Author: Cathy Kirkpatrick

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industry

Place Marketing 101: A DMO’s Field Guide to Niching

There’s a saying in marketing: “The riches are in the niches.” 

It suggests there’s more worth in marketing a specific product or service to a specific audience. Not one size fits all—fit just for them. It’s about resonance.

How does it apply to tourism? 

There are millions of tourists in the world and millions of places they can visit. Why choose one destination over another? 

Art and culture, outdoor adventure, food and drink. Travellers pick destinations based on personal interests. It’s no different from choosing which brands you’re loyal to or which businesses you partner with. It’s an alignment of values. 

“People like us do things like this.”

Seth Godin, award-winning author and marketer

Niching is tied to your brand narrative—the distillation of a place and its people. It’s how tourism brands and destination marketing organizations (DMO) say “people like you visit destinations like this.” 

Niching sets the stage for discovery.

Cultivating your brand story

You can’t choose a niche without knowing the story. Fortunately, you don’t have to make it up or write it yourself. Only uncover what already exists. 

A compelling narrative is based on truths. Not some lofty mission statement cooked up in a boardroom. It communicates the real identity of your destination and promotes what it offers. Not what you wish it offered or want people to think it offers. 

It’s how you strategically position your destination in travellers’ minds. How you paint a clear picture of the place. 

• Engage stakeholders and partners, community organizations and local businesses, resident groups and associations.
• Leverage marketing intelligence and consumer research through your municipal, regional, provincial, and national tourism associations and activity/sector based organizations (e.g. Destination Ontario).
• Gather first- and third-party data on travel behaviour over time—look for broad based trends in lifestyle, media habits, and consumer product consumption.

Find the common threads and stitch them together. That’s how you reveal your brand story—through real truths of your destination.

Once you have clarity, it’s time to consider your niche marketing strategy.

Go wide or dig deep

There are two main ways to niche: horizontally and vertically. 

Horizontal niching is when you market a broad range of attractions or experiences to a specific audience. 

Consider travellers searching for family-friendly vacations. This niche isn’t focused on one type of travel experience but rather a destination with a wide range of attractions and activities. A place suitable for families that has something for everybody.

Vertical niching is when you cater to individual interests or passions, targeting a specific traveller type with a deep, narrow focus.

Think adventure travellers. They aren’t looking for a well-rounded family trip. They crave thrilling outdoor experiences—helicopter tours, white-water rafting, skiing, and snowboarding. They seek destinations rich with adventurous experiences.

1. Niche based on primary experience; all-age entertainment, agritourism, culture and heritage, wilderness and wanderlust.
2. Niche based on traveller type; families, foodies, history buffs, nature lovers, and art addicts. 

Which method to pick, do you go wide or dig deep? 

Why not do both?

The strategy: seed by seed

There are dozens of ways to niche your destination and the variables at play are vast. 

Each scenario is unique to your tourism brand or DMO. Be sure to explore the positives and potential negatives before choosing how to niche your destination and which type of traveller to target.

Five benefits of being niche

1. When you focus on a specific niche, you foster a strong brand identity. It helps you craft more resonate messaging, visuals, and experiences for travellers.
2. A tailored experience creates loyalty. Niching offers the opportunity to turn travellers into brand advocates and increase organic reach.
3. Niching amplifies marketing and advertising. Travellers are more likely to engage with content and offerings catered to their interests.
4. Better return on investment (ROI). Marketing efforts become more efficient when you target a specific audience with a specific offer.
5. Niching leads to a powerful media strategy. Whether it’s digital or traditional,  targeting a specific audience or interest helps you select appropriate channels to maximize your ROI.

Five limits of being too niche

1. A niche audience might be too small or a primary experience might be seasonal. Both pose a challenge to achieving high visitor numbers and multi-season visits.
2. Saturation and overtourism. Your unique positioning is at risk the more popular a niche becomes and your destination’s resources are in danger the more they are exploited.
3. Niche preferences change over time. The more pigeonholed your destination, the harder it is to adapt to market fluctuations and evolving traveller trends.
4. A significant investment is needed for diversification when you’re tied to a single niche—resources and upfront costs are needed to create new experiences, hire and train staff, and update infrastructure.
5. All your eggs are in one basket. Relying on a specific niche can narrow market growth, making your destination vulnerable during economic downturns, global pandemics, and shifts in consumer behaviour.

So, what’s the strategy? How do you boost the benefits and limit the limitations?

Start with the traveller

Audience insights are at the core of an effective niching strategy. The more you individualize the traveller you want to attract, the stronger you can position your destination’s offerings. Think person, not persona.

