(Originally published in TOURISM)
For generations, eastern Canadians heading west by road have been faced with two choices. They could follow the Trans-Canada Highway’s southern route through Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, or take the northern route through Quebec’s Abitibi region and across Ontario (thereby increasing substantially the risk of hitting a wandering moose at night). Until Nicole Guertin started working her magic a few years ago, Kapuskasing was little more than a place for bleary‑eyed travellers to stop for gas and get a quick bite to eat.
Guertin has provided the impetus for the development of “Destination Nord de l’Ontario”, a DMO that aimed to increase awareness of Northern Ontario destinations among Quebeckers who might otherwise overlook the province because of perceived linguistic barriers. The DMO would later morph into “Direction Ontario”, which has broadened its mandate to develop Francophone tourism throughout Ontario. Guertin explains: “The organization has practically the same mandate as Destination Nord, but it works at the provincial level. It makes it much easier to develop relationships with government agencies because now we cover the entire province. One of our most noteworthy initiatives is our tourism guide, which is funded in good part by the province.”
To get a sense of the significance of Direction Ontario, and of Nicole Guertin’s appointment as executive director, one must understand where her undaunted spirit comes from. Guertin describes herself as a social entrepreneur. Trained as a nurse, and culturally geared to appreciate the contributions businesses make to communities, she embodies the best of civic activism and economic development know‑how. She believes this is something she inherited from her mother and father, both of whom came from entrepreneurial family stock: “When my father married my mother, it was like Pepsi and Coke exchanging vows. In Kapuskasing, for a while we owned 27 family businesses among all our cousins. The talk around the table, since I was a little girl, always focused on business and how profits were generated. What drives me is the belief that we can create employment through tourism."
“When I turned to this sector, my family and my father said: ‘are you crazy? Who is going to come?’" she continues. "I said to myself, if we bring more tourists, we will sell more Pepsi and our family businesses will perform better. It seemed simple enough to say, but the potential is real, even if realizing it takes time.”
Guertin’s main achievement may be that she has managed to convince municipal, provincial and federal government agencies to let her and her group come up with the right made‑in‑Ontario solutions to generating new overnight stays by Quebeckers in Ontario. “I could see that tourism decision‑makers were not considering Quebec and Ontario Francophones as a valuable market segment. Even as recently as two years ago, France was not even a target market for Ontario. Similarly, as recently as 2003, Quebec was not even one of the 10 priority markets for Ontario, which I thought was incredible. With the war in Iraq and SARS, perceptions changed, especially when we started to share some of the results we were getting.”
Quebeckers have been exploring New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Magdelen Islands for years now. It is only normal to expect them to turn their sights west to Ontario sooner or later. Guertin believed that – for starters – it could be as simple as making Quebeckers aware of just how easy it is to find tourism operations where service in French is available.
“We had access to funds from Industry Canada, through FedNor, and from the province through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund. In the North, we are facing some challenges with the forestry sector struggling and mills closing. We have managed to bring back many young people to the north, partly as a result of our efforts, and there is a new ray of hope in terms of how we can build a service industry in a non‑traditional setting for northern Ontario.”
Guertin manages a core staff of dedicated employees in whom she has been able to instill some of her own passion. “95% of the group are women. This gender imbalance is not surprising – given Ontario’s Francophone community journey – because men traditionally tended to be more active in the forestry and mining sectors, while women tended to have a higher level of education, and were able to open more doors. When people step into our offices they can feel that passion; it emanates from everything we do.
“We are a catalyst and we bring people together under the guidance of a strategy. Our travel guide is one tactic, and by no means a small achievement. We have assembled 1,400 businesses into the guide; this may not seem like that many, but we may have contacted as many as 8,000 businesses across the province, perhaps only 2,000 of which expressed an interest in reaching Francophone markets. We developed a questionnaire with 10 questions like: 'is your web site bilingual? Do you answer inquiries in a bilingual manner?' Just educating the suppliers is a major undertaking."
Direction Ontario awards 1 to 5 trilliums (the Province’s official flower) to businesses, depending on the level of service in French that is offered. Through this evaluation, they have discovered that those who have used the trillium system tend to be more satisfied by their travel experience than those who didn’t. Guertin comments, "we have never told Quebeckers before that there are half a million French‑speakers in Ontario, and another 800,000 English speakers who also speak French. Together that makes 1.3 million bilingual people in Ontario.”
