Premier Kolab in the Kawarthas Tourism Event in Review.
Our Creative Director, Jack spent the day April 21st at the first Kollab in the Kawarthas event hosted at Elmhurst Resort organized by Peterborough County Tourism. It was a great day learning and connecting with many tourism operators from the county at an event built to make connections within the industry.
Loon in the Mist Creative Director Jack Henry with partner and Chaos Controller at Linklater Administration, Thamer Linklater on the Elmhirst Patio on the shores of Rice Lake
Resources for Tourism Operators.
The event featured two panel discussions with speakers within the Tourism industry as well as speakers from the Ontario Government, Destination Ontario RTO8 and the County. Below are some of our key takeaways from the event and some resources we learned about that tourism operators have access to.
Traveler Insights available from Destination Ontario - doinsights.crg.ca - Registration is required but we have access and can share the information with you as our client!
Stock Imagery available from Destination Ontario - platform.crowdriff.com/m/destinationontario - Registration is required but we have access and can help you utilize the photos in your marketing.
The Kawarthas Event Calendar - thekawarthas.ca/submit-event - You can use this page to submit a tourism related event to have it appear on the thekawarthas.ca event calendar.
Tourism Business Profile - thekawarthas.ca/business-registration- You can use this page to create a profile for your business on thekawarthas.ca for free and take advantage of the reach of our DMO to potential visitors.
Interactive Map - thekawarthas.ca/map
Generative AI Planning Trips.
Visitors are increasingly using AI-driven tools to research, compare and personalize trips, relying on instant itinerary suggestions, curated activity lists and natural-language queries like “family-friendly Kawarthas weekend with kayaking.” Businesses in Peterborough and the Kawarthas can leverage AI and SEO by optimising content for conversational queries and featured snippets, using AI to generate localised landing pages, FAQs and schema markup that highlight seasonal experiences, and training chatbots or generative agents on their unique offerings (cottage stays, trails, tours, events) to deliver accurate bookings and upsell opportunities; combining strong local SEO, structured data, and AI-powered content personalisation increases visibility in search results and voice assistants, turns search intent into direct bookings, and keeps the destination top-of-mind year-round.
Customer Segmentation.
Peterborough County Tourism has launched a new visitor segmentation program aligned with the types of visitors that the County is best equipped to welcome. These segments are aligned with Destination Canada’s and the Canadian Tourism Data Collective’s visitor segments and include the below segments with the name given to them by Peterborough County.
Simplicity Lovers / Bears
Outdoor Explorers / Foxes
Culture Seekers / Bees
Purpose Driven Families / Otters
We recently published an article about how tourism businesses in Peterborough County can leverage their marketing to these segments of travelers. That article can be found here.
Want help connecting your business to one of these segments or redesigning your website, brand or other marketing materials or campaigns to appeal to these travelers? Loon in the Mist Creative can help. Our Creative Director has years of experience visiting Peterborough and the Kawarthas providing us with unique insights into the visitor experience. Connect with us to schedule a discovery meeting today!