• Go beyond demographics and get granular with psychographics;
• delve into the nuances, the individual likes and dislikes; and
• unearth the passions, preferences, and aspirations of the ideal visitor.

Then branch out. Draw parallels between distinct traveller segments and design tailor-made strategies for each. From allocating resources and creating content to nurturing trust and gaining loyalty. 

Tourism is constantly evolving. Which is why a tight connection with operators and local businesses is critical. Ideate together, share trends and customer reviews. Stay current with your audience’s behaviour and take advantage of each other’s resources and insights. 

This is how you craft bespoke experiences, and ultimately, pinpoint niche opportunities.

The three step niching process

Step one: establish a singular, solid brand platform.

Lean on your brand story here, and your strongest, most sustainable offering(s). Develop a strategy based on research to attract the traveller types most interested in your primary narrative. 

Step two: identify niches—the horizontals and verticals—to strengthen messaging and diversify. 

Take Las Vegas, for example, the entertainment capital of the world. It’s not just for bachelor parties and girls’ weekends. Think of all the family-friendly attractions and activities, world-class golf experiences, global brand shopping, proximity to the Grand Canyon—all the different traveller types that Las Vegas can attract.

Or the city of Kingston. The brand’s niche is more about its youthful personality, connecting the vibe of the place to the people it vibes with most. That means different things to different audiences; culinary, arts, music, outdoor. (For a deep dive into the strategy, check out the case study.)

Step three: let the niche guide your content marketing and media strategies. Once you identify the traveller types you want to attract:

• engage each niche with personalized content in the way they consume it (video, audio, text);
• refine your targeting with digital and offline advertising tactics, social media, and interest-based mediums; and
• monitor your analytics to strengthen communications and retarget travellers with catered offers and experiences. 

Ultimately, defining your niche strategy leads to more effective campaigns. It’s how you connect with diverse traveller interests in an authentic way—and how you get the most out of your budget.

Your niche, their trip

Niching has its advantages, but preferences do evolve. 

Find balance between catering to a specific market segment and welcoming a broader audience. Stay true to your destination’s core identity, while staying nimble enough to adapt as trends and behaviours change. 

Remember, choosing a niche isn’t just about finding a corner of the market. It’s not just about segmentation, either. It’s about resonating with the right type of traveller, helping them choose the right destination—a place fit just for them.

Need help with your niching strategy? 

More than 20 years’ experience in place branding, marketing, and strategy is a connection away. Contact Alphabet®’ today.

Categories

industry

Growing Indigenous Tourism in Canada: In Conversation with Makatew & Ottawa Tourism

Pre-COVID, Canada had become a global exemplar of how to build a thriving Indigenous tourism sector. One in three international visitors said they were interested in an Indigenous experience, and the sector’s direct GDP and revenue gains were outpacing those of overall tourism.

Like many industries, however, Indigenous tourism in Canada was ravaged by the pandemic; it’ll take at least until 2028 for the sector to return to its peak levels of employment and GDP.

The good news? Travel is rebounding, the demand for Indigenous experiences is high, and the benefits to cultivating the sector’s growth are far-reaching. There’s an opportunity to build back better.

To explore these benefits, and how destination marketers and Indigenous operators can collaborate, we spoke with three prominent tourism stakeholders: Marc Forgette, French-Algonquin Owner of Makatew Workshops in Carp, Ontario, as well as Ottawa Tourism’s Catherine Callary, Vice President of Destination Development, and Kelly Haussler, Director of Destination Development.

“Indigenous tourism is reconciliation in action.”

From a destination marketing perspective, there are so many good reasons to support Indigenous operators. To start, their stories are authentic and culturally driven, exactly what visitors want. As well, there’s a kind of circular economy that happens when you empower an Indigenous business. Oftentimes, that operator will support another Indigenous business, either directly or indirectly. There’s a positive ripple effect.

Most importantly, though, tourism can be a vehicle for reconciliation.

Catherine believes it’s crucial, now more than ever, for Canada to take action in meaningful ways to support Indigenous voices – and much of that action needs to be driven by Indigenous voices themselves. In that respect, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) can help.

“We need to ensure that the people who are sharing this beautiful culture are doing so from a place of empowerment and self actualisation. It’s very important to us to use the tools we have in our toolkit to help these businesses get off the ground.”

One such business is Makatew Workshops, owned by Marc Forgette, a French-Algonquin member of the Apitipi Anicinapek Nation (formerly Wahgoshig First Nation). In 2020, Marc participated in the Indigenous Tourism Entrepreneurship Training, spearheaded by Ottawa Tourism in partnership with Algonquin College. The training was designed specifically for Indigenous learners to help kickstart their tourism businesses.

