“Our Mi’kmaw partners, they’ve said, ‘There are Mi’kmaw names for many of these places around the island, but we don’t see them on maps.’ So we said, ‘Well, let’s talk about that. Let’s explore what we can do.’” – Terry Smith, Destination Cape Breton
Tourism is a cultural industry, and destination organizations often strive to preserve local culture and present respectful, authentic experiences to visitors. But what does it mean to protect and respect culture through tourism?
Destination Cape Breton (DCB) shows what cultural sustainability looks like in practice. “I think it starts with building relationships,” says CEO Terry Smith. Cape Breton Island is home to several distinct cultural groups that are under threat. Mi’kmaw, French Acadian, Gaelic, and African Nova Scotian communities all make the island home, each with their own history on the island. Languages are central to cultural practices here. The Gaelic language was once on the verge of extinction, says Terry, and is now having a resurgence. The Mi’kmaw language, however, loses an estimated 25% of speakers with every generation.
The Mi’kmaw L’Nu People are the original inhabitants of Cape Breton Island, known in their language as Unama’ki, “land of the fog.” Collaboration with Indigenous leaders on this unceded territory is a high priority for Terry and DCB, and this year, the destination signed a memorandum of understanding with Nova Scotia Indigenous Tourism. “We’ve pledged to work together to support the objectives that they’re trying to pursue, and a lot of that is focused on cultural sustainability,” Terry says.
Several small signs point to a more sustainable future. The destination has produced new visitor maps that include Mi’kmaq place names. DCB is also supporting youth development programs, including a Mi’kmaw youth culinary camp that helps Indigenous traditions continue and may inspire the next generation of island entrepreneurs. Beyond the cultural benefit to locals, examples like these also have the potential to deepen visitor experiences by encouraging and supporting Indigenous-led tourism businesses.
It’s possible that first-time visitors underestimate what they’ll find when they visit Un’amaki. Through visitor surveys, many people have already told Destination Cape Breton they wished they could stay longer, and this research has become the basis for a campaign that launched this year. “Take Your Time” uses friendly humour to encourage longer stays. Length of stay has become a metric to watch at DCB. Terry says that increasing the average length of stay by a day could bring an economic impact of $125 million annually – roughly a 20% increase. Staying longer in one place rather than visiting multiple locations is also a good environmental practice. Longer stays can result in less energy used, fewer emissions, and deeper relationships with the places we visit – no matter the cultures that greet us.
On Travel Beyond, you’ll learn:
- Why Destination Cape Breton chose to prioritize longer stays and what benefits it brings.
- How the organization is working alongside Nova Scotia Indigenous Tourism to bring more opportunities to island youth.
- How they are building bridges between Mi’kmaw and non-Indigenous people.
- Recommendations and ideas for moving towards truth and reconciliation through tourism.
Catch the full episode on Travel Beyond through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite player.
Show notes
Episode transcript
Terry Smith: talking to some of our Mi’kmaw partners, they’ve said, “There are Mi’kmaw names for many of these places around the island, but we don’t see them on maps.” So we said, “Well, let’s talk about that. Let’s explore what we can do.” Always looking at, you know, are there opportunities to mix in respectfully and, in concert with our Mi’kmaw partners, mix in ways to educate people about their culture.
David Archer: Welcome to Travel Beyond. I’m David Archer from Destination Think, recording from Haida Gwaii, the territory of the Haida Nation off the north coast of British Columbia in Canada. On this show, 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 often 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 dozens of ambitious, forward-thinking destinations working toward a better future for travel and the planet.
Guest host Brad Parsell from Kootenay Rockies Tourism is back today, and he’s going to take us out to Cape Breton Island on the east coast of Canada. Cape Breton, or Unama’ki in the Mi’kmaw language, is a deeply multicultural place that has Indigenous, French Acadian, Gaelic, and African Nova Scotian populations, among others.
Terry Smith, the CEO at Destination Cape Breton, tells us today about how they’re working alongside Indigenous groups and others to practice cultural sustainability through tourism.
