Exceeding Expectations

Welcome to Exceeding Expectations, an Elevating Canadian Experiences webinar. The goal of the webinar is to arm you with the information and tactics needed to exceed visitor expectations of your culinary tourism offerings. This includes developing the ability to:

• differentiate between culinary tourism and other forms of tourism, while identifying examples of culinary experiences relevant to your region;
• describe the breadth and diversity of businesses involved in culinary tourism through deconstructing the culinary tourism value chain; and
• explain to tourism operators and stakeholders why culinary tourism is a vital component in servicing the needs of travellers.

You’ll also be able to:

• apply your understanding of visitor expectations and relevant tourism trends to deliver value through food & drink;
• recognize that celebrating place through local cultures and cuisines improves the visitor experience;
• localize your culinary tourism experience by drawing on successful examples from around the world; and
• use culinary tourism storytelling to deliver intangible value to visitors.

Welcome to Exceeding Expectations, an Elevating Canadian Experiences webinar.

Agenda

Before moving on in the module, please note the sidebar along your screen where worksheets and resources will appear throughout the presentation.

At this time, it’s important to acknowledge the extraordinary value that Indigenous peoples across Canada bring to the tourism industry. The land and traditional territories of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit provide unique culinary offerings that enhance the experiences for visitors to destinations all over the country.

Through the combined efforts of several organizations, including the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada and Indigenous Culinary of Associated Nations, Indigenous culinary has grown into a popular driver for the development of tourism in Canada.

Elevating Canadian Experiences

The tourism sector is a key contributor to Canada’s economy, and there is opportunity to maximize its potential by showcasing our culinary excellence to tourists, both domestic and international, and expanding products and experiences into the shoulder and winter seasons.

Funded by the Government of Canada, the Elevating Canadian Experiences program offers tailored content to help destination marketing organizations and businesses develop strategies to boost culinary tourism as well as winter and shoulder season tourism across the country.

The ECE program is a team effort, in which deep research and shared knowledge are brought together to ensure tourism continues to thrive as an economic pillar in Canada.

Webinar Learning Outcomes

The goal of the webinar is to arm you with the information and tactics needed to exceed visitor expectations of your culinary tourism offerings. This includes developing the ability to:

• differentiate between culinary tourism and other forms of tourism, while identifying examples of culinary experiences relevant to your region;
• describe the breadth and diversity of businesses involved in culinary tourism through deconstructing the culinary tourism value chain; and
• explain to tourism operators and stakeholders why culinary tourism is a vital component in servicing the needs of travellers.

You’ll also be able to:

• apply your understanding of visitor expectations and relevant tourism trends to deliver value through food & drink;
• recognize that celebrating place through local cultures and cuisines improves the visitor experience;
• localize your culinary tourism experience by drawing on successful examples from around the world; and
• use culinary tourism storytelling to deliver intangible value to visitors.

Module One: An Introduction to Culinary Tourism

Before you can exceed visitor expectations for your business or in your destination, it’s important to understand the gap between the food & drink and tourism industries. By doing so, you’re able to identify ways to bridge that gap, which opens the door to developing compelling culinary experiences that drive tourism in Canada.

Bridging the Gap Between Food & Drink and Tourism

Although many restaurants don’t consider themselves as tourism businesses, it’s critical that those serving food and drink are open and ready to meet the needs of visitors to your destinations. Similarly, not all tourism businesses harness the value that the local culinary community adds to a destination’s product and service offerings.

The result is tourism attractions, such as museums, often sell food that has nothing to do with the place in which they operate.

This situation is not unique to Canada; in fact, destinations all around the world are continuing to serve the food that they think visitors want. However, our research shows there is consumer demand for higher quality culinary experiences that reflect the destination they’re visiting.

So, what does it mean to bring these two industries together through culinary tourism development?

In short, it means offering more meaningful and multisensory experiences that reflect your destinations. It also means stimulating visitor demand and localizing the economic impact on your tourism operators, businesses, and attractions.

