Bursting with Pride

You know it's a good day at work when you hear the voices of your customers and learn about the positive experience they have had with your company. For most in the tourism industry, these are visitors who engage in your experiences. But for our team at the Tourism Cafe, our customers are destination partners who support the operators in their region to design, develop, price, and launch into market, new visitor experiences for their guests.

When COVID-19 shut down the country, I was en route to deliver the keynote address to the provincial tourism conference in Saskatchewan. Well, that didn't happen, but something magical replaced it that I believe will have a much longer legacy with tourism businesses in Saskatchewan.

I was invited to join the Achieving AWEsome program team to support 'Step 3 - AWEsome Actions' element that fast-tracks the experience design, development, costing and pricing to prepare them for piloting their experience with the Tourism Saskatchewan Industry Development team and take it to market.

And a mega bonus of this project was working with my two sons during COVID! Luc Arsenault, a Jazz Pilot and Flight Instructor, was the e-course designer and bilingual narrator for two of the courses during his COVID-lay off. Marco Arsenault, my other son, a high school math and computer science instructor was the tech user-tester to ensure the course functioned as it should.

Over the years, like the participants, we learned together, refined the program, and found ways to celebrate success.

Now, as I hear the voices of our alumni in the program video produced, I'm bursting with pride at how much these wonderful tourism operators have achieved in my home province of Saskatchewan!

I can't wait to get the list of participants who have been pre-qualified for the fall course, and to continue working with Denise Stroeder, Corrina Kapeller, and Brenden Branscombe at Tourism Saskatchewan.