DMO Journeys: Îles de la Madeleine
We are really excited to announce the start of our DMO Journey: Îles de la Madeleine! Over the next months, we'll post different articles about them.
We are really excited to announce the start of our DMO Journey: Îles de la Madeleine! Over the next months, we'll post different articles about them.
We are really excited to announce the start of our DMO Journey: Îles de la Madeleine! Over the next months, we'll post different articles about them: who they are, what they are working on, etc. All of this, from a Sustainability point of view and with the objective of giving other DMOs real examples of what happens in other organisations and how they deal with their projects.
For this DMO Journey, we will be in touch with Jason Bent, Development Agent and Niche Director at Tourisme Îles de la Madeleine.
Îles de la Madeleine, Québec, is a predominately French-speaking archipelago composed of 6 islands with a population of 12,500 residents with an economy built on fishing and the culture of seasonal tourism. This brings in an average of 70,000 visitors per year.
The mission of the Magdalen Islands Regional Tourist Association is to promote the development of an authentic tourist product, throughout the year, highlighting the human, cultural, landscape and environmental specificity of the Madeleine environment and this in a perspective of maintaining quality and sustainable development.
In this article, we would like to highlight two of their talks which they have previously given in collaboration with the DTTT to give you an overview of what their work involves.
The Îles de la Madeleine's developed a strategy with a different approach to tourism – the quality of life of the population. How did they get to that point? How do you design a strategy that will satisfy the population and the tourism industry? Jason shared this process at X. Festival 2020, in collaboration with Dominic Lapointe, a professor in the Department of Urban and Tourism Studies at Université du Québec à Montréal.
In order to involve the municipality, Committee, DMO and citizens, they held public consultations on tourism through online surveys and public activities, alongside meeting with stakeholders in order to truly understand what it is people need and organising priority. The results at the time were to focus on waste management, water, recreational infrastructure and housing.
With this in mind, Îles de la Madeleine began working with UQAM to curate the marketing strategy. The pandemic revealed holes in the previously curated strategy, therefore they developed a new set of focus tasks:
Jason explains how the DMO is currently working on a very hands-on approach in communicating with interested visitors as well as local businesses, co-creating with the community for better development of the destination. This involves newsletter surveys and Exit Survey data to figure out how they'll start to market these projects asking what the perception of the islands are during the off-seasons.
Make sure to watch this talk here if you want to hear more about this project!
During this talk, Jason Bent mentioned that there are three main experiences to discover the islands: nature, culture and flavour.
In 2013 they launched their responsive design website, through which they have used storytelling to showcase different sides to the islands and promote the offerings they have.
He states that like any other destination, they have itineraries and circuits. The problem they had was that none of them was linked to the three main museums which the Îles de la Madeleine have. That is what sparked the idea behind applying design thinking.
This project's journey started with a one-day activity through which over 50 stakeholders and business owners in the archipelago prototyped new projects and initiated new collaborations.
The goals of the project were:
At the same time, there were 6 phases to the project, based on the principles of design thinking:
If you'd like to hear more about what they did in each of the phases to achieve their goals, make sure to watch Jason's entire talk in Stage 12. Exploration & Innovation. We are sure it will provide many new ideas! 👀
Next time, you'll be able to read about the project that we will follow together for the Îles de la Madeleine DMO Journey. So make sure to stay tuned to learn a lot more about them!
We are really excited to announce the start of our DMO Journey: Îles de la Madeleine! Over the next months, we'll post different articles about them: who they are, what they are working on, etc. All of this, from a Sustainability point of view and with the objective of giving other DMOs real examples of what happens in other organisations and how they deal with their projects.
For this DMO Journey, we will be in touch with Jason Bent, Development Agent and Niche Director at Tourisme Îles de la Madeleine.
Îles de la Madeleine, Québec, is a predominately French-speaking archipelago composed of 6 islands with a population of 12,500 residents with an economy built on fishing and the culture of seasonal tourism. This brings in an average of 70,000 visitors per year.
The mission of the Magdalen Islands Regional Tourist Association is to promote the development of an authentic tourist product, throughout the year, highlighting the human, cultural, landscape and environmental specificity of the Madeleine environment and this in a perspective of maintaining quality and sustainable development.
In this article, we would like to highlight two of their talks which they have previously given in collaboration with the DTTT to give you an overview of what their work involves.
The Îles de la Madeleine's developed a strategy with a different approach to tourism – the quality of life of the population. How did they get to that point? How do you design a strategy that will satisfy the population and the tourism industry? Jason shared this process at X. Festival 2020, in collaboration with Dominic Lapointe, a professor in the Department of Urban and Tourism Studies at Université du Québec à Montréal.
In order to involve the municipality, Committee, DMO and citizens, they held public consultations on tourism through online surveys and public activities, alongside meeting with stakeholders in order to truly understand what it is people need and organising priority. The results at the time were to focus on waste management, water, recreational infrastructure and housing.
With this in mind, Îles de la Madeleine began working with UQAM to curate the marketing strategy. The pandemic revealed holes in the previously curated strategy, therefore they developed a new set of focus tasks:
Jason explains how the DMO is currently working on a very hands-on approach in communicating with interested visitors as well as local businesses, co-creating with the community for better development of the destination. This involves newsletter surveys and Exit Survey data to figure out how they'll start to market these projects asking what the perception of the islands are during the off-seasons.
Make sure to watch this talk here if you want to hear more about this project!
During this talk, Jason Bent mentioned that there are three main experiences to discover the islands: nature, culture and flavour.
In 2013 they launched their responsive design website, through which they have used storytelling to showcase different sides to the islands and promote the offerings they have.
He states that like any other destination, they have itineraries and circuits. The problem they had was that none of them was linked to the three main museums which the Îles de la Madeleine have. That is what sparked the idea behind applying design thinking.
This project's journey started with a one-day activity through which over 50 stakeholders and business owners in the archipelago prototyped new projects and initiated new collaborations.
The goals of the project were:
At the same time, there were 6 phases to the project, based on the principles of design thinking:
If you'd like to hear more about what they did in each of the phases to achieve their goals, make sure to watch Jason's entire talk in Stage 12. Exploration & Innovation. We are sure it will provide many new ideas! 👀
Next time, you'll be able to read about the project that we will follow together for the Îles de la Madeleine DMO Journey. So make sure to stay tuned to learn a lot more about them!
All of this, from a Sustainability point of view and with the objective of giving other DMOs real examples of what happens in other organisations and how they deal with their projects.
For this DMO Journey, we will be in touch with Jason Bent, Development Agent and Niche Director at Tourisme Îles de la Madeleine.
All of this, from a Sustainability point of view and with the objective of giving other DMOs real examples of what happens in other organisations and how they deal with their projects.
For this DMO Journey, we will be in touch with Jason Bent, Development Agent and Niche Director at Tourisme Îles de la Madeleine.
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