Renewing Tourism Red Deer: Building Alberta's Leading Tourism Organization

To see the report in its entirety, download the PDF here.

Executive Summary

Boiling Things Down

As the subtitle to this report states, the purpose of this project was to lay the foundation that would permit Tourism Red Deer to become Alberta's leading tourism organization. Despite the lofty ambitions, this was not intended to be a blue sky exercise. We needed to detail specific plans and activities that would see the ambition come to fruition.

Equally important, we had to detail these plans and activities in a manner that was customer driven. This meant talking to stakeholders and asking them what they thought Tourism Red Deer should (and should not) be doing.

Customer driven did not occur in absence, however. Lessons learned from other Destination Marketing Organizations (DMO's) were gathered through telephone interviews as were some best practices form the literature.

At the end of it all, here is what we learned.
The overriding thematic direction for Tourism Red Deer in the near term is -- focus.

What we heard from stakeholders (and members) was the need to get focused. It was a theme repeated by the leaders of other DMO's we interviewed as well as a theme arising from the best practice research.

Focus means:

  • Develop a real world marketing strategy. A strategy that builds around a single, well defined and focused value proposition and branding statement that in turn, becomes the focal point of everything we communicate to potential visitors and markets. It must be brutally clear who we are, what Red Deer and area is offering, why we offer what we do, and the consistency and quality of these offerings.
  • Concentrate our DMO activity on the marketing, that is on getting the message out. Tourism Red Deer is a small organization trying to accomplish a great deal. The priorities of last year are not the priorities of this year. Now is the time to retrench and focus our efforts on communicating to potential visitors.
  • Target our real customers. Forget what is trendy in the tourism development field. Focus on our critical markets - those segments that already find Red Deer appealing. Concentrate our marketing efforts, including advertising, direct mail, etc. on these targets. This means focusing on the regional consumer, tour groups as well as business/tradeshow/convention traffic especially those seeking to escape the high costs of Edmonton and Calgary of finding centralized locations. Strengthen the process for pursuing bids.

Implement a DMF, but move slowly and deliberately.

A Destination Marketing Fund (DMF) is basically a levy on accommodation and an effective and sustainable way for the DMO to raise operating funds. The success of these funds is demonstrated by their adoption across jurisdictions.

There are, however, critical success factors associated with a successful DMF that dictate a slow, deliberate approach to implementation. The DMF should be voluntary and the community must have a significant critical mass of support. In addition, the use of the money raised through the DMF should be specified in advance with clear outcomes identified. These two items means that Tourism Red Deer should take it's time to outline a clear plan for use of the money and conduct the necessary groundwork to build a critical mass of support.

Pursue a Regional Model but don't get bogged down by it.

Tourism areas are best defined by the mix and consistency of tourism assets as well as tourist behavior, as opposed by arbitrary municipal or county boundaries. For Red Deer and area, this region is considerably smaller than the existing Tourism Destination Region (TDR) established by the province and a good deal larger than The City of Red Deer and Red Deer County. Especially for the leisure market tourist, a region that encompasses Red Deer, Lacombe, Ponoka and Clearwater Counties and the various towns within these, is most consistent with this mix of tourism assets.

The current organizational structure of Tourism Red Deer provides a workable model to broaden this regional approach. As a member-based organization, Tourism Red Deer can and should accept memberships from any business or organization within this broad geographical area and it should do so. It should also expand the regional focus of its marketing to include this broad regional definition. It should be noted that while regional memberships in Tourism Red Deer by municipal governments is highly desirable, the adoption of a regional approach to marketing should not get bogged down by the assumed necessity of seeking consensus among potential regional partners.

Maintain the basic structure of a member-based organization.

Tourism Red Deer is currently a member-based organization that operates along the same lines as similar organizations in Calgary and Grande Prairie. There are other possible organizational models, including having the organization a part of an economic development entity (Edmonton and Lethbridge) or part of the Chamber of Commerce (Kelowna and Medicine Hat). No one approach appears to be better than the rest and the member based model used by Tourism Red Deer is certainly no worse.

Moreover, the member-based structure provides a convenient and flexible means of expanding to a more regional approach as recommended. As such, maintaining this basic structure is recommended.

Nevertheless, some organizational changes should be adopted. Among these changes, having The City of Red Deer representation on the Board come from Economic Development as opposed to Community Services. This would better align municipal representation with the basic purpose of the organization.