A Look Ahead at New Brunswick’s Summer Tourism Season
It’s almost that time of year when New Brunswick starts to wake up from hibernation and visitors begin to flock to the province’s most popular spots.
To find out what we can expect from this year’s summer tourism season and how the province is capitalizing on climates elsewhere to attract people here, we caught up with New Brunswick’s Minister of Tourism, Heritage and Culture John Ames
What are you expecting from this year’s summer tourism season? How might it compare to last year’s?
I think we’re going to build upon last year. The last couple years have been quite successful. We’ve seen an increase in growth and an increase in attention for many of the regions, if not all the regions in our province. I think we’re going to see even further growth and build upon the recent successes we’ve seen. It’s important for us to capitalize on the fact that Lonely Planet has pegged our country as the top tourist destination in the world this year and I think a lot of that has to do with our birthday being the sesquicentennial year. We want to make sure we’re a part of that and showcase to the rest of the world how much of a beautiful place we are here in New Brunswick and how much we have to offer as well.
I think New Brunswickers all should be champions of our province and be NB Proud, take that pride and be ambassadors everywhere they go throughout the province, throughout the country and anywhere else they may have business or interest.
This summer season, we’re going to capitalize on the fact that we’re the third largest economic sector in the province and showcase that we do contribute a lot to our province’s economic needs. We have over 40,000 people in our workforce and we return over $3.19 for every dollar that’s spent in this sector.
What other plans do you have to promote the province to visitors?
We’re trying to capitalize on some of those returns and make sure we have campaigns that are targeting particular groups … This year we’re promoting an intercept campaign into Quebec and that’s going to aim visitors planning trips particularly to the U.S. to add additional value to the money by sending them on vacation here to New Brunswick …
What more will we see for Canada 150 celebrations here?
In recognition of the 150th birthday, we’re going to build the momentum of New Brunswick Day. The official New Brunswick Day will be in Edmundston but we’re also going to take that to five other New Brunswick Day ceremonies. We’re having one in Grand Bay-Westfield on July 8, one in Florenceville-Bristol on July 15, one in Miramichi on July 22 and one in Dorchester on July 29 and then the official one on August 7 …
What do you think New Brunswick has to offer people who might not think to travel here?
We need to showcase our strengths. One of the top things that come to mind is the Fundy experience … On the Fundy coast, there are a lot of experiences people can jump right into and really explore what we have to offer as a platform on the world stage. There are so many more great things in New Brunswick as far as natural wonders.
I like to say New Brunswick is a great place to come to if you’ve never been to Canada, to come here first because we have such a large country that it’s impossible to get it all in in a short amount of time.
If you spend that time in New Brunswick and go throughout our diverse region, you can see the natural wonders, the cultures and everything we have to offer and it’s very similar to our entire country.
We’re looking to promote ourselves as a place to get the authentic experience, people looking to get out and see things in the natural element. If you look at trends in the Northeast United States, there are so many people who are travelling up to have a typical New England holiday on the Atlantic Coast and it’s becoming so commercialized [there]. There are so many tourist traps. Things are becoming so busy. Tourists are trying to escape that … It’s difficult as a traveller to get away and get in touch with nature and the true essence of what the environment is supposed to provide you with. We can offer that here in New Brunswick …
Which outside factors do you think will affect tourism here this year?
I think there’s a contentious essence in the United States right now that I think a lot of Americans would like to try to get away from so they can forget some of those issues. There’s something new in the news every day and it’s always very heated and I’m sure they’d like to have a break from that so I think we can capitalize on that as well as the dollar. That will be a big factor in our favour. They can get a lot more return on their trips spending their money in New Brunswick …
Anything else going on?
We are on the verge of launching our new tourism strategy and a big part of that is the fact that we need to have more product innovation and invest into particular sectors and particular infrastructure that has aged. We need to enrich the things that have put us on the map as well as reinvigorate some of the things that may not be getting as much attention as they could be, whether that be in our parks, in some of our partnerships with municipalities or different attractions.
We also need to understand the importance of our market. We have a lot of great adventures here but we depend a lot on exporting in our province.
I think exporting who we are as a people is important as well. We can do that and bring people in and allow them to take that experience back home with them.
We’re making sure we can utilize things like the food and beverage sector as a catalyst to tourism growth. We launched our “Sticky” campaign, which is a partnership with the Department of Agriculture and Department of Tourism so that we can have these experiential food tours … Everybody wants government to knock down the silos of departments and work together and I wholeheartedly agree. We need to ask that private industries do the same thing.
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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.