Work with Tourism Nova Scotia to build your community’s appeal as a travel destination through the 2025-2026 Emerging Destinations Program. 

The Emerging Destinations Program helps communities build capacity to identify and position your most compelling tourism assets, such as attractions, experiences, food and drink, events, and accommodations to increase awareness with potential travellers.

Program partners will benefit from:

• Coaching, tools and resources to identify and position your most compelling tourism products and develop a tourism action plan;
• Exploring opportunities to maximize or extend a tourism season;
• Target market research insights for regional travellers; and
• A travel media/influencer visit to generate new photos and digital content to increase the profile of the community's seasonal tourism products (such as a social media post and a new story/travel itinerary on NovaScotia.com).

Municipalities, chambers of commerce, and business associations representing a community offering a compelling tourism cluster with a minimum of five market-aligned businesses and attractions are invited to apply. Compelling clusters must include a unique place to stay, somewhere to eat local flavours, and something to do. Organizations interested in collaborating to maximize tourism opportunities are asked to identify a season of focus, preferably fall or winter, with late-summer also eligible in applications.

The deadline to apply is Wednesday, May 7 at 4:00 p.m. ADT.

The program guidelines, eligibility and online application are available at https://tourismns.ca/ctc-programs-emerging-destinations.