It is fair to say that Guertin’s project has helped broaden horizons in Ontario in term of tapping into the potential of a barely‑discovered proximity market. “The people we approach are open,” she finds. “They realize they must translate their menu in some establishments. At Wasaga Beach on Georgian Bay, for instance, the local grocery hires bilingual staff because so many people who need bilingual services shop there. During Quebec's two‑week construction industry holiday in July, 50% of visitors originate from Quebec. Outside that period, that number is still a substantial 30%.”
Guertin and her team are certainly worth keeping an eye on: “In Ontario, the story used to be about the Kingston, Toronto and Niagara corridor. In 2005, 15% of travellers used to go to Georgian Bay area; in 2006 it is 29%. With the “Circuit Champlain” route that we have developed, we are finding a new way to sell Ontario, as the territory of the Great Inland Seas. This is what Samuel de Champlain called the area when he came to Georgian Bay, and it is very fitting. We have tested this at the French and Quebec market levels. You don’t have these great spreads of water in Québec; Ontario is unique in the world for its volume of inland waters. This is not just about tracing a route on a map; anybody can do that. It is about having people in local communities taking the kind of ownership of the project that will allow it to thrive.”
Not only is Direction Ontario developing a number of these touring routes, the organization is also involved in developing a GPS‑activated self‑guided tour of Canada. But for the moment, the travel guide remains the most vivid illustration of the group’s success. (It can be downloaded from the Ontario Tourism website at www.ontariotravel.net.)
“We started in 9th position for downloads. In December we were in first place, two and a half times ahead of the guide in English,” she claims proudly. “Last year, we invested $20,000 in advertising, and we have had 4,000 calls generated as a result. We called back 250 of the people who called us in September to see if they ended up coming to Ontario; 57% of them had come to Ontario this summer. Last year it was 44.5%, and the year before, 28%. 99% of these people were from Quebec.
The roots of this success story are in Kapuskasing, a former industrial town better known as the place where General Motors maintains its Cold Weather Development Centre than as a tourism development Mecca. Guertin and her team – and their passion – are changing old perceptions and building new prosperity.
For generations, eastern Canadians heading west by road have been faced with two choices. They could follow the Trans-Canada Highway’s southern route through Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, or take the northern route through Quebec’s Abitibi region and across Ontario (thereby increasing substantially the risk of hitting a wandering moose at night). Until Nicole Guertin started working her magic a few years ago, Kapuskasing was little more than a place for bleary‑eyed travellers to stop for gas and get a quick bite to eat.
Guertin has provided the impetus for the development of “Destination Nord de l’Ontario”, a DMO that aimed to increase awareness of Northern Ontario destinations among Quebeckers who might otherwise overlook the province because of perceived linguistic barriers. The DMO would later morph into “Direction Ontario”, which has broadened its mandate to develop Francophone tourism throughout Ontario. Guertin explains: “The organization has practically the same mandate as Destination Nord, but it works at the provincial level. It makes it much easier to develop relationships with government agencies because now we cover the entire province. One of our most noteworthy initiatives is our tourism guide, which is funded in good part by the province.”
To get a sense of the significance of Direction Ontario, and of Nicole Guertin’s appointment as executive director, one must understand where her undaunted spirit comes from. Guertin describes herself as a social entrepreneur. Trained as a nurse, and culturally geared to appreciate the contributions businesses make to communities, she embodies the best of civic activism and economic development know‑how. She believes this is something she inherited from her mother and father, both of whom came from entrepreneurial family stock: “When my father married my mother, it was like Pepsi and Coke exchanging vows. In Kapuskasing, for a while we owned 27 family businesses among all our cousins. The talk around the table, since I was a little girl, always focused on business and how profits were generated. What drives me is the belief that we can create employment through tourism."
“When I turned to this sector, my family and my father said: ‘are you crazy? Who is going to come?’" she continues. "I said to myself, if we bring more tourists, we will sell more Pepsi and our family businesses will perform better. It seemed simple enough to say, but the potential is real, even if realizing it takes time.”
