Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Tourism Nova Scotia is offering support to tourism operators who want to expand their business through the travel trade. The new Atlantic Canada Travel Trade Readiness Program, launched Tuesday, June 12, includes a toolkit, workshops, webinars and mentoring from our market development team.
What is the travel trade?
Travel trade refers to the distribution network for tourism products comprised of travel agents, online travel agents, tour operators and tourism operators.
What are the benefits of working with the travel trade?
Working with partners in the travel trade can help you grow your business by expanding your marketing reach in international markets, driving repeat business, and extending your travel season. Travel trade tends to reserve product well in advance of arrival, allowing you to better predict cash flow.
How can the Atlantic Travel Trade Readiness Program help me?
This new program provides insights on how to decide if working with travel trade is right for your business, how to prepare your business for working with the travel trade, and how to gain new travel trade partners.
The program’s Travel Trade Toolkit includes tactics, processes and best-practices on how to develop and expand your business through travel trade. You can download the toolkit from our website. This toolkit can be used on its own, in full or by section, or in tandem with program workshops.
“I am excited to share this toolkit with our team. It will help them see the importance of building and maintaining relationships.” – Kevin Burgess, Senior Sales Manager, Ambasstours/Murphy’s Cable Wharf
Tourism Nova Scotia held three travel trade readiness workshops in the Spring of 2018, which had 58 industry participants.
“The workshop I attended was full of useful and interesting information. The content and delivery was great no matter your level of travel trade knowledge or experience. It was an excellent opportunity to meet other tourism operators and hear about the challenges and advantages of working with the travel trade from various perspectives. This workshop was worth the long drive from Advocate Harbour to Halifax!” – Anne Grabinsky, Owner and Operator, Nova Shores Adventures
Additional workshops will be announced through our inTouch newsletter in the fall of 2018. To request updates about the program and upcoming workshops, you can contact Jennifer McKeane, Tourism Development Advisor, at jennifer.mckeane@novascotia.ca.
Tourism Nova Scotia’s market development team builds business relationships with key buyers and travel media in our target markets and coordinates with tourism businesses who are ready to participate in the travel trade to promote their tourism products to buyers. The team can offer guidance to operators who are interested in working with the travel trade and help connect you with travel trade partners. For more information, contact Peter Johnson, Manager of Market Development, at peter.johnson@novascotia.ca.
The Atlantic Canada Travel Trade Readiness Program was developed through a partnership between the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the tourism organizations for the four Atlantic provinces.