He also lets us in on a tourism strategy focused on longer stays that has come to life through a campaign called Take Your Time. As we’ll hear, the idea has a big potential for both economic impact and environmental sustainability. Thanks for taking your time with us today. Now here are Brad and Terry.
Terry Smith: My name is Terry Smith, and I’m the CEO of Destination Cape Breton.
Brad Parsell: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us today. And I wonder maybe before we jump in, if folks haven’t had the pleasure of visiting Cape Breton, maybe you can give us a little bit of context about your destination.
Terry Smith: Sounds good. Yeah. We’re on the east coast of Canada, the eastern tip of Nova Scotia. Just to put it in context, it’s the furthest place east you can drive to, uh, without getting on a boat at some point.
Brad Parsell: All right.
Terry Smith: So that’s, that’s where we are. So we’re pretty far out into the Atlantic.
Newfoundland is, a little bit, uh, beyond us, but you know, you have to get on a boat to go to Newfoundland, so you don’t have to get on a boat to go here.
Brad Parsell: Awesome.
Terry Smith: Yeah.
Brad Parsell: What sort of things are you folks working on over there at Cape Breton? What are some of your priorities at the moment?
Terry Smith: There are a number of things, but one, one of the main priorities is that we’re trying to extend the length of stay of our visitors. And just…
Brad Parsell: Right.
Terry Smith: …Historically it’s been a misnomer, I think, not just for Cape Breton, but all of the maritime provinces that, you know, we have tour operators who come to our region a fair bit.
But based on their itineraries, they kind of give you the sense that, you know, you could come to Cape Breton, drive around the Cabot Trail, it’s one of the most scenic drives in the world, but, you know, maybe stay two nights, and that’s it, and you’ve seen Cape Breton. But for folks who do that, they miss so much of the destination.
They’re only really scratching the surface. So we’re trying to address that and educate people that they really need to plan to stay longer here. And it’s not just, to try to capture them, for a little bit longer. There’s a couple of things. We had some economic development research done a couple of years ago, and the consultants produced a number of scenarios to give us a sense of what we should focus on in terms of getting better economic benefits.
One of those scenarios was that if we just extended the length of stay on the island, the average length of stay, which as of a couple years ago was 4.4 days, that…
Brad Parsell: Mm-hmm
Terry Smith: … if we do it, add one more day, that would translate into $125 million of extra economic impact per year…
Brad Parsell: Wow
Terry Smith: … on our island, uh, which is pretty significant for us. It’s about a 20%-
Brad Parsell: Absolutely.
Terry Smith: … increase in our tourism economy. So that’s become aa focus of ours. Yeah. But then subsequent to that, we just last year, did some consumer research with people who have visited the island, and we were hearing these comments. It was a common comment of, “If I knew how much there was to do I would’ve planned for more time there.”
So we think that, you know, there’s an opportunity there to get people to slow down a little bit and, uh, stay a little longer. They’re going to benefit for it, and, uh, we’ll benefit for it, economically as well.
Brad Parsell: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a situation probably a lot of destinations can relate to.
It’s interesting, you’ve leveraged sort of your communication and marketing resources at Cape Breton into a campaign to sort of effect this change. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Terry Smith: Sure, yeah. Well, this was the brainchild of our agency Rhyme & Reason. And, basically we gave them the direction of, we’d like to try to educate people that they need to stay here longer.
So they came up with, uh, a campaign that’s all around taking your time. In the campaign, we shot a number of, uh, digital pieces, with a professional crew. And basically, the scenario is that there is a traveller visiting. We actually had an actress from Ontario, her first time in Cape Breton, so it was authentic.
Brad Parsell: Yeah.
Terry Smith: But once she comes to Cape Breton, she decides that she doesn’t want to leave, and so she keeps on making excuses to her boss that she can’t come back to work yet. Uh, and the excuses get, uh, a little bit more ridiculous every time she comes up with a new one. So a little bit of humor, a little bit of fun, but it’s, it’s really-
Brad Parsell: Yeah.
