“I hope that travellers are inspired to get to know people that are hosting experiences… people do this work because they want to, not because it’s easy… You can’t replace passion.” – Joanne Wolnik

How can tourism destinations create the conditions for life-changing travel experiences?  In Southwestern Ontario, that’s exactly what’s happening through innovative experience development programs that put passion and transformation at the heart of travel.

Joanne Wolnik, Executive Director of Ontario’s Southwest, a regional tourism organization, reveals how her region is creating remarkable experiences that benefit both visitors and locals. From urban beekeeping in London to artisan charcuterie board workshops in rural Tilburg, these aren’t typical tourist activities—they’re transformational experiences that teach visitors skills they can take home and continue using.

The community of passionate entrepreneurs have found themselves in tourism not by design, but because their unique skills and crafts naturally attract visitors from away. Destination Think learned how the organization supports these experience hosts through comprehensive development programs that cover everything from sustainable sourcing and storytelling to pricing strategies and market development. The approach focuses on creating year-round viability rather than seasonal peaks, spreading tourism benefits throughout the community while preserving what makes the region special.

In this episode of Travel Beyond, you’ll also learn:

• How Southwestern Ontario’s longer growing season creates unique culinary tourism opportunities with farm-to-table experiences that showcase local producers and chefs working as neighbours.

• How urban beekeeping experiences in London, Ontario are teaching visitors practical skills they can implement at home to support native bee populations regardless of where they live.

• How artisan workshops in rural Southwestern Ontario communities like Tilburg are creating transformational experiences where visitors craft charcuterie boards using sustainably sourced wood and family heirloom tools.

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Show notes

Green Step Solutions — Sustainability consulting organization helping tourism businesses develop environmental certification and three-year sustainability plans.

Lola Bees Urban Beekeeping Experience — An innovative London, Ontario experience teaching visitors about urban beekeeping and practical steps they can take at home to support native bee populations.

Ontario’s Southwest — The destination management and marketing organization covering southwestern Ontario from Windsor to Grand Bend, supporting experience development and sustainable tourism practices.

Tree to Table Charcuterie Experience — A transformational artisan workshop in Tilburg where visitors learn sustainable wood sourcing, use family heirloom tools, and create their own charcuterie boards.

Episode transcript

Joanne Wolnik: I hope that travellers are inspired to get to know people that are hosting experiences. People do this work because they want to, not because it’s easy. You can’t replace passion.

Peter McCully: Welcome to Travel Beyond. I’m Peter McCully for Destination Think. On this episode, we look at travel’s role in making a better world, and we highlight leading destinations and change makers. Our guests are taking local action that the world can learn from. They’re helping to regenerate ecosystems, communities, and economies, and they’re sometimes making positive change happen from the bottom up.

Many of the voices we’ve highlighted are part of the Destination Think collective, a peer group of more than 20 ambitious, forward-thinking destinations working toward a better future for travel and the planet. On today’s show, we’re thinking about what makes a truly meaningful travel experience, especially when it strengthens communities and teaches visitors something new.

Ontario Southwest is making these experiences more common by providing experience development programs that put passion and transformation at the heart of travel. From urban beekeeping workshops in London to artisan charcuterie board creation in rural Tillsonburg, these aren’t typical tourist activities.

They’re transformational experiences that teach visitors skills they can take home and continue using. Southwestern Ontario is also home to innovative sustainability programs that help tourism businesses develop environmental certification. And now, with comprehensive support for experience hosts, Ontario Southwest Regional Tourism Organization is nurturing authentic connections that strengthen communities while creating memorable travel experiences.

David Archer, editorial manager at Destination Think, spoke with Joanne Wolnik of Ontario Southwest Regional Tourism Organization about how passionate artisans create the most transformational travel experiences when they share what they love most with the world.

Joanne Wolnik: My name is Joanne Wolnik. I’m the executive director for Ontario Southwest Regional Tourism Organization.

David Archer: Great. How’d you first get into travel?

Joanne Wolnik: Oh, goodness. Great question. So I actually took my undergrad in outdoor recreation with a minor in tourism. It sounded like a really great program. It’s something that I’ve always been curious about.

Obviously, I think we’re all innately curious about travel and tourism in general. Through that program, I was really able to learn what some of the career opportunities in the tourism sector were and what they looked like and what was required. After that, I did my master’s in business, which really helped pair a lot of those things that you would need together from a business case perspective and a business strategy perspective for tourism as well.

David Archer: Can you introduce Southwestern Ontario to us for those of us who haven’t visited yet? And for international listeners, what would you like them to know about the region?

