Local economic development and promotion go hand in hand. Investment attraction, tourism marketing, and resident attraction are important for a successful economy. In this section, you can learn how to promote your community from others who’ve had success.
Vancouver Island is a popular tourist destination with stunning mountains, lakes, rivers, and oceanfront. Busy lives and competing priorities often mean residents can’t experience everything their neighbouring communities have to offer. During COVID-19, the #ExploreNextDoor campaign encouraged people living in the Comox Valley, Campbell River and surrounding district to learn more about their region and support their neighbouring communities in the process.
The Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) wanted to challenge the seasonal nature of the tourism industry in the region so a pilot project was created using big data to better understand visitor volumes at the Kettle Valley Rail Trail. The pilot’s success shows the importance of data when planning for tourism growth.
Using visitor data and a simple online quiz, Explore Gold Country has identified its target markets for tourism and developed social media videos to pique their curiosity and attract visitors. The videos are the showpieces of a well-rounded, multi-community tourism marketing strategy.
Love Northern BC provides marketing support and a prominent digital presence to help locals and visitors search for and find businesses based in one of Canada’s most colourful regions.
The City of Powell River uses social media and taps into new and long-time residents to attract visitors to their community, then makes it easy for visitors to make the move permanently.
Are there any young urban creatives interested in moving to small-town B.C.? The BC Rural Centre decided to find out, inviting urban dwellers to explain why they’d like to escape the city for a chance to win a trip, in an innovative social media campaign.
The “Island Good” campaign tested the theory that Vancouver Islanders would choose locally sourced food and beverage products first, when they could easily identify them in the grocery store.
Community Futures Thompson Country (CFTC) launched "Apples-to-Apples" as a progressive and identifiable marketing campaign designed to promote a fresh new look to the organization’s image. The campaign is coined "Apples-to-Apples" as CFTC deals with a diverse group of businesses and individuals daily, noting that each is unique and it is not always a case of comparing apples-to-apples. CFTC’s role is to make sense of clients' "apples and oranges" diversity and to demonstrate an understanding that a customized approach is needed for each individual.
In November 2015, the Township of Langley released its new Business Attraction Video at the Township’s annual Economic Forum. The video, produced by videographer, photographer, composer and life-long Langley local, Jef Gibbons and wife Becca, was designed to feature local business owners and managers. Each shared in their own candid words why they’ve chosen to locate their business in the Township of Langley and what doing business in the Township offers to businesses of all sizes.
The strong growth of tourism in Revelstoke in recent years prompted the community to build a a new, permanent Tourism and Business Information Centre. The Centre is designed to provide enhanced services to tourists and investors to meet short and long term goals.
Digital marketing might be the backbone of modern investment attraction strategies, but the District of Stewart has proved that an old fashioned brochure can still attract industry to town. Stikine Forest Products, a logging subsidiary of Vancouver-based Brinkman Forest Ltd., recently inked a three-year lease agreement with the District of Stewart for a five-acre parcel of land near Canada’s most northerly ice-free port.
Watch related BC Ideas Exchange webinars about Promoting Your Community.
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