Banff Lake Louise Tourism is hosting its second tourism marketing workshop on June 4th and 5th.  Unlike most industry conferences, "Experience This" is a hands-on interactive workshop designed to arm participants with the experience and tools they need to compete in today's experience economy. 



In fact, last year's workshop was led by none other than James Gilmore, author of The Experience Economy.  Over the course of two days, teams competed to develop innovative new tourism product for the region, with the winner being awarded marketing support from Banff Lake Louise Tourism.

The theme of this year's workshop is on content development.  The Web 2.0 world has created a sea-change in how consumers learn about and evaluate tourism experiences and this year's event will put participants to work learning how to create and distribute content to tell compelling stories about their product.



I had a great time at last year's conference helping to coach the teams and acting as a judge during the competition.  This year,  Travel Alberta will be providing a look at their in-depth research into Alberta's best consumer targets.  We'll then have Susan Reifer, one of Canada's leading travel journalists, speak about product differentiation and what makes a story newsworthy, followed by Doug Walker of The World Rock Paper Scissors Society and Venture Communications fame who will provide insights into how to attract an online audience.  Presentations and workshops by A Couple of Chicks E-Marketing and Yahoo Canada will round out the two days.  Teams will use this information in a series of competitive exercises to select their core target market, find the differentiation in their product, and craft relevant content to tell their story to the right people at the right time.



If last year's workshop was any indication, the energy and competitive spirit of the folks in Banff will make for a fantastic couple of days.  Last year, some teams stayed up well into the night working on their presentations which ultimately included everything from a prototype website to performance art.

The real winner over the two days is the tourism industry in Banff.  In working to create new products, last year's participants ended up forging new alliances between seemingly competitive operators, finding new solutions to staff recruiting and retention, and bringing the region to life in ways previously unimagined.

If you're attending the conference, here are a few articles from the Tourism Marketing Blog that might be useful pre-reads:

A Modest Proposal

The Two Most Important Questions in Evaluating a Tourism Experience

Counter-Intuitive Casino

Brutal Honesty, Beautifully Told

Unpopular Panama

Tourism Marketing in the Off Season

Deep Fried Truth: Memphis Cuisine

The Top 10 Reasons Not to Pursue a Career in Tourism

The Drag Queen Theory of Tourism Marketing

Ignore My Evil Twin: Kurdistan as a Destination Brand

Tourism Website Gets it Right

See you in Banff!