourism operators to enter experiential tourism opportunities to be displayed on novascotia.com within our core experience pages and in other marketing materials and activities. Experiences may be for individual or group travelers.Tell us about the great experiences you are offering. There is no cost or limit to the number of experiences you can list. Once you have entered your experience it will be reviewed and approved by Department staff before it appears on the website. We reserve the right to refuse any content that is inappropriate or not in keeping with the criteria for the Experience Collection.
Register - Travel Experiences Online Manager
Enter - Travel Experiences
Criteria for Well-Designed Experiences
In order to be eligible for recognition under the Experience Collection, experiences should reflect the following:
- Be well themed – connecting to one or more of the tourism core experiences http://www.gov.ns.ca/econ/tourism/docs/Tians2011PlanBookPR.pdf(outdoor, culture, history, seacoast, urban, and food and wine) and with a title to reflect the theme;
- Engage the visitor through hands-on activities which allow them to become an active participant in the activity, not just an observer, and provides the visitor with exclusive or behind-the-scenes access to something;
- Involve qualified guides when necessary and/or local experts or other resource people to enhance the delivery of the experience and provide an opportunity to reach into a community to meet local people;
- Use assets and resources that are unique to your community or business;
- Engage as many of the five senses as possible;
- Where possible, integrate local food and other elements which can add to the WOW of the experience.
- Be well-planned and tested;
- Be purchasable - visitors must be able to purchase the experience for a set price;
- Meet all federal, provincial, or municipal regulations and business requirements (such as insurance), where applicable;
- Be available a minimum of 4 weeks throughout the year.
We Can Help
If you have any questions or would like to learn more about experiential tourism development and marketing, we offer the following resources and support:
Read Experience Nova Scotia: A Toolkit
Tourism Development staff offer an Experience Workshop and one-to-one mentoring in your community or access to other industry development opportunities as they arise. Contact: Lori Blackburn to arrange a session at (902) 424-3747 or by e-mail at blackblm@gov.ns.ca
Staff can also help with editing of materials written for the experience. Writing and photography tips can be found in Experience Nova Scotia: A Toolkit
If you have any questions of comments regarding the Experience Collection please contact Jennifer MacIntyre at (902) 424-8929 or by e-mail at macintjen@gov.ns.ca.
