I was in a large bookstore in Sao Paulo last week and I picked up the tourism guide for Canada that was on display there. It was a whole book on Canada (large magazine format) with a couple of hundred pages. There were whole profiles of Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, BC, and many sub-regions in those provinces profile.
Nary a mention of New Brunswick in the whole document except for the one map:
I don’t know if you can see that but it reads “News Brunswick”.
I realize that Brazil is not a top tourist market for New Brunswick but there needs to be some way that we can ensure at least basic information on the province is right.
I know the Tourism dept. spends several hundred thousand on market research, tourist surveys, market assessments, etc. each year. Might be a good idea to spend a couple of hundred to purchase the top tourism guides in top international markets to make sure that if NB is mentioned at least they get the spelling right. They could order most of these publications online.
They may also want to spend just a few bucks contacting these publications to see if at least some basic information on New Brunswick can be included.
Just a thought.
Your so observant,when you want to knife. Half of BC knows where NB is, it in the east somewhere near Nova Scotia.Heard it many times, any comments,lol
Brazil has no interest in something of no interest. But neither does Canada.
@Anonymous
“Brazil has no interest in something of no interest. But neither does Canada.”
> Interesting (and candid) comment. If a Brazilian is planning a one-week vacation in Canada, why would he come to New Brunswick? Let’s honestly check the competition: Niagara falls, Quebec City, Peggy’s Cove, Cape Breton, Lunenburg, Newfoundland, Banff, Jasper, Drumheller, Whistler, Vancouver, Victoria (just to name a few). What do we have in NB to face the competition? L’Acadie? (come on! after Quebec City and Montreal?) The tides in the Bay of Fundy? (try again, you can see the same phenomenon in Maranhao, Brazil).
Let’s be realistic and focus on other areas where NB may actually have a competitive advantage.
As I said in my post, I am not saying we should ‘focus’ on Brazil or India or China or anywhere else for tourists. But I think spending a couple of hundred bucks on these tourism publications to ensure that if they mention New Brunswick it is in a positive light, makes sense to me.
Travellers QUICKLY tire of ‘seeing stuff’. I went to Niagara Falls a few years ago, what you find is thousands of tourists, thousands of ads for casino’s, and oh yeah, there’s a waterfall there I think. It was pretty enough, but I’d prefer to be looking at it on an IMAX screen.
The acadian peninsula is VERY different from Quebec City. The french in Quebec I’ve found have been FAR from,shall we say, accomodating. They learned too much from France, a place not too many go for wonderful hospitality.
We went to Switzerland last fall and by far the reason to go (or stay) was ‘public policy’. There’s stuff to see, but everyplace has stuff to see. At the university of geneva there were dozens of placards for the dozens of political parties preparing for the upcoming election. There were people talking about issues because at the election, of course, the swiss were voting on literally hundreds of issues as referenda questions. In Lausanne people were discussing which way they should vote on whether eyeglasses should be exempt from tax for those over 40.
Two memories stand out, first, the swiss aren’t nearly as anal as canadians-concrete was all filled with artwork (the graffiti kind), in fact it was encouraged. The trains were spectacular, far nicer than even VIA rails snooty service.
The mountains have spectacular views, but so does Fundy Trail. As vegetarians this was virtually the ONLY time we’d ever had a sausage in YEARS. That’s because agriculture is mostly local, and Swiss animals have more rights than many canadians. Animals are guaranteed a certain amount of living space, by law must be taken outside, given social contact, and are killed humanely only after a specific age. The potatoes were out of this world, I didn’t know a potato could taste like that, and all because with a local market, they don’t just grow ‘Yukon Gold’ which is grown for its lengthy shelf life (certainly not for taste). I’ve been horrified at St. John restaurants to be given fish and chips that came out of a box! Imagine a tourists reaction…’you are right next to the ocean and are giving me fish from a grocery store?’
So two points there, people-at least a LOT of people, don’t just travel to see natural resources, and even once they do its not just that they remember. Second, public policy can be a HUGE draw, how the society functions can determine its tourism resources as much as anything.
And again, I’m in Waterloo where there is virtually NOTHING worth seeing. The ‘good’ things about the place are all social aspects-as I work I drive by mennonites plowing their field with horses and I can stop at a mennonite stand and buy produce that I know has never seen a chemical (sort of like PEI almost did). During this year of astronomy I have been to three talks at the Perimeter Institute by noted astronomers. Here in Waterloo I’d have to drive an hour and a half just to find a body of water big enough to put a boat in! You can ‘canoe the Grand’ as a popular local attraction, but of course you can also HIKE the Grand because the water is never more than two feet deep!
And of course Nova Scotia has few views that New Brunswick doesn’t have, yet all over the world people have heard of Nova Scotia and PEI, even Newfoundland. The reason they haven’t heard of New Brunswick is all up to New Brunswick. To be conspiratorial, I do think Irving has a lot to do with it, because like I said, anytime I talk about public policy in NB and its economy most people are simply horrified. It’s no coincidence that I can’t even get an NB paper at ANY library here, not even university ones (lots from PEI and NS though). There’d be a lot more attention to anti monopoly legislation if every canadian knew about the NB economy.
Sorry to add more, but I forgot a perfect local example-St. Jacobs. This is a ‘village’ just north of Waterloo. The interesting thing about this ‘village’ is that its essentially a tourist trap. It gets buses with tourists from all over the world. It’s famous for its ‘shops’, but objectively speaking,there’s nothing special about its shops. Check out their website at st.jacobs.com. It would be an interesting study to see how this town ‘sold itself’ because there really is nothing special about it. Likewise, a town called ‘Elmira’ has a Maply Syrop Festival that brings in THOUSANDS (we’ve never even gone, we saw the parking one year and said forget it).
Tourism is definitely something not to sell short. Just remember that CEO’s are tourists sometimes too. Remember that story of IBM setting up in Vermont because the CEO liked the skiing?
@David Campbell
OK, maybe the “focus” word was too strong. Let’s replace it by “concentrate efforts”. I honestly believe that GNB’s efforts (and money) in the tourism front shouldn’t go too far beyond RAISING AWARENESS about the province.