Terry Smith: …conveying that message of, you know, take your time, and stay a little bit longer.
Brad Parsell: Yeah, really. Is that relatively new campaign, or has that been going for a little while now?
Terry Smith: We just launched it April 1st this year, so relatively new.
Brad Parsell: Awesome. Still pretty new.
Terry Smith: Yeah.
Brad Parsell: A few months in, yeah. Yeah. Any, any sort of early indicators of how it’s resonating?
Terry Smith: Yeah, well we’ve received hundreds and hundreds of positive comments from people, from potential visitors and some that have come here, who really love the campaign. Also from our residents, you know, they’ve appreciated it as well and they show their pride with it.
So, you know, great positive comments. In terms of our campaign overall all of our indicators are looking up, and it’s looking like a pretty good season this summer. Spring was up over last year. So, you know, we’re, cautiously optimistic.
You know, there’s lots of hiccups these days with uncertainty, but it’s looking like it’s going to pay off.
Brad Parsell: And I guess this is a relatively straightforward thing to measure, but, you know, I guess probably your main KPI you’re looking at is average length of stay, one would assume.
Terry Smith: Yeah.
Brad Parsell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any sort of – any sort of other, you know, indicators or behavior changes you’re trying to effect, or that’s really the big one, is the, is the length of stay piece?
Terry Smith: Yeah, it is the length of stay.
Brad Parsell: Yeah.
Terry Smith: To be honest, I, I have to be forthright with this,
Brad Parsell: Yeah.
Terry Smith: …that this was mainly driven by economics. However-
Brad Parsell: Right.
Terry Smith: … when you look at keeping people here a little bit longer, there’s a sustainability side of it, too. You know, if we had half the – or maintain the number of visitors but they’re all staying a bit longer then we have, twice the impact but don’t really have to have, people spending more time on flights or driving or things like that, they will be staying a little bit longer, and so some of the climate impacts will hopefully be lessened as a result.
Brad Parsell: Yeah, and I think that’s a super important point you’re making there is, like, there’s a very obvious economic case for longer stays. Even an experiential case, like from your research with visitors, you know, people realizing, “Oh man, I should’ve been here longer.” But that sustainability piece is something we talk a lot about in the Collective is, like, there is a footprint for millions of people traveling around every year, and as we look to reduce that footprint, one of the easiest tools we actually have is, yeah, making people stay longer.
So it’s pretty, pretty inspiring what you, what you folks are up to there. Obviously this project was really on the economic imperative, but are you, are you doing a lot of work in that space around sort of, you know, sustainability and, um, decreasing the sort of footprint of visitation in Cape Breton?
Terry Smith: Well, I would say we’re, we’re still really at the starting point for it.
Brad Parsell: Mm-hmm …
Terry Smith: But you know, we’re trying to educate our visitors that they can be more responsible. And one of the biggest things for us in our destination is cultural sustainability.
We’re a destination where the Indigenous people, from here, the Mi’kmaw people – they’ve been here for millennia, and then we had Acadians, French Acadians that settled in parts of our island. And then following that we had a large influx of Gaelic people from Scotland, mostly Scotland, a little bit Ireland, who settled here.
Brad Parsell: Right.
Terry Smith: And then from our industrial history, we attracted people from Eastern Europe and Caribbean and, and so we, we kinda became this multicultural place before it was really fashionable.
Brad Parsell: Yeah.
Terry Smith: But one of the things that we’re trying to protect is, because it’s a big part of what our visitors want to experience at our destination is ensuring that those cultures that have been nurtured here and are still living today, that they will be able to live and be vibrant going into the future.
So that’s, that’s a part of what, what we look at in terms of sustainability as well.
Brad Parsell: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I’ve certainly admired some of your work, you know, when I was in Tofino. We were actually at opposite ends of Canada more or less. But yeah, you’ve done some really interesting stuff, I think, in that sort of you know, Indigenous tourism, you know, reconciliation through tourism space.
