About this Event
In Maine, where tourism generates $8.6 billion, local businesses and organizations have a unique opportunity to tap into this thriving market. Learning how to more effectively engage with the visitor economy, businesses can share their unique stories with a diverse audience, capturing new and expanding markets.
Session 1 (90 minutes): Creating welcoming environments requires essential skills that resonate with visitors from various backgrounds. Community tourism training will help businesses and nonprofits better market themselves to visitors from diverse backgrounds, as well as develop their products and services with the visitor market in mind. The training also plays a crucial role in fostering cultural learning and understanding, ensuring that Maine’s tourism industry reflects the rich diversity of its communities and provides meaningful, inclusive experiences for all.
Session 2 (90 minutes): This training plays a crucial role in fostering cultural learning and understanding, ensuring that Maine’s tourism industry reflects the rich diversity of its communities and provides meaningful, inclusive experiences for all. This will be a facilitated discussion that will help business owners and organizations move from where they are now to where they could be. This kind of shift often requires self-reflection, conversation, questions and answers -- rather than simply receiving a list of steps to take. Learning the tools of being an inclusive visitor destination will help participants adapt their business practices to a changing demographic of tourists.
Instructors: Planeterra (Thomas Armitt and Julia Pitcher) and Shay Stewart Bouley
Planeterra is the world’s leading NGO turning travel into impact in communities. Their impact and market-driven, traveler-centric model and the resulting ripple effects help ensure more money stays in the hands of local people. Put simply, it is a better kind of tourism – improving the lives of community members as they provide the traveler with more meaningful experiences.
Shay Stewart Bouley's expertise is facilitating conversations around the topic of inclusion. She is also a skilled trainer, workshop presenter and facilitator with a focus on creating inclusivity and equity. Over the years, Shay’s work has been featured in various national publications and anthologies, including Yes Magazine and The Huffington Post. She also wrote for many years for the now-defunct Portland Phoenix as the “Diverse City” columnist and is a former TedX speaker.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Heart of Biddeford, 205 Main Street, Biddeford, United States
USD 0.00