Joanne Wolnik: Absolutely. We can’t wait to welcome you to Ontario Southwest when you can come, but Ontario Southwest—what it looks like is we are along the North Shore of Lake Erie. We are the southernmost tip of Ontario. And so we go right from Windsor, which is just right across the river from Detroit, up to Grand Bend, which is on Lake Huron.

And then we cut over through Lambton County, Middlesex County, London, into Oxford. And then along the rest of the North Shore of Lake Erie, up to the region of Niagara. So Haldimand County, Norfolk County, Elgin, Chatham-Kent, Windsor, Essex. I think I’ve named most of our geography in that. It’s a very—it’s a good mix between urban centers, small- to medium-sized urban centers like London, Sarnia, and Windsor, and some rural areas as well.

So when you say entrepreneurship, I mean you look at where we are in relation to GTA and Toronto. The cost of entry for business entrepreneurship is a little bit lower in some parts of our region, which naturally creates a really attractive draw. And we’ve got a beautiful landscape. We’ve got beautiful nature.

We’ve got really creative people. And with all of that combined, it’s a really nice complement and destination for people that is accessible. It’s friendly, and there’s a lot of really cool things going on. I’m excited to tell you a little bit more about it in a bit.

David Archer: I was reading up on it a little bit, and it looks like it’s a region that relies on agritourism and that the rural aspect is quite present as well, and I’m sure that shows up in the businesses too. What do you think residents of the region are most proud of?

Joanne Wolnik: Gosh, that’s a great question. I think that they’re probably most proud of just the sense of community that is built. A lot of people that live in Southwestern Ontario—they’re here because they want to be. It’s a beautiful area, and I think they appreciate all of the natural assets that they have around them.

They appreciate the access to things that they have. And I would say that’s probably one of the top things, if I were to make a guess.

David Archer: What’s one thing that you miss about this place while you’re away?

Joanne Wolnik: Oh my goodness. It’s the people for sure. The people in Ontario Southwest are incredible. They’re creative, they’re welcoming. It’s 100 percent the people.

David Archer: And if you could—and I know this is hard to sum up sometimes—but what do you think some of the values that the region stands for are?

Joanne Wolnik: Hospitality for sure would be one. We take care of each other. Another one would be, I would say, care for not only people, but care for the environment as well.

I don’t think we take for granted what we have here, and so people want to see that protected. We’ve got some incredible habitats—one of the top birding places in Canada for migratory birds. And we’re primed for that right now, being the middle of May as we record this. But we’ve got the Festival of Birds happening right now in Point Pelee, Pelee Island, Rondeau, and Long Point, where this is where a lot of these birds touch down.

When you think about that ecosystem and how important it is for migratory birds amongst other species as well, it’s incredibly important, incredibly valued as well.

David Archer: What are some of the other ways that sort of love for nature shows up in the travel experience? If we were to visit,

Joanne Wolnik: We have a lot of urban and rural tourism operators and experiences, and we find that connection to nature comes out in both.

I think we expect it for the rural ones and agritourism and just everything that’s possible there. But we also see it come out in the urban centres as well. So for example, in London, there is an urban beekeeping experience that you can take with Lola Bees. What does urban beekeeping look like? And what can you do if you live in an urban centre to support the natural bee populations?

David Archer: Who tends to visit Southwest Ontario? Are you seeing a lot of international travelers? You’re close to Toronto, so I imagine you get regional visitors too, but what’s the mix like?

Joanne Wolnik: We see a lot of weekend travellers, day trippers, people that are coming in from near border markets, so Toronto, Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton.

We also have our near border US markets that are coming in as well. So we do see a lot of visitation that comes in through Michigan as well. People are coming with their families, they’re coming with friends, they’re coming for a couple days, couple evenings, couple overnights, and they’re really—what we’re finding is that they’re attracted to the small town charm.

They’re attracted to the people, some of the unique things that they can do here, and the response that we get is that people love the outdoors. They love the culinary and the food and beverage scene here. It’s really unique. The thing that I love about the food and beverage scene here specifically is that because we do have that beautiful mix of urban and rural, we’ve got chefs that are neighbors with producers and farmers. And so those connections are really important, and it means that they can put some really creative things on plates. But then also, we have, because of our geography, we have a longer growing season on average by about two weeks on either side.

From a culinary perspective, that’s really nice because we get access to certain things that might not be available in other parts of Ontario or Canada.

David Archer: You are the southernmost point in Canada, I believe. So maybe things are a little warmer there?

Joanne Wolnik: Absolutely. We’ve got some beautiful wine regions.

I know Niagara is known so well for their wine, but I’m talking about further south and west than Niagara. We’ve got two great wine regions with many wineries as a part of that, and that is because of the conditions that they’re able to grow their grapes in.

David Archer: I talk about this with a lot of our guests—some folks that work in destination marketing are trying to overturn misconceptions about their destination.