And considering the current realities facing the two industries, a shift towards a culinary tourism model will also help build both resiliency and sustainability into Canadian tourism – especially in the post-pandemic era.

Now that we’ve identified the gap between the tourism industries, let’s define exactly what culinary tourism is. It’s considered “any tourism experience where a person interacts with food and drink that reflects the history, heritage, and culture of a place.”

Food tourism, and gastronomy tourism are other labels for culinary tourism, with one term being used over another depending on the destination; for example, gastronomy tourism is more often used in Europe.

The important thing to remember is that culinary tourism is focused on the meaningful connection between food and place.

There are countless activities and experiences associated with culinary tourism. A few examples are:

• apple picking at a local farm or orchard;
• making maple taffy while on a winter hike; or
• having a local and seasonal goods picnic at a remote location or conservation area.

It’s important to understand the diverse experiences associated with culinary tourism, because it shows that not all tourism experiences stand alone from food and beverage. In fact, there is often overlap, which must be consider when trying to attract culinary tourists to your destinations.

To explain, think about how rural tourism is enhanced when you combine with a culinary-related experience, such as touring a wine region in an RV – with a designated driver of course.

Or consider how outdoor adventures are complemented by culinary tourism, like a guided fishing trip ending with a shore lunch prepared by a local chef using seasonal ingredients from the region’s food producers.

Culinary Tourism Value Chain

Food & drink products and experiences are used by a variety of tourism businesses to capitalize on the growing popularity of culinary tourism. This led to the development of the culinary tourism value chain, which was designed to increase the competitive advantage of your destinations and their operators.

Given the limited capacity of a single service provider or attraction, businesses band together through collaboration in order to deliver combined value to consumers. This allows individual operators to remain focused on what they do best while benefiting from the increased efficiency and effectiveness of working as a collective.

Visitor experiences are also enriched with each layer of value they receive when exploring a destination. This presents the opportunity for your destinations’ culinary communities to form strategic partnerships with businesses and deliver multisensory experiences that exceed the expectations of visitors.

Any business that includes a taste of place or culinary experience as part of their offerings are featured in the value chain, such as:

• accommodations;
• attractions;
• beverage producers;
• cooking schools;
• farmers’ and public markets;
• festivals & events;
• growers, producers, and suppliers;
• foodservice operators;
• retailers; and
• tour operators.

Who are Culinary Tourists?

When talking about the culinary tourist, there is a common stereotype about what type of person that is. Many of us picture someone at a fancy restaurant, taking Instagram photos, and writing about culinary experiences on their food blog.

Although this person is very much a culinary tourist, they are only one part of much larger market segment. In fact, culinary tourists are a very diverse group who are motivated by experiential travel and want authentic connections with the destinations they visit.

In other words, culinary tourists are “visitors who plan their trips partially or totally in order to taste the cuisine of a place.” They are both consumers looking for exclusive meals at high-end restaurants as well as those craving street food from markets stalls, while some culinary tourists are agritourists looking to connect to where their food comes from.

Culinary experiences have become a popular motivator for travel, but they are also discovered in more spontaneous ways by consumers during their trips. So, it’s important to remember that almost everyone is considered a culinary tourist, whether they identify themselves as one or not.

In the end, everybody has to eat. If you think beyond the stereotypical foodie as a culinary tourist, there is tremendous potential to attract new travellers to your destinations.

The Future of Culinary Tourism

Prior to COVID-19, experiential travel was on the rise. And when the tourism industry finally rebounds from the pandemic, research suggests the trend will continue to rise in popularity.

We know there is pent-up demand for travel and consumers are seeking human connection more so than ever. Culinary tourism offers hands-on, multisensory experiences with local businesses and attractions and allows visitors to connect with your destinations in a more meaningful way.

Also, as we’ve seen in the past, and especially through the pandemic, consumers are increasingly more aware of their local food system. And travellers are no different, wanting to know where their food comes from when visiting a Canadian destination.

Culinary tourists are especially eager for hands-on experiences that allow them to interact with the people and stories of the places they visit. For them, it’s a way to get to know the destination better.