I’m wondering if you could talk maybe a little bit about, I understand there was an MOU that was developed. Maybe you could talk a bit about that.
Terry Smith: Yeah, for sure. Just recently actually, we signed this agreement with Nova Scotia Indigenous Tourism where we’ve pledged to work together to support the objectives that they’re trying to pursue.
And a lot of it is focused on cultural sustainability. They’re still, I would say, near early stages of developing their tourism experiences. We have some fantastic tourism experiences that are Mi’kmaw here already. But, you know, in terms of their culture, you know, it, it’s actually something that’s been shared with, Mi’kmaw, Acadian, and Gaelic people that their culture was put under threat at one time by colonial forces.
So I think those three cultures have an, an understanding amongst them and something that they really share and try to support each other when, when they can. But for the Mi’kmaw people, they’re still, you know, going back to try to do the work to understand, well, what is authentic to us?
Brad Parsell: Yeah …
Terry Smith: To make sure that they’re not, you know, just borrowing from something that might be more common to Indigenous communities in Western Canada or Central Canada. But they’re doing that important work and, and so for us, in any way that we can be strong allies and support them we try to do so.
And that has included, so far, everything from supporting, a youth culinary camp for Mi’kmaq youth, to try to plant the seed of getting them interested in, exploring their, their culinary traditions and hopefully choosing that as a career, to, you know, working with them to deliver training to, budding entrepreneurs and things like that.
It’s, like you say, it’s early days-
Brad Parsell: Yeah …
Terry Smith: …you know, we take this very seriously, and we try to listen first and foremost to what their hopes and dreams are, and then see how they would like us to support them.
Brad Parsell: Yeah. It’s such a really, such an important approach, and I think we’re on sort of, we were on parallel tracks when I was in Tofino a little bit.
But I hear a lot, like, non-Indigenous tourism people and DMOs always, you know, like, “Well, you know, like, we wanna work with First Nations or Indigenous folks,” but, you know, they don’t, they don’t really have any experiences. And I’m like, “Well, that’s, that shouldn’t be the end of the discussion.” You know?
Like, I think there’s things that we all, we all want a bright future for our youth, right? Whether you’re Indigenous-
Terry Smith: For sure
Brad Parsell: … non-Indigenous, no matter what your culture is, and I think that can be a really beautiful in to working together. And it sounds like you’re kind of down that path with these sort of youth training opportunities, which is really, really cool.
Terry Smith: Yeah. We’re starting it, and we’re starting to explore other avenues as well. … One, one of the interesting things here is that our Mi’kmaq communities are the fastest growing communities on our island. But they’re not always thinking of tourism as a career path.
So again, with Nova Scotia Indigenous Tourism, we’re looking at partnering with them to come up with a plan on how we might be able to engage Mi’kmaw students whether it’s junior high, high school level, to get them to plant the seed, I guess, initially, and, and then maybe to have some opportunities where they could be attending a university or community college to further their education within the tourism industry, and then to have internships with some of our existing businesses. And in some cases, they may, hopefully, find careers within some of our existing businesses that may not be Indigenous, but they may also come up with new ideas to develop new experiences and businesses within their own communities.
Brad Parsell: Yeah, absolutely. Do you have any advice maybe for other destin- Like, it sounds like you’re quite into this work, and I, you know, when I talk to destinations all over the world, and especially here in Canada, I think there’s a, there’s a lot of hesitation, you know, a little bit of trepidation in this space.
And, you know, it sounds like you’re really making meaningful strides. Is there any sort of advice you’d give to other, you know, non-Indigenous tourism folks looking to work in this space?
Terry Smith: I think it starts with building relationships. The Executive Director of Nova Scotia Indigenous Tourism Robert Bernard, we’ve developed a relationship over a number of years.
He joined our board a few years ago. He’s actually the chair at the current time. Uh, so the first time we’ve had, uh, a Mi’kmaw person as the chair of our organization. But whether it’s Robert, whether it’s some others who are more, on the level of providing experiences and, and things like that, you know-
Brad Parsell: Mm-hmm.
