Turning Fundy potential into star-power attraction

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

The Bay of Fundy’s tidal power has “star” quality.

That is to say, it’s potential as a major tourism draw could generate the kinds of visitor numbers and all the economic spin-off a region could ever hope for - if the region is ready, and it’s marketed the right way.

Kings County tourism operators got a glimpse of major efforts around the Fundy region to do just that. The Kings Community Economic Development Agency’s Tourism Kings hosted an info session in June to talk about new projects - specifically the Bay of Fundy “star generator” project.

“That’s having the capacity for 600,000 to 750,000 visitors a year for the next 10 years,” said N.S. Department of Tourism rep Darlene MacDonald.

There are two million non-resident visits to Nova Scotia every year; Banff attracts four million, the Grand Canyon five million, Disneyworld 16 million. Nothing in Nova Scotia now attracts those kinds of numbers.

“How big do you want to go? We have to look at issues of geography, how we’re unique, the worldwide competition - and make sure what we’re marketing is backed up, that it’s ‘visitor-ready’ with a good experience and service.”

The department has come up with five recommendations toward creating a star generator in the Bay of Fundy. It’s also working with New Brunswick departments, and a number of more localized tourism agencies, community groups and individual operators.

“Tourism Kings itself is working on developing itself as a destination area, but we’re struggling because it’s not just Kings,” said Kings CED development officer Marianne Gates. “We need to be part of the wider region, the whole Bay of Fundy Region.

The recommendations call for a Fundy shore “ecotour,” stringing together dozens of smaller sites to make a bigger attraction. Two discovery centres - one perhaps around the fossil-rich head of the Bay and another to showcase marine wildlife in the Digby area - could be the anchors along the Nova Scotia shoreline. There is also the potential for the signature Cape Split site, now provincially-owned, to become a major part of that chain. Conservation and long-term sustainability are key to all development, which means using the support of regional development authorities to the utmost.

“Well, what’s so special about the Bay of Fundy,” MacDonald asked.

“We have the world’s best - and you can list them, too - tides, coal-age fossils, scallops, hiking, birdwatching, rock hounding, parks, vines and wines, historical sites, coastal villages....

“Put those on a map, see the clusters and the opportunities - and see the gaps.”

One of the biggest challenges is dissolving “boundaries” tourists don’t pay attention to, or find don’t work for their planning - that includes past marketing of Nova Scotia by “trails,” not capitalizing on natural loops created by American ferry traffic coming in through Yarmouth and Digby, heading north and then around through New Brunswick home; and not connecting with the day-trip potential of cruise ships in Saint John and Halifax ports.

Odd ball bay blog hits the mark

Terri McCulloch says she’s “just a real person who loves where I live.”

It’s great she does - and tells the world about it on her blog, bayoffundyblogspot.com.

McCulloch also works with the non-profit Bay of Fundy Tourism Partnership, based in Parrsboro.

“We’re an unusual partnership: two provinces working together on a ‘product club’ - the Bay of Fundy. You can’t promote half of something,” McCulloch says. “We were looking across the bay at New Brunswick and thinking, ‘Man, we’re missing the boat’.”

In nine years, though, the best marketing has come as a surprise result of McCulloch’s blog.

“We do all kinds of odd ball things to get attention,” she says. The blog is free.

“People want to know the most ordinary things: what we eat, how we live ‘way out there’. I can’t tell you how beneficial this has been.”

Explaining the tides, the tidal bore - and the difference; talking about dulse, birding and whales; highlighting the “bloom report” from the Annapolis Royal historic gardens, coastal back roads and all the other attractions is catching the attention of over 1,500 people a week, and McCulloch adds material a few times a week. She’s also making little videos to post on YouTube, and dreams of future webcams.

WEBLINKS

bayoffundyblogspot.com



Fundy facts

• The Bay of Fundy is 270 kilometres long

• The Nova Scotian side of the Bay of Fundy has 1,705 kilometres of coastline