Partnerships - Rockies Intelligence

Your Town A Destination -

In this months feature from Your Town A Destination,Rule #2 Roger and Maury talk about the rule of relationships, and how they require more than one person. In this chapter, they also explain how building relationships between business, agency and government is such an important role in developing tourism strategies.

This month we would like to feature two key success stories about partnerships, both developed during the five year span of the Tourism Knowledge Cluster. The partnership between National Geographic and The Crown of the Continent, and the geotourism Mapguide that was created which covers South Eastern British Columbia into Alberta and down to Montana, and the partnerships developed through the Tourism Cluster .

Check out these business features and more in the April issue of Rockies Tourism Networker newsletter.

Previously featured - Rule #16, Rule #13, Rule#22, Rule #24

TOURISM KNOWLEDGE CLUSTER Partnerships

It takes two to tango and to make a successful partnership.

Partnerships can be between two people or between two or more large organizations or social bodies.

In the case of the College of the Rockies’ (COTR) Rural Tourism Cluster, the partnership included government, industry/business and the college, with the community it serves as the heart of the program.

Covering the same broad area that the college serves, from Golden in the north to Creston in the west to Elkford in the east and Cranbrook/Kimberley area in the south, the Rural Tourism Cluster has worked to create an enormous volume of beneficial and need-to-know information for tourism operators and educators.

It isn’t easy creating partnerships but their value is understated and long-lasting.

In an evaluation of Rural Knowledge Clusters, Victor Cumming of Westcoast CED Consulting Ltd. noted, “One of key lessons is that some partnerships take years to develop and only then are they able to design and initiate activities that are mutually beneficial. Building trust is often a slow process measured in years, not days or weeks. Other partners are “ready, willing, and able” so cementing these relationships is relatively easy. In the case of this site, the partnerships covered the whole spectrum.”

COTR’s Carrie Schafer, who helmed the cluster project, said many eyes have been opened toward the concept of partnering in tourism.

“The cluster has brought together all different tourism industry business operators who traditionally don’t get together or have been competing against each other in the past. With the college being the coordinator, is it a non-threatening opportunity to work together with positive results. Businesses have shared issues, brainstormed solutions and experimented with results such as Copper Point Golf Club general manager Brian Schaal sharing employees with Panorama (Mountain Village), resulting in better employees, reducing seasonal employment, saving money on recruitment, retention and training of employees.

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