Terry Smith: …we’ve, we try to get to know a lot of these folks, and it’s all about developing the relationship hopefully that they will trust us to work with them. Trust that, you know, we’re coming from a place that is pure, that just wants to, to support them and not try to enforce anything upon them, but to just to support, find out what their hopes and dreams are and work alongside them to help make it happen.
Brad Parsell: Yeah, totally. One part of that I would imagine, and we certainly were thinking about this a lot in Tofino was, I guess creating a safe space for Indigenous folks to participate in tourism and sort of looking at our own organizations, whether you’re a tourism board or a tourism operator, and how could we kind of decolonize these spaces of these organizations so that we can create opportunities for more participation?
Is that something you folks have been doing some work on, I imagine?
Terry Smith: Yeah, for sure. Um, we’ve been working with [the] Indigenous tourism organization to co-host. We’ve done it in partnership with Cape Breton University, to co-host conferences that are focused on… We’ve had some that are more focused on Indigenous people and providing education for them.
But we’ve also had a conference recently that was focused on how to be a good ally. So more for the non-Indigenous folks. So yeah, we’re – I think we’re trying to provide those safe spaces and, you know, include folks. We’ve, we’ve still got a ton to learn.
But, you know, I see it that this is a small step, but we produce these folded maps every year that, through talking to some of our Mi’kmaw partners, they’ve said, “There are Mi’kmaw names for many of these places around the island, but we don’t see them on maps.” So we said, “Well, let’s talk about that. Let’s, let’s explore what we can do.” So this year we’ve just included – it’s, it’s a small education piece for our visitors, but we’ve educated them that, you know, there are some Mi’kmaw place names.
So, so we took, I think, maybe eight or 10 different place names and pointed out where they are on the map and told them what those place names mean. And we’re going to look at that as something that we can build upon going forward. Always looking at, you know, are there opportunities to mix in respectfully and, in concert with our Mi’kmaw partners, mix in ways to educate people about their culture.
Brad Parsell: Yeah. And I think that’s Indigenous tourism at its best, right? Revitalizing language, revitalizing culture, revitalizing original place names, and just makes such a richer experience for the visitor ultimately in the end as well, so…
Terry Smith: Yeah.
Brad Parsell: Anything else you wanted to mention? This has been amazing, Terry.
Is there anything else you wanted to cover off?
Terry Smith: No, I, well, I would just say in terms of that cultural sustainability piece, It’s a similar thing. The Mi’kmaw language, they estimate that they’re losing about 25% of speakers with every generation, which is pretty significant.
The same thing here among our French-speaking Acadian folks. While some are keeping the language very strong, some communities, it’s funny that you will, you will hear them speak English predominantly, but with French accents. And so I think there’s a need to just build back pride.
And I have to say, the Gaelic community who – where the language was really near extinct here, has really been making a resurgence, and we’re seeing Gaelic first primary education and things like that that are happening, and more adult speakers coming online.
And so amongst these three cultures, we think that there’s an opportunity for them all to share lessons about what’s working for them, and then of course, to borrow from other destinations who have been down this path, like New Zealand, for example, with, with the Maori culture there. So anyway, still lots of work to do, but, you know, it’s, it’s all looking at what’s the next thing. Yeah.
Brad Parsell: Yeah, totally. Well, that’s amazing. Terry, thank you so much for your time today. This has been, uh, a really great conversation. Appreciate it.
Terry Smith: Oh, my pleasure.
Great to talk to you.
Brad Parsell: This has been Travel Beyond, presented by Destination Think. I’m Brad Parsell, CEO at Kootenay Rockies Tourism and a member of the Destination Think Collective. Many, many thanks to Terry Smith, the CEO of Destination Cape Breton for joining me as today’s guest. For show notes and to learn more about the collective, please visit destinationthink.com.
This episode was produced and has theme music composed by David Archer. Amy Bjarnason and Katie Baur also provided production support. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps more people find our show. We’ll be back next time.
We’ll talk to you then.
0 Comments