Are there any—is there anything that you’d like to overturn or to debunk among travelers about your region?

Joanne Wolnik: I can’t think of anything that I want to debunk specifically other than the fact that rural parts of Ontario have some pretty incredible tourism opportunities. I don’t know if that’s a myth that’s worth debunking, but I think when I think about—I grew up in the region and being a kid thinking, “Oh, what’s there to do here?”

But then you leave and come back and you appreciate it so much more from a different perspective. And being surrounded by rural parts of Ontario, it’s really fascinating. Like it is really cool and it provides so many opportunities, and we find that’s what a lot of people are really attracted to—my point about small town charm and hospitality.

And then also, of course, the waterfront too. People love port towns and their charm.

David Archer: On this show, we’ve heard about many ways that tourism operators and places are developing new travel experiences with a commitment to sustainability or regeneration. Are there some experiences that are innovative that you’d like to talk about, that you’re most excited about in terms of sustainability?

Joanne Wolnik: Absolutely. To bring out my example earlier with Lola Bees, it’s an incredible experience. It brings people into the City of London and teaches you about beekeeping in an urban centre and what you can do when you go home to support the native bee populations around you no matter where you live, whether it’s urban or rural.

And I think that’s really important, that piece of transformation and what you learn that you can then take home and continue to create an impact from after you leave. We have a variety of experiences that really illustrate this. So we’ve got a couple charcuterie board experiences. We’ve got one, it’s called Tree to Table.

It’s happening in Tillsonburg. The host Dave, he invites you to his wood shop and he, traditionally is an artisan. He makes charcuterie boards and they’re beautiful. He would sell them to shops and the shops would sell them to the consumers, or he would be going to the One of a Kind Show, which is really popular here in Ontario, based out of Toronto, and selling direct to consumers there. He ended up creating this tourism experience, which is really interesting, where he invites people to his wood shop, he takes you into the forest, he teaches you about his love for the forest. And then from there, how he sustainably sources the wood that he uses to make his charcuterie boards.

From there, you go back into his workshop and you pick your piece of wood that you want to use. You create your design, and then you get to work using some of his tools, hearing the stories. You get to use some of his family heirloom tools that he uses on a regular basis.

So it’s pretty special. It’s pretty meaningful. And then you get to take your board home. And really the piece about that is so transformational for guests that get to do this experience, and they have this beautiful board and they’ve got incredible bragging rights every time that they host people.

They learn how to sustainably put food on that board with local neighbors or local farms, and certainly on their way home they can go shopping if they want to. But it also teaches them about, and they bring home with them, the knowledge of how to sustainably source wood. So you’re not looking at mass-produced wood, or at least it’s in the back of your mind when you go to shop for your next cutting board or charcuterie board.

You think about how was this wood actually harvested and what’s the impact of that harvested wood. It’s just a little bit more knowledge that they get to have as a result of that. The other charcuterie board experience is with Michael DiFazio Reclaimed Artistry. What they’re doing is they’re taking reclaimed materials and they’re building something completely new and unique out of that.

What I love about comparing these two experiences is although you walk away with a charcuterie board, they could not be more different. It’s not about competition, it’s really about collaboration and just what can be built on and everybody’s unique stories because you’re not going to be able to compete with somebody’s passion.

David Archer: It’s such a unique experience to be able to go into an artisan’s shop and use their heirloom tools, and that’s a great way to make memories, and I like how you put it as transformational. Are there any other transformational experiences you’d like to highlight right now?

Joanne Wolnik: There is a farm named Thames River Melons. It’s in Oxford County. It is a pick-your-own farm. They grow fruits and vegetables and you can go on site and you can actually pick some food. And you work with Alex, who is part of the family farm, runs the family farm, but she’s also a nutritionist and she is so passionate about nutrition and food and what you can get from your food. Not only can you go in and do this brunch with her where you go and you pick the food, but you learn how to prepare it. You learn about what’s in it, you learn what’s good about it. And I just love that piece too, because as you go home, you’ve got all this new knowledge, and again, you’re going to know how to pick local food and source locally. You’re going to know how to prepare the food that maybe you’ve never prepared before, and you’re gonna be able to share that as you host your own brunch, your own meal for your friends and family. You’ll be able to share what you learned and keep that ripple effect going.

So again, it comes back to the transformation. Not only are you building—our guests are building wonderful memories and having a great experience, but then they’re able to take that home and share that either with the people that they know and spend time with, or just in how they behave afterwards as well.

David Archer: I bet it’s a great feeling of accomplishment or satisfaction in being able to provide that experience too for business operators. Are you involved with those operators as well as Ontario Southwest in trying to create this transformational experience in the region?

