PEI, BC Top Honours For Quality Tourism

A new measure of tourism success has been introduced in Canada.

While performance statistics based on measuring the number of visitors and their spending are common place in the Canadian tourism industry, this focus, according to Resonance Consultancy, misses one of the most important aspects of today’s tourism business – analysis of the relative quality of the tourism experience from one province and destination to the next from the all-important visitors’ point of view.

Resonance Consultancy’s newly released Canada Tourism Quality Index benchmarks the quality of tourism in Canada by using the ratings and reviews of experiences published by travellers themselves in social media channels, combined with core statistics for factors such as convention centres and flight access.

“The perception and reputation of tourism destinations is defined less and less by the industry and traditional media, and increasingly by visitors themselves as more than 300 million travellers a month, and growing, use social media channels such as TripAdvisor to decide where to go on their next vacation,” says Resonance Consultancy president Chris Fair.

When Resonance considered total number of visitors and total quality tourism products, Ontario came out as Canada’s #1 tourism destination. But in the company’s analysis of which provinces offer the most quality tourism products, activities and experiences per visitor, the results were quite different. This Indexed Ranking of Canadian provinces in the Tourism Quality Index produced new winners: 1. Prince Edward Island; 2. British Columbia; 3. Nova Scotia; 4. Newfoundland and Labrador; 5. New Brunswick; 6. Alberta; 7. Ontario; 8. Manitoba; 9. Quebec; 10. Saskatchewan.

“Quantity of visitors is not the only measure by which tourism destinations should be measuring their performance,” says Fair. “Experiential travel and the quality of that experience is key to attracting more international travellers and reversing Canada’s declining share of international visitors.”

To download a copy of the Canada Tourism Quality Index Report, visit http://resonanceco.com/cdnreport.html .