The pandemic has also shown that driving trips will be prioritized over flying, specifically with culinary tourism in mind. As such, there’s an opportunity to target Canadian travellers who wouldn’t normally travel within the country but are now looking at places closer to home.

This also indicates a shift to a more safety-conscious decision-making process about where, when, why, and how consumers travel for pleasure. Knowing this, businesses must develop communication strategies to educate travellers about how they are kept safe when visiting your destinations.

Aside from that, outdoor activities and attractions with fewer crowds are bound to be favoured in a post-COVID environment. It’s important to keep this factor in mind when developing culinary tourism experiences in your region.

Module Two: Trends and the Visitor Experiences

General Tourism Trends

Let’s cover some noteworthy trends from the tourism and food & drink industries. By understanding what visitors are looking for, we can better understand who they are.

As you move through this part of the presentation, think about what these trends mean at the operator level and how they relate to exceeding visitor expectations.

The first general tourism trend identified is what’s called purposeful travel. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are re-evaluating their priorities and looking for meaningful experiences and connection. “Purpose-driven travel” is one way to deliver this.

Travel can teach many things, and for some visitors, learning is a key motivation to travel. In fact, gaining new skills and engaging with local communities to learn about different cultures is a goal for many tourists.

Visitors do not need to travel far to learn something new, which is important when considering post-pandemic recovery. Culinary tourism experiences can be geared to locals and those from neighbouring regions, serving to reconnect people to the products and experiences available in their own backyards.

From cooking classes to beer tastings to foraging for wild mushrooms, culinary tourism empowers locals to share the stories and histories of their home. Culinary tourism also presents opportunities for learning and connection, and when done right, this can be transformative for visitors, leading to personal growth.

Food tours and cooking classes are among the top-five fastest growing tour categories on TripAdvisor, and they are important ways visitors pursue purposeful travel.

Food and drink activities have become some of the most popular “Airbnb experiences”, comprising nearly 30% of the platform’s bookings in 2018. When thinking about food tourism experience development in your destination, consider how experiences can be elevated to deliver locally-inspired learnings to purpose-driven travellers.

At the business level, it means providing visitors with experiences that allow for learning and personal growth. More and more, travellers want to feel like they are having a genuine and transformative experience, that they will leave a better person, and that they will leave the destination feeling a sense of connection to the place and its people. By building relationships with your guests, your business can help to facilitate this.

The next trend involves exploratory travel. Travelling to off-the-beaten-path destinations in search of unique, one-of a kind experiences is a priority for a growing number of travellers, including many Millennials.

For these segments, access to VIP experiences in places rarely explored by others is appealing. So, when developing culinary tourism experiences for your business, it’s important to make consumers feel as though they are discovering something new and exciting by communicating the uniqueness of your offerings and tying them to the destination.

In addition, Canada’s federal tourism strategy identified developing tourism in rural and remote destinations as one of the main developmental pillars for 2019 to 2021. Exploratory travel and dispersing visitors away from popular urban areas to reduce the negative effects of over-tourism is part of this strategy.

The development of rural culinary tourism experiences help spread the benefits of tourism beyond urban centres. This also includes offerings that meaningfully integrate food & drink into tourism experiences that are typically unrelated to culinary.

As a business, consider what makes your experiences and your destination unique. Once those elements are identified, the next step is to leverage those assets and communicate their exclusivity to visitors.

Don’t forget, even something as simple as eating at a roadside chip stand has the potential to be elevated, with a great view, for example, or an engaging conversation with the owner and staff.

The third trend in general tourism is destination stewardship. The best food and drink experiences take into account environmental sustainability, as well as the impact on the community and the local economy.

A key strategic consideration for destinations is the extent to which they incorporate sustainability into their management and marketing efforts. There is a connection between purposeful travel and an awareness of social and environmental issues. Visitors who are conscious of this want to have a positive impact on the communities they visit during their travels.

Sustainability initiatives take many forms – from prioritizing local foods and promoting locally-owned businesses to supporting food security programs in the destination. As such, rural destinations have an opportunity to educate potential visitors on the economic and social benefits of visiting smaller communities trying to increase tourism, as opposed to crowded urban locations.