Joanne Wolnik: Oh my goodness, yes. Years ago when I first started working with the region, we were doing packaging workshops, and packaging workshops are great. What I was finding was that people were packaging based on proximity and not based on the consumer, not based on what people were looking for. And we were packaging existing products, not creating new things.

We work with people that are interested in hosting travellers or building out new revenue streams. The common thread is that a lot of our experience hosts that attract travellers and people from away to come and take these really unique experiences, they don’t set out to be in the tourism industry always.

But they find themselves there because they’ve created something so unique and so differentiated. It’s attracting people from away, which I think is so incredible. And they’re leaning into things that they’re passionate about. The themes that I’ve picked up on are these are people with a special skill or a craft or a tradition that they want to share, or it’s somebody that has access to a special place that they are excited about, that they want people to come and join them and share that excitement and just open it up in a certain way.

The last one is those people that are passionate or intrinsically love something so much and they end up turning that into their purpose. Not only do they love it and they get so much personal fulfillment from it, but now that they’ve opened that up as an experience, they get to share that with other people and those other people get to learn from them and it’s just really empowering to see what this is doing for people in terms of building out businesses and new revenue streams and building when they have capacity to build, not during the traditional busy season that they’re already busy, but building out on those, maybe it’s shoulder seasons, off seasons, when they’ve got the capacity to do something new. Also, it supports their business overall because they’re bringing in new revenue streams that they might not otherwise have had the opportunity to do. We’re pretty passionate about it here.

David Archer: The shoulder season aspect is interesting too, because maybe you do have more time to experiment with things in the spring or fall. So in light of all this innovation that you’re trying to encourage, is there a grander vision for the region?

If you look ahead in five or 10 years or down the road, what do you hope tourism in Southwest Ontario becomes?

Joanne Wolnik: We want tourism to remain a strong economy. It already is a strong economy. We want it to be year-round. We’ve got two great lakes, Lake Huron and Lake Erie. We have a lot of summer travel, we have a lot of cottage rentals, beach goers, campgrounds, and they’re amazing.

What we also want from a business viability and sustainability perspective is we want those shoulder seasons to be busier, and they are. We want the off season or the traditional off season, which would be winter. We want that to be a little bit busier. We want people to be able to have a break.

But we want to take the volume of people that we’ve seen in the past that come in the summer and spread that out so it’s throughout the whole year. So that it’s just a lot more balanced from a perspective of running a business or an organization, hiring and keeping staff, and just seeing that movement throughout.

Because we know that’s so important to the local economies, and we know from a pressure perspective or a capacity perspective, we know that it’s important to not have such high volumes in those really beautiful, protected spaces, but rather, let’s stretch them out and we’ve got four beautiful seasons, so let’s enjoy it for all four seasons.

David Archer: Are there any other off-season types of experiences that are being developed, specifically for those seasons? Or is it more of a matter of spreading out what you currently have?

Joanne Wolnik: We’ve got very season-specific experiences and so the first one that comes to mind is fall harvest.

We have so many beautiful experiences that happen in the fall, specifically because of the bounty that’s coming and that’s not as possible other times of year. We also have some that are focused on spring because we know that certain things are happening in the spring. In the winter, we don’t have as many, but we can adapt a lot of the ones to winter. We just have to make sure that people coming are prepared and know what they’re doing so that they can be warm, safe, and comfortable throughout.

David Archer: What’s one thing that you hope travelers take away from this story?

Joanne Wolnik: I hope that travelers are inspired to get to know people that are hosting experiences or, you know, what they’re traveling for, and take a few minutes and just get to know them.

I think what’s so interesting about the tourism industry is that people are here, people do this work because they want to, not because it’s easy, and I said it earlier, but you can’t replace passion. We’ve got people that are in this industry because they’re passionate, whether it’s they’re passionate about top-tier hospitality, and you go to some of our hotels and they’re the friendliest faces that you’re gonna see as you walk in those doors, or you’re taking part in an experience or you’re having a meal and just getting to know the people behind it, knowing that they’re there because they want to be and they’re some of the best people, is everything. And I think that will really help heighten people’s experiences as they travel around and move around.

I know this is true of Ontario Southwest. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true of most other places as well.

Peter McCully: This has been Travel Beyond presented by Destination Think. Our thanks to Joanne Wolnik from Ontario Southwest. To learn more about transformational experiences in southwestern Ontario, you can visit southwestontario.ca. For more resources and show notes, visit our website at destinationthink.com. This episode was co-hosted and co-produced by myself, Peter McCully.

David Archer hosted the interview and composed the theme music. Sara Raymond De Booy is co-producer, Lindsay Payne, Amy Bjarnason, and Cory Price provided production support. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to give us a five-star rating. It helps more people find our show. Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back with more next week.