YEAR-END OPERATOR SURVEY

Firstly, we would like to thank you all for participating in the Experience Fishing program! As our fiscal year draws to a close, we need your help in gathering some data for our year-end report on the program’s success.

If you could spare just 2 minutes to provide this information, it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you all in advance!

UPDATING THE EXPERIENCE FISHING TRAINING MODULES

Over the coming months, the Experience Fishing operator training modules will be refreshed and will become more interactive!

We want to thank Tourism Excellence North for this opportunity. We are looking forward to sharing the new and improved content with you. Stay tunned!

ABOUT TOURISM EXCELLENCE NORTH:

Tourism Excellence North (TEN) offers training to help you learn the skills to grow your business, your community, and tourism across Northern Ontario. Check out their website to learn more about all the great training opportunities available to operators and their staff.

FAST TRACK TO SUCCESS

Personalized Coaching for Your Business

There is still time to participate! Experience Fishing is happy to cover the costs to allow participating operators the opportunity to participate in Tourism Excellence North’s Fast Track to Success program ($3,500 value)!

TEN’s Fast Track to Success (FTS) is a one-on-one coaching program, delivered by a skilled consultant retained by Tourism Excellence North (TEN) – called a TEN Trainer.

Working with owners and operators at their business during their operating season, over a 24- hour period, the TEN Trainer provides practical and useful advice to improve the operation. The coaching opportunity includes a pre-visit survey, on-site visit by the TEN Trainer, recommendations that ‘can be implemented the next day’ and two post-visit opportunities for support.

During their visit, TEN Specialists will participate in, stay in, or experience all operations while paying market rates.

What types of businesses are good candidates for the program?

• Operations that want to confirm they are ‘on track’
• Operations that want help responding to shifting market needs/interests and prepare for the future
• Operations needing assistance with visitor experiences
• Operations wanting objective recommendations to strengthen their overall operation
• Operations under transition. FTS can provide objective advice for operations under transition or thinking about it (i.e. ownership, family succession, new markets/products).

PLEASE NOTE: To qualify, operators must not have completed the Fast Track to Success program within the last 5 years. Please complete the form and submit it to kate@noto.net to confirm your interest.

SEASON IN FULL SWING!

We are very excited to hear some success stories from participating operators who have seen an increase in new anglers over the winter season.

If you have an ice fishing package that is beginner/family friendly, please don’t hesitate to reach out to experiencefishing@noto.net to have it listed on our consumer website and promoted through our social media pages through an operator spotlight!

BUILDING OUR YOUTUBE SERIES

Experience Fishing is happy to work with Paul Ethier from FishON! to build ice fishing tutorial videos that can be used by new anglers to help them prepare, gain confidence and enhance their ice fishing skills.

Stay tunned for more!

EXPERIENCE FISHING RACK CARDS

We encourage operators to bring Experience Fishing rack cards when they go to tradeshows to help promote the program and talk about their package!

Need cards? E-mail kate@noto.net and provide your mailing address and we will send them ASAP.

TARGETTING DEMOGRAPHICS

In partnership with Epoch Times, Northeastern Ontario Tourism and Destination Northern Ontario, a campaign will be launched to promote the Experience Fishing program to the Asian market.

This will include:

• Experience Fishing Chinese landing Page on their Travel Ontario website
• Content marketing including a high-quality article about the program, with optimized SEO to highlight Northern Ontario’s attractions and travel experiences
• Chinese subtitles in Experience Fishing program promotional video on the Travel Ontario YouTube channel.

The full launch of the campaign is anticipated for Spring 2025. We would like to thank Epoch Times, Northeastern Ontario Tourism and Destination Northern Ontario for their support on this initiative!

FREE EXPOSURE OPPORTUNITIES

Consumer Website Listing:

As we continue to focus on consumer marketing, we encourage you to review your business listing on the Experience Fishing consumer website and to let us know if you would like to make any changes: https://northernontario.travel/experience-fishing

If you have any winter packages for beginners or families alike that you would like to include on the Experience Fishing consumer website, please let us know and send over your package details. We would be happy to include them on our website!

Social Media:

Over the winter months, we will create operator and sponsor spotlights on our social media pages. To take advantage of the spotlight opportunities, please provide us with some images from your business and short text (all businesses will be tagged in their spotlights with a link to their website). For lodges, these pictures would ideally be of the Experience Fishing target audience (women, children, families, newcomers), but pictures of avid anglers to include in the mix are always welcomed!

Don’t forget to tag Experience Fishing on your Facebook posts featuring new anglers or families enjoying a great Canadian tradition at your lodge:

• Facebook: @ExperienceFishingON
• Instagram: @experience.fishing

Tradeshows:

If you would like some Experience Fishing program rack cards to bring with you to tradeshows, or to share at your local outfitting stores, tourism info centers, events, etc. please let us know and we will mail you some.

We look forward to hearing from you!

DON’T FORGET ABOUT THESE RESOURCES:

As Experience Fishing operators, you have access to several resources such as free training and resources for you and your staff through our partners at Tourism Excellence North, as well as several Experience Fishing specific resources in our Operator Dropbox to help you implement and market the program at your business.

Don’t forget about our YouTube tutorial videos that you can share to help your guests prepare for their trips and to help them enhance their angling knowledge & skills.

TALK ABOUT EXPERIENCE FISHING

We continue to encourage operators to mention the Experience Fishing program on their website and social media profiles.

To help continue to build the momentum and to build program awareness, we would greatly appreciate if you could add a statement such as “Proud to be an Experience Fishing location” or to place a copy of the Experience Fishing logo on your websites if you haven’t already done so.

A thought exercise:

If I am a guest who is new to fishing who came across your business listing through the Experience Fishing program’s consumer website, I would be actively looking for key words, symbols or package names/descriptions that mention the Experience Fishing program or feature the program’s logo. If the business’ website is predominately designed in a way that focuses solely on avids, and the package descriptions don’t mention family activities or beginner-friendly terminology, I would likely continue searching for other businesses who’s websites are more all-inclusive focusing on beginners, families & avids alike.

We are always happy to help with suggestions on how you can get the most out of the Experience Fishing Program.