The Canadian Tourism Commission Interviews CapeRace Newfoundland Travel
1. Signature Experiences Collection®
Case Study Series
CapeRace Cultural Adventures Inc.
Cape Race, Newfoundland
http://www.caperace.com/adventures/caperace-eco-cultureexperience-newfoundland-travel-vacation/
March 2013
4. Tell us about your key partners.
We work with lots of non-traditional partners. Because an Eco-Culture Experience™ trip is personalized, we have relationships with hundreds of people in St. John’s,
through to Bonavista, all through the Avalon Peninsula. Our partners are mostly made of local residents and small businesses.
Establishing these relationships is key to our chance meeting approach as the ultimate connection and experience occurs when both parties are not expecting to meet
each other. It’s also a tool to deliver economic benefits to areas that would not generally see this type of traffic. The art of connection that we have cultivated over the
years is really a science if you have the right partnerships in place. To a certain degree it’s a numbers game and we slightly change the odds. Once we hosted a mom
with children aged 8 and 14. As part of their journey, we arranged for them to hang out for a day with a local mom and her same-aged kids. Our partners allow us to
personalize experiences without influencing the real experience.
The National Geographic article, written in 2009, provides a glimpse into how our guests meet our partners, which are the heart of the experience:
http://www.caperace.com/images/uploads/Tour_of_a_Lifetime_CapeRace_Cultural_Adventures.pdf
What are you main sales channels?
Direct sales through website inquiries and via phone. Roughly 80% of our guests are Canadian and 20% from the USA and around the world. Word of mouth is
important to us. We currently don’t work with any tour operators on a regular basis, nor sell through the travel trade channels but we plan to make significant changes
to our business model as interest in the higher-value customized self-guided travel packages increases
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Tell us about your marketing.
Our international marketing is targeted to the United Kingdom, Australia, and the USA. With time we would like to begin attracting guests from France and Japan as
well. We have successfully garnered terrific media and travel writer reviews, maintain a quality website, an active Facebook page, and invest in targeted social media. In
2009 we won awards as a National Geographic Tour of a Lifetime and Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador’s Innovator of the Year and have been nominated for five
more since 2009.
While this type of recognition pushed through social media channels and web-based marketing efforts has served to provide much-needed credibility, it is not a sales
lead generator. We find marketing to be a challenge as we grow the business internationally given our niche status and uncertainty in the embryonic development of
social-media.
We know that prospects have turned to the web to conduct their own travel research and we constantly try to capitalize on this. It’s an ongoing effort to keep the
website current. We believe this is important in competing for travellers who are in the process of making a decision to come to Canada vs. the traveller that has
already decided to come to Newfoundland. In this regard we see the CTC as a valuable partner and have aligned our marketing messages to dovetail into the
Signature Experiences program.
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Signature Experience Collection – Case Study Series