When presented with similar choices, sustainable travel options are often top considerations of the modern tourist. With an interest and awareness in food-related issues, travellers are both conscious and thoughtful of their decisions, which impact where and how they travel. Knowing that their presence and the money they spend benefits the local community, people, and the environment, is important to these travellers.

At the business level, this means using your sustainable practices to attract visitors and always being honest and transparent about your initiatives. That in mind, it’s recommended to highlight the people your business employs, your connections to the community and the land, and any special efforts you make regarding sustainability.

Culinary Tourism Trends

Next, let’s discuss trends in culinary tourism. While the full impact of COVID-19 will continue to unfold long after the pandemic, some current trends are likely to continue, albeit with a few evolutions.

The first trend is similar to purposeful travel, with consumers showing a growing interest in the processes and ethos behind the products they purchase and consume.

With this in mind, it’s important to integrate stories around these aspects of your business into the visitor experience. More and more, travellers expect to have access to this information, as it helps them decide where to spend their hard-earned money. Storytelling online and in person is an important way of transmitting information around production to consumers.

The second trend comes from the University of Guelph’s second “Food Focus Report”, which highlights the rise of the flexitarian. Canadians are more frequently opting to eat less meat, and when they do, they are more mindful of choosing higher quality cuts or more ethically sourced options.

As a business, this is something to be aware of, especially if you are looking to attract more visitors from urban areas, where these behaviours are growing in importance. To meet expectations, this means having more than one vegetarian or vegan offering on the menu and working to meet other dietary requirements like intolerances for gluten or lactose.

Having access to healthier, vegetable-based options can make a big difference to the experience. This is one of the few times it makes sense to stray away from only offering traditional local dishes, because it makes the experience more accessible to a greater audience.

The next trend relating to culinary is restaurant dining, which also includes take-out.

Data from 2018 shows Canadians are increasing the amount they spend on food outside of the home. Canadians are already spending $80 million per year in restaurants and restaurant spending is growing more quickly than grocery store spending. Furthermore, 47% of Canadians say that they are always on the lookout for new restaurants.

It’s important to note, as pandemic restrictions loosen, more data will filter in on the popularity of restaurant take-out versus dining in. Regardless, when people travel, experiencing local food and drink is huge part of the visitor experience.

In a world constantly connected to social media, it’s more important than ever for destinations to deliver on visitor expectations of product, hospitality, and customer service.

Users are creating content on their channels daily, sharing their stories and experiences – both positive and negative – with the businesses they visit during their travels. Meaning, social media, and the internet at large, provides consumers with access to information far and wide, which presents an opportunity for tourism operators, DMOs, and small businesses.

Turning visitors into advertisers and ambassadors is an effective strategy for reaching a broader audience in a way that feels genuine. To that point, of Canadians who use their smartphone for food and drink inspiration, 55% say they use it to decide where to eat.

This is an important travel tool for many tourists, as they use social media to make decisions based on photos and posts of other people’s experiences in your destination.

Culinary Tourism Development Trends in Rural and Remote Destinations

To clearly differentiate themselves from their urban counterparts, rural and remote tourism development leans heavily on the natural environment as a primary motivator for visitation.

In these destinations, culture is a secondary asset that enables visitors to connect more deeply with place. Food and drink are important elements of a cultural tourism offering, especially experiential cultural tourism.

For rural and remote destinations, linking culinary tourism to other forms of tourism is a common approach to destination development. By forging clear links to the land, through ingredients and traditions, food tourism is a natural add on to outdoor tourism offerings.

Types of food tourism experiences offered in rural and remote destinations differ around the world. Food trails, farm stays, festivals, and guided tours are a few examples. At present, Airbnb experiences have yet to take off in a meaningful way across rural and remote destinations, which can be seen as an opportunity for those who operate within that industry.

That said, most of these destinations highlight their unique food and drink specialties, especially those tied to local products, heritage, remoteness, or the landscape; for instance, foraged foods or those with a history that emerged from isolation.

