Northern Forest Tourism Network
Collaborating to Create a World Class Destination – Join Us!Meeting Notes
Northern Forest Tourism Network – MEETING NOTES
March 11, 2010
Welcome by Kate Williams at 10:04.
Carole Martin at 10:06 agenda overview.
Exercise about “Years of Leadership Experience.” There were 651 years of leadership experience in the room.
Introductions from around the room.
Introduction about the Northern Forest Tourism Network by Kate. Further information from Warren Cook. Review of the “Mapping Tourism Efforts in the Region Summary of Responses” by Kate.
- Question 1: What is the value and purpose of the collaborative approach in our regional tourism work?
- Northern Forest is the largest intact Forest in the North Eastern United States.
- Sharing knowledge and resources, learning.
- Using them efficiently and effectively.
- Coordinate marketing/branding.
- Reaching a certain scale with marketing/branding.
- Make it easier for the guest.
- Common standards.
- Getting a common message out – strengthen a core message across multiple platforms.
- Encouraging storytelling and using that as part of the whole marketing effort.
- Educating people from afar. The residents of the NF has an opportunity to educate about working landscape and about how it is an important part of the character of the area and the land is a large part of the culture. Educational value above and beyond the tourism experience.
- Creating regional champions / cross border elected / not elected.
- Generating richer, diverse and holistic ideas.
- Creating an entrepreneurial friendly idea.
- Be more competitive as a REGION and cooperative within the REGION.
- Gaining more context/understanding for the work that each one does within the region.
- Build the rural economy and create more wealth.
- Creating the products that allow the visitors to connect with the area.
- Engaging youth.
- Building an economy that comes to us but also letting those that are here know what they have and the value.
- There are those from the area that don’t embrace tourists and tourism. Need to demonstrate to the locals of tourists. Demonstrate the values of the locals to the visitors.
- Raising awareness = more resources. Policy towards this kind of work.
Anything in this list that wouldn’t benefit from group effort?
- Needs to be commercially viable. People need to make a living out of all of this. If we don’t do this, it will develop in a homogenized way that the rest of the country developed.
- The people who will make this work are the people who are in business.
- Sustainability is the key.
- Not-for-profit world to think commercially – preservation, when done right, is better for the overall product.
- Value of historical preservation.
- If we are going to be competitive in the Northern Forest with other regions of the world, we need to work together. Whose here to make money?
- Community has to have the buy-in. The community has to value what it has to bring people to the region.
- Collaboration is to get the ideas on the table and then to boil that down to find a few to work on.
- Small businesses are bottom-line driven, so it is difficult for them to attend for a full day.
Question #2 What do we have going for us?
- Outdoor recreation in an incredible tract of land.
- 34 People in the room with a wide array of interest in expertise. Already understand the word collaborate.
- We are not limited by short boundaries.
- People want it to work – it is real. Local and sustainable economy. Cache of “rural.” Something that is connected to our past and our future. Possibly because of the agricultural background?
- Education possibility. Living simply.
- Economic necessity – mother of collaboration.
- Northern Forest hasn’t been branded – it has been piece mail. Northern Forest is ready to be branded.
- Vacation. Vacate and recreate.
- Directness of proximity to trees.
- Work needs to be grounded in empirical research and studies. There is an opportunity to collaborate on more research to inform the work.
- Ecotourism is the fastest growing brand of tourism in the world.
- “Small” events + big events. Richness of opportunities that are fractured right now by time. Connecting the two is the opportunity.
- If we weave it (and promote it), they will come…and maybe come back.
- Agritourism and Culinary Tourism.
- Where the customer is? Opportunity to request data/research.
- Notion of discovery – self-fulfillment. They (visitors) don’t know what we have here.
Question 3: What will success look like / how will we know if we are successful?
- Promotion budgets? Putting together all of the resources – outdoor recreation. Put it together and have the hoteliers promote it. Advertising for all of these wonderful things that we do.
- 4% unemployment, trained workforce and a livable wage.
- This effort being driven by the business community and supported by non-profit community.
- Shift back down from the high level back down to the community level so that they understand the benefit of this. Leadership development opportunity.
- Connected with a network of micro-enterprise development practitioners. They are provided technical assistance to develop and help the local flavor. Making them into a network.
- Traveler: Travelers itinerary would be based more on regional experiences than on boundaries and towns to visit. Outcome of family traveling through the region would be a result of packages and promotions that we put together.
Question 4: What do we need from a group dynamic perspective?
- Help us learn from failure – not make judgment and celebrate success.
- Long term success is dependent on community partnerships. All facets actively involved.
- Trust
- Open, frequent and honest communication networks that are utilized.
- Shared ownership and responsibility.
- “Let the good times roll.” Tourism is about having a good time – emotional engagement and memorabilia. Fun for everyone.
- Figuring out how to share the stories of success.
- Be able to define and measure success.
- Commitment to action plan and DO it.
Question 5: What do we need to sustain this work for a long-term process?
- Paid staff support. Volunteers buy-in, but paid staff to make people stay on track and keep things together.
- Recognition by employers that this is important and that there are benefits for participating.
- Short-term success to continue to see long-term success.
- Public support of county officials, governors and delegations. Dedicate funds to promote the region?
- Needs technical support to develop it – can’t’ be done on our own.