Marc’s a true success story of what’s possible with a little support. Today, he facilitates workshops for groups of up to 1,000 people, helping participants make a traditional Indigenous craft while learning about topics like truth and reconciliation. 

“I want them to walk away with more questions and continue their journey into wanting to learn about our culture,” says Marc. “One of the best ways to do that is to immerse themselves in something that’s traditional and sacred to us.”

“We need to do it right, not fast.”

Enriching a destination’s Indigenous tourism ecosystem doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a thoughtful approach to relationship building and collaboration. Ottawa Tourism, for example, lives by the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada’s motto ‘nothing about us without us.’

“This is all about supporting as opposed to leading,” says Catherine. “And not bringing a colonial mentality to developing these experiences. It’s not for the non-Indigenous partner to say how the experience should unfold.”

For Ottawa Tourism, every relationship starts with exploring how each party can leverage its skills to grow, celebrate, and bring economic impact to Indigenous communities.

“It’s a slow process,” Kelly says, “because you have to get to know people, and they have to get to know you, and you have to trust each other. We want to do it the right way, not the fast way.”

Sometimes, Kelly adds, it’s about having that first conversation: many operators, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, don’t realize they fall into the tourism category. That understanding can get the ideas flowing, which can open doors to various forms of support like funding opportunities.

Marc, for example, with Ottawa Tourism’s help, recently capitalized on some funding to help open his new facility in Carp. Having a physical, visitor-ready space has allowed him to expand his operations and partner with more Indigenous makers.

“I’ve had great support from Ottawa Tourism, the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, and others. Now I want to pass that down and help other Indigenous entrepreneurs get to where I’m at. If I can do it, anybody can do it.”

In terms of relationship building, Kelly also notes the value of gaining first-hand cultural awareness training, something that’s doubly important for destination developers keen on nurturing Indigenous tourism.

“[Our staff has] been doing small-group training sessions with Pikwàkanagàn First Nation. We’re going into the community and deepening our understanding of Algonquin culture, learning things we didn’t learn when we were growing up. We’re learning about the challenges they endured.”

“Respect is everything.”

While DMOs play an important role in supporting Indigenous tourism experiences, they don’t do it alone. Visitors have a role to play, too, in the way they engage.

“We’re hearing a lot in the tourism community about visitors walking off the path and trampling over ecosystems to get a selfie,” says Catherine. “It’s all driven by this kind of Instagram-heavy culture.”

Still, Catherine believes respect is going to reemerge in the travel context, and that Indigenous tourism is a wonderful vessel for it, especially with so much talk of regenerative tourism.

Marc agrees, and also believes that you can embody respect in your willingness to learn and ask questions. Encouraging dialogue among his workshop participants, for example, is how Marc breaks down barriers. It’s how he instills confidence in people to appreciate Indigenous culture without the fear of appropriating it.

“By not asking questions and not participating, I think you’re losing out on a lot,” he says. “You’re assuming you can’t do something like go to a powwow. The best way to know is to ask. You won’t be judged or ridiculed.”

At Alphabet^®, we can testify to the welcoming environment Marc fosters during his workshops. Each time we’ve worked with him, there’s been a strong exchange of active listening and respect from both sides, which makes everyone more comfortable and facilitates a productive session.  

The way forward.

As the tourism industry continues its efforts to recover from the pandemic, the appetite for Indigenous experiences, both domestic and international, is likely to keep growing. It’s up to destinations, all levels of Canadian government, and even visitors, in how they engage with these experiences, to help foster the sector’s success.

Fortunately, industry partners like the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada, Indigenous Tourism Ontario, and others can provide valuable data and guidance on the challenges and opportunities facing Indigenous businesses – but these insights are only half the solution. It’s vital that destination developers forge strong, first-hand relationships with their local Indigenous communities, both urban and rural. It’s critical to listen, be respectful, and take an enabling role, not a leading one, when developing or promoting these experiences.

We know the economic benefits. We know the reconciliatory benefits. And we know the benefits to visitors. It’s time to keep amplifying the stories of Canada’s more than 630 First Nation communities. It’s time to rebuild Indigenous tourism in Canada – and to build it back better.

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This article was written with generous input from Makatew Workshops and Ottawa Tourism. Learn more about Makatew Workshops here. Learn more about Ottawa Tourism’s Indigenous programming here. View Alphabet^®’s work for the Indigenous Tourism Entrepreneurship Training program here. Imagery courtesy of Makatew Workshops.