Also, as it relates to leveraging the natural environment, when they exist, designations from UNESCO or PDOs are strongly celebrated in rural and remote destinations.

Finally, transportation challenges around food tourism development are common in regions where public transit is limited. This influences the types of consumers able to enjoy the destination – without public transit, only independent, mobile travellers with access to a personal vehicle are able to experience these types of destinations.

However, this challenge is also an opportunity to respond with unique transportation solutions that add value to the experience and make the destination accessible to more visitors. This could be as simple as bike rentals or tours on trains, while another solution might be to offer horseback riding.

Module Three: Connecting Experiences to Place

Case Study: Dining on the Ocean Floor

As mentioned earlier, connection to place through the landscapes and outdoors is especially important in rural and remote destinations. It is part of the unique value proposition compared to larger cities and helps build one-of-a-kind experiences.

To better understand how connections to place through culinary tourism is utilized to meet and exceed visitor expectations, this module covers two case studies – one from Nova Scotia and one from Sweden.

In the first example, Dining on the Ocean Floor in Burntcoat Head Park, Nova Scotia, you’re given a taste of an experience that really takes advantage of the local landscape.

Here is a summary of the offering taken from Tourism Nova Scotia’s website:

“Experience the ultimate culinary adventure at the site of the world’s highest tides. Savour the best Nova Scotia food, beer and wine in this exceptional experience. Begin by learning about the wild edibles of Nova Scotia, followed by a lunchtime seafood feast where you meet the Chef and enjoy beer and wine pairings. Enjoy a guided tour of the ocean floor, then take a seat at a dining table with a view of the incoming tide for an intimate 3-course dinner on the ocean floor; all followed by an ocean floor campfire.”

Watch a short video explaining this culinary experience via the link in your sidebar now.

Case Study: Sweden, the Edible Country

Next, The Edible Country in Sweden, offers a do-it-yourself gourmet restaurant where you forage and cook your own food in nature.

It’s is a dining experience based on ingredients found in the outdoors, with tables across Sweden available for booking. To enhance the experience, guests are also able to book add-ons like local guides and chefs, a selection of local produce, and mood enhancing table decor. Some locations also offer transport, such as dog sledding and canoeing.

Visitors are provided with a cooking kit, containing all the necessary tools to prepare your meal, as well as a basket of ingredients to cook the recipes outdoors. The menu suggestions of this fine ‘do-it-yourself’ dining experience are co-created with four of Sweden’s top chefs.

Watch Videos 2 and 3 linked now in your sidebar for a look at this culinary experience from Visit Sweden and from the first-hand perspective of bloggers who’ve visited.

Reflection Questions

After watching the videos and learning about each experience, ask yourself the following three questions:

What is the role of the local landscape in this experience?

A few common responses to this question include:

• dining on the Ocean Floor is a world-class bucket list experience that’s tied to the place – it’s something you just can’t do in other places of the world;
• in Sweden, the landscape provides the food – it is the star of the show and highlighted throughout the experience; and
• in both examples, visitors are part of the foraging experience, with the ingredients being used in the meals – guests are provided with interactive and transformational learning as part of the process.

Is there anything else related to place that helps to make this experience special?

A few common responses to this question include:

• in the Nova Scotia example, an element of excitement is added by working alongside the changing tide;
• the meals provided during The Edible Country experience change depending on the location of the table a guest books; and
• both experiences feature menus are created by local chefs in alignment with products available locally.

What else does the hands-on element add to the experience?

A few common responses to this question include:

• Guests are literally dining on the ocean floor in Nova Scotia and eating foods sourced from that exact location;
• in The Edible Country, guests have the option to fully participate in the experience, from foraging the ingredients to cooking the meals, or sit back and relax while their food is prepared by a local chef; and
• and guests are comfortable knowing it’s not a typical five-star restaurant offering – they understand that weather and bugs are part of a unique outdoor dining experience.

Module Four: Localizing Your Experience

Key Takeaways

A key theme throughout the Nova Scotia and Sweden case studies explored in Module Three is the idea of tying experiences to place.