Guertin’s main achievement may be that she has managed to convince municipal, provincial and federal government agencies to let her and her group come up with the right made‑in‑Ontario solutions to generating new overnight stays by Quebeckers in Ontario. “I could see that tourism decision‑makers were not considering Quebec and Ontario Francophones as a valuable market segment. Even as recently as two years ago, France was not even a target market for Ontario. Similarly, as recently as 2003, Quebec was not even one of the 10 priority markets for Ontario, which I thought was incredible. With the war in Iraq and SARS, perceptions changed, especially when we started to share some of the results we were getting.”
Quebeckers have been exploring New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Magdelen Islands for years now. It is only normal to expect them to turn their sights west to Ontario sooner or later. Guertin believed that – for starters – it could be as simple as making Quebeckers aware of just how easy it is to find tourism operations where service in French is available.
“We had access to funds from Industry Canada, through FedNor, and from the province through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund. In the North, we are facing some challenges with the forestry sector struggling and mills closing. We have managed to bring back many young people to the north, partly as a result of our efforts, and there is a new ray of hope in terms of how we can build a service industry in a non‑traditional setting for northern Ontario.”
Guertin manages a core staff of dedicated employees in whom she has been able to instill some of her own passion. “95% of the group are women. This gender imbalance is not surprising – given Ontario’s Francophone community journey – because men traditionally tended to be more active in the forestry and mining sectors, while women tended to have a higher level of education, and were able to open more doors. When people step into our offices they can feel that passion; it emanates from everything we do.
“We are a catalyst and we bring people together under the guidance of a strategy. Our travel guide is one tactic, and by no means a small achievement. We have assembled 1,400 businesses into the guide; this may not seem like that many, but we may have contacted as many as 8,000 businesses across the province, perhaps only 2,000 of which expressed an interest in reaching Francophone markets. We developed a questionnaire with 10 questions like: 'is your web site bilingual? Do you answer inquiries in a bilingual manner?' Just educating the suppliers is a major undertaking."
Direction Ontario awards 1 to 5 trilliums (the Province’s official flower) to businesses, depending on the level of service in French that is offered. Through this evaluation, they have discovered that those who have used the trillium system tend to be more satisfied by their travel experience than those who didn’t. Guertin comments, "we have never told Quebeckers before that there are half a million French‑speakers in Ontario, and another 800,000 English speakers who also speak French. Together that makes 1.3 million bilingual people in Ontario.”
It is fair to say that Guertin’s project has helped broaden horizons in Ontario in term of tapping into the potential of a barely‑discovered proximity market. “The people we approach are open,” she finds. “They realize they must translate their menu in some establishments. At Wasaga Beach on Georgian Bay, for instance, the local grocery hires bilingual staff because so many people who need bilingual services shop there. During Quebec's two‑week construction industry holiday in July, 50% of visitors originate from Quebec. Outside that period, that number is still a substantial 30%.”
Guertin and her team are certainly worth keeping an eye on: “In Ontario, the story used to be about the Kingston, Toronto and Niagara corridor. In 2005, 15% of travellers used to go to Georgian Bay area; in 2006 it is 29%. With the “Circuit Champlain” route that we have developed, we are finding a new way to sell Ontario, as the territory of the Great Inland Seas. This is what Samuel de Champlain called the area when he came to Georgian Bay, and it is very fitting. We have tested this at the French and Quebec market levels. You don’t have these great spreads of water in Québec; Ontario is unique in the world for its volume of inland waters. This is not just about tracing a route on a map; anybody can do that. It is about having people in local communities taking the kind of ownership of the project that will allow it to thrive.”
Not only is Direction Ontario developing a number of these touring routes, the organization is also involved in developing a GPS‑activated self‑guided tour of Canada. But for the moment, the travel guide remains the most vivid illustration of the group’s success. (It can be downloaded from the Ontario Tourism website at www.ontariotravel.net.)
“We started in 9th position for downloads. In December we were in first place, two and a half times ahead of the guide in English,” she claims proudly. “Last year, we invested $20,000 in advertising, and we have had 4,000 calls generated as a result. We called back 250 of the people who called us in September to see if they ended up coming to Ontario; 57% of them had come to Ontario this summer. Last year it was 44.5%, and the year before, 28%. 99% of these people were from Quebec.
The roots of this success story are in Kapuskasing, a former industrial town better known as the place where General Motors maintains its Cold Weather Development Centre than as a tourism development Mecca. Guertin and her team – and their passion – are changing old perceptions and building new prosperity.
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