- Deliberate outreach strategy for “front line” buy-in. Thoughtful engagement.
- There needs to be a NEXUS to feed information to the Northern Border Commission. Time sensitivity with some urgency.
- Passed in 2008 by the House and Senate. Recognized as an area – like the Appalachian Commission. 1.5 Million for the first year. Can go up to 30 million. Sandy Blitz is the commissioner – no structure, but staff will be one, maybe two people. No location for office – still in development. Mid-western commission that was approved 12 years ago but has not received funds. The Northern Forest area. Anything that we can do in the region to help the commission do something would add value to the appropriations process. Salary, office…projects? Governors, or their appointees.
- Sustainability of an effort – breadth and depth of experience. Variety to feed off of each other – greater opportunity of sustainability.
- Making sense of it all and understanding it all will be key to the sustainability. Speak in “visitor” terms.
Priorities
- Training 14
- Coordinated Marketing 7
- Research 21
- Product Development 9
- Cross-sector collaboration 3
- Internal Collaboration 1
- Commercialization 7
- Technical Assistance for business (business counseling) 2
- Mapping Exercise (what’s out there, whose doing it and where are they located?).
Second Round
- Training (Business TA)
- Research – mapping and surveys
- Product Development & Commercialization
Lunch 1:00 to 1:30.
Instructions for after the lunch break:
Incorporating any of the earlier identified priorities with:
- Clearer definitions (as needed)
- 2 actions steps for the next 6-12 moths for each of the following priorities.
- Training
- Research, incl. mapping/surveys.
- Product development
- Internal Collaboration
Separate bullet: Coordinated Marketing, Cross-Sector Collaboration, Commercialization.
Breakout Group #3
- Action Items
- Inventory and surveys in four different areas
- Tourism initiatives
- Training best practices and resources for tourism businesses
- Whose our market/audience
- Major players
- How is this synthesizing and communication?
- Bringing the major players in – get a conversation going that includes the businesses.
- Where we want to go with this analysis – the whole point in 6-12 months is to come up with 1-3 regional tourism products.
- Could be anything from:
- Northern Forest Canoe Trail – trail, book, extraordinary long distance trail, regional training program, itinerary.
- Could be anything from:
- Inventory and surveys in four different areas
Breakout Group #1
- Training
- Identified training as workforce and business development training in several forms. Businesses hospitality, tourism, community educations and Northern Forest Tourism Group
- 1. To survey and map existing training resources
- 2. To post these sessions on the Northern Forest Tourism blog.
- Research
- Identified research as existing reports, assets, mapping the players.
- 1. Gather information about available resources.
- 2. Identify future resource needs. Lisa, Allison Grappone.
- Product Development
- Leading to positive economic outcomes.
- Branding is high quality products that never fail
- 1. How we want to be seen as a region.
- 2. Work towards a brand. Identify other regions that have done this.
- Internal Collaboration
- 1. Formalize the structure needed to move forward with all of these initiatives.
- 2. Overall coordinator, state Coordinators or point people, all of us.
Group #2
- Training
- Services as well as business training.
- 1. Pooling existing training as a library to model. CDs, reports, speakers.
- 2. Asset that community colleges are of tying together the region. Hospitality, tourism programs. Is there a way to get the discussions going between the higher ed to think about opportunities to specialize for the entire region? Cross-promotion.
- Internal Collaboration
- Sustainability – choosing four people to join Kate in the others who joined today’s event to plan the next event. Assignment to build sustainability. FUN!
- Making the website and what is set up for the tourism network more robust with bookmarks instead of e-mails.
- Find participants in this room – data bank on who to reach in what state for the project to keep the work going. Grow this over time.
- Product Development
- Network – what is our role in product development? Insuring as a network the importance of local businesses. Part of our responsibility is ensuring the infrastructure – make sure we have what we market.
- Research
- Resource library – RFP’s to fill the gaps.
Group #4
- Training
- Better deliver tourism products in the Northern Forest.
- Do some element of survey or assessment as to what is needed for training either through existing surveys or through a compilation.
- Start to address the delivery gap.
- Research
- Focused on the assets/ assessment/ mapping. What are the organizational resources that are in this room right now? What are the services and capacities that are needed outside of the room?
- Assessment of what are the core tourism assets that this region has to offer? Investigation of research into other areas and competitors.
- Product Development
- Working to define, articulate the ideal elements or qualities of the Northern Forest experience that we would like to see across the region with by-in. Standards or brands around those qualities.
- Internal Collaboration
- Use the tools that Kate has already put in place to manage the coordination with the group.
Point person for each of these issue areas:
- Training: Gloria Bruce
- Research: Lisa Chase
- Allison Grappone
- Product Development: Roger and Mary Jean
- Internal Collaboration: Chris Thayer, Samantha Maltais
Additional Meeting: November
Marc
Katie
Mike Wilson
Chris Thayer
How to Communicate: Blog
What worked well:
Flexibility
Great facilitation
Robust lunch
Persistent and detailed enough to go
Invitation was creative!
Incredible mix of interests and people, geographically.
Location
Room with natural light.
Would have been better if:
There was coffee.
Invitation with agenda up front.
Locally owned establishment – keep that up!
More representation from businesses.
Room set-up – larger.
Notes from the previous meeting or take-aways to review.