Next, let’s go over a few key takeaways from these examples along with some ideas on how you can tie your experience to your destination.

In both case studies, four elements were present in the experiences. They include:

• celebrating the local aspects of the community, such as the landscape, local ingredients, traditions, and people;
• leveraging a unique combination of characteristics to make the experience difficult to replicate anywhere else – like the vast tracts of forest, jagged coastlines, or cultural traditions;
• developing and showcasing partnerships with other businesses – in the Nova Scotia example, this included local chefs, brew masters, and wineries; and
• embracing creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

To get you thinking and provide inspiration for developing localized experiences, reflect on the following questions. Please note, a worksheet is now available in the sidebar where you can record your answers and reference back to them throughout the rest of the presentation.

Ask yourself:

What makes your community and region special to you?

• Is it the people you see day-to-day? Views of the river? Local traditions?

Why do you choose to live there?

What makes you most proud to live where you do?

• Showing pride of place helps visitors feel a stronger connection to the destination and the people who live there.

Are you an ambassador for your region?

• Can you make informed recommendations to visitors based on your personal experience in the community?

Do you know about the tourism offerings of other businesses in your region?

• This is more than just knowing about their offerings; it’s also about having tried them for yourself.
• For example, you know there’s a craft brewery down the street from your business, but have you tried their beer? Are you able to offer visitors recommendations based on your experience at the brewery?

Inspiration

Does your community or culture have any traditions to share with visitors?

• Even if it is something that may be familiar to visitors already, a local twist or a new context can make it feel special

Are their experiences or stories a visitor wouldn’t know about your community if you didn’t tell them?

Can you think of anything that feels mundane to you but is special and out-of-the ordinary for a visitor?

• A small creek at the end of the street might seem very basic when you walk by it everyday, but to a visitor looking for the perfect place to stop for lunch, it can be exactly what they’re after.
• What’s more, these types of places aren’t highlighted in a tourist’s guidebook. This means someone from the destination has to connect with the visitor and point these locations out to them, which adds an element of exclusivity to the experience.

It’s important to note, your personal experiences within the destination add weight to your recommendations. This also allows you to tailor your suggestions to the specific needs and expectations of visitors.

Remember, your advice can turn a mediocre experience driving through a destination into a memorable adventure for travellers to your region.

Actions

The first set of reflection questions were meant to inspire your thinking. These next questions revolve around the actions you can take when it comes to developing localized experiences. A second worksheet is now available in the sidebar to record to your answers.

Ask yourself:

Do we tie our visitor experience to place through the stories we tell?

• This can be in person, on your menus, chalkboards, website, or social media channels

Do we source local food and celebrate it?

• If you are sourcing local cheese, meat, vegetables, or craft beer, this is part of your value proposition and should be celebrated as such.
• Residents might be aware that certain products are local, but you need to call those items out specifically for visitors. Otherwise, they won’t know what they are eating and drinking is connected to the destination and its local growers and producers.

Does the experience we offer have a connection to our family or regional heritage?

• If so, it’s important to highlight that connection. And if not, consider adding a few personal or regional connections to your experience through the tastes that you offer. This could be a family recipe or a local specialty that can’t be found anywhere else.

Do we partner with other local businesses?

• This can be done in a variety of ways, such as events, sourcing ingredients, music, art, and collaborative products
• For more information about partnering with local businesses, be sure to watch the Partnering for Success webinar available in the Elevating Canadian Experiences content hub.

Do we incorporate meaningful local details into our décor?

• An example of this is using locally sourced materials, whether it’s a river stone pathway, repurposed barn wood, or a wheat wreath.

Do we offer an experience that appeals to locals and visitors?

• In this instance, taking a typical local experience and sanitizing it to appeal specifically to tourists will eliminates the authenticity of the offering. This reduces the impact of the experience for visitors, which diminishes its appeal.

Module Five: Integrating Food and Drink into Your Experience

Let’s discuss how to enhance the visitor experience with food and drink, starting with how to integrate culinary elements into your offerings.

