This NB Tourism Company is Setting the World Standard
SAINT JOHN – A Saint John tourism company is exporting its expertise to cruise lines around the world.
It began in 2007 when Aquila Tours got a call from a cruise-line executive asking them to help one of their operators in Mexico with training tour guides and cruise staff.
“The cruise lines were extremely encouraging, asking if we could model what we did here for other areas,” says Aquila Tours founder Beth Kelly Hatt.
Before they knew it, more requests from cruise lines started coming in, asking for Aquila staff to travel and provide tour guide training.
“We did it in person, but we realized a lot of places, a lot of smaller operators wouldn’t have the funds to do that kind of investment,” Hatt says. “So that’s when we thought about doing an online tour guide international certification.”
In 2010 Aquila’s Center for Cruise Excellence was developed. The centre offers training programs to help cruise destinations and tour operators around the world achieve excellence in their ports, tours, guides and businesses. Though they still sometimes travel to larger destinations to train, many of their programs can be done online, including the Tour Guide Certification Program. The Center for Cruise Excellence is now endorsed by all the cruise lines and by the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA). Aquila is also the FCCA official training partner.
What has made Aquila Tours stand out on the global stage? The answer is something even Hatt has a hard time pinpointing. But she says a lot of it may have to do with organization and staying ahead of the curve on trends and best practices.
“What we realized is a lot of what we did over the years was very process and procedure oriented,” she says. “We had everything written down about how we did things, how we trained and how we were involved in national program in validating tour guide training.”
Hatt says what New Brunswick’s tourism industry does differently is foster strong partnerships between companies and organizations and having strong front-line staff.
“I find in many places when they ask us to help a bit more, it’s usually because the communication between different groups is not happening. I find we’re strong here with that,” she says.
“Aquila has always been strong at that because partnership for us has made us who we are. We haven’t done this alone. It has been an industry focus and help. But certainly, someone has to instigate it.”
Though “working together” seems like common sense, Kelly Hatt says it’s not something that happens all the time, even at smaller destinations.
“There’s some destinations we have found that whether it’s generational or there’s been competitors, working together has not been something they ever do,” she says. “It really shows when a destination isn’t working together.”
Yet, New Brunswick’s tourism industry isn’t perfect either. When it comes to improving that, Hatt says implementing a destination management fee province-wide (Saint John currently has one) would be beneficial to bring in more income for tourism marketing. She says another big thing is an investment in infrastructure for attractions and landmarks.
“If we were to rebuild Fort La Tour, or invest in Partridge Island and the [Reversing Falls], when you think about those things, they’re new, but they are part of our history,” say Kelly Hatt. “That’s what I mean by not letting our infrastructure go down.”
Aquila Tours has been around for over 30 years, and has been working in cruise for the past 20. With that comes a lot of knowledge and experience. But the fact that a small New Brunswick tour company is leading in the world of tourism excellence isn’t lost on the Aquila team.
“It becomes something that humbles you. Because you think ‘Oh my god, why would they want to know what we do?’ But when you think about things we learned, we’ve been working with cruise lines since 1993 in Saint John,” Hatt says.
“We just didn’t let go of making it better all the time and I think that shows. I think that’s what people want.”