Adding new and creative culinary tourism touchpoints to the customer journey is most commonly done in three ways: though tastes, tours, and takeaways. This also applies to businesses that aren’t typically considered a culinary tourism provider.

Tastes

Taste can be anything from a complimentary drink when visitors arrive at your B&B, to a warm cup of hot chocolate after a snowshoe tour, to a glass of wine if a guest’s table isn’t ready yet. Even an evening treat left after a turndown service in a hotel can be a culinary tourism experience; a small bag of locally-made sweets left on the bed, for example, is an easy way to achieve this.

Attention to detail is the most important element in this instance. It may seem like a small gesture, but these types of offerings can have a huge impact on the visitor experience as it shows you genuinely care about your consumers.

Tours

Tours provide visitors with an opportunity to connect more strongly with your business.

An example is the Bombay Sapphire distillery in the old Laverstoke Mill in Whitchurch, United Kingdom. Inside the modern greenhouse structure, there are plant specimens of all the botanicals traditionally included in Bombay’s gin. Guests who take a tour of the distillery not only get to learn about the process of making gin, but they are also treated to a unique visual and natural element that brings the process to life.

Many non-food related tours – especially lengthy ones – typically include food and drink to some degree. If you offer such tours, think about local culinary-related businesses to collaborate with to provide guests food and drink that’s tied to the region in some way.

Consider a bike tour offering snack packs. Rather than giving guests the standard bottle of water, a grocery store granola bar, and a pre-packaged cookie, include locally sourced baked goods instead.

Takeaway

Visitors love to take treats home with them as mementoes or to share with family and friends. One way to do this is by offering local products of business swag at small gift shop attached to your restaurant, brewery, or farm.

A unique example is the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto that produces honey on their rooftop and serves it in their restaurants. The Toronto location was the first to implement this initiative, and now over 40 of their hotels worldwide do the same.

Handing guests little jars of homemade honey or jams upon departure is a place-based treat they can take home with them. And the tiny jars are often kept long after the honey or jam is consumed, which adds a longer shelf life for your brand in terms of awareness.

Module Six: Intangible Value and the Visitor Experience

Finally, let’s discuss delivering intangible value and how it fits into the visitor experience, what it adds, and what it can look like.

Intangible value are the elements guests didn’t specifically pay for. It’s the add ons that elevate the experience to make it feel special – like something that cannot be replicated. And when you combine intangible value with the culinary tourism touchpoints mentioned earlier, your offerings become that much greater.

Here are seven examples of intangible value. As you go over these points, think about whether or not they can be applied to your offerings.

1. Warm welcome

• This can be a simple as providing visitors with a welcome drink or a gift bag upon their arrival to your business or attraction.

2. Meeting someone new

• Introducing yourself and taking the time to learn a visitor’s name has a profound impact on the experience. A restaurant owner who takes the time to introduce themselves to a newcomer leaves a last impression and makes the guest feel important. In this instance, don’t forget to train your staff to do the same.

3. Hearing stories

• Offer as many personal or regional tidbits as you can based on the specific interests of your visitors – this is especially important when it comes to the food and drink you serve

4. Locally-inspired décor

• This could involve incorporating pieces of the natural landscape to your business, making an ode to your region’s agricultural heritage, hanging old photographs of customers, or showcasing local art and cultural elements.

5. Thoughtful touches

• This can as simple as choosing local ingredients and products over imported goods or providing guests with free samples.

6. Learning something new

• As mentioned in the trends section earlier, learning something new is a strong motivator for travel these days. This doesn’t have to be as complex as teaching a workshop or foraging for food; it can be as easy as educating guests with stories and quick demonstrations.

7. Great memories

• When you put all these pieces together and layer intangible value with multisensory elements, you elevate the visitor experience and deliver truly authentic memories that last long after visitors return home.

Thank You

Thank you for your participation. Be sure to check out other culinary tourism webinars offered in the Elevating Canadian Experiences content hub.

For more information, or if you have any questions, please visit culinarytourismalliance.com.