Succeeding with Local Collaboration

In episode 3 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" series in partnership with?NewcastleGateshead Initiative, ?we'll highlight how collaboration is key to successful businesses and flourishing destinations. Triple A Food Tours explain how the North East of England's culinary sector benefits from their food tours, despite the initial scepticism to the new product offering. We'll also talk to Dolomiti Paganella about how collaboration at a destination level for new product development reduced seasonality and boosted the region's attractiveness for tourists.

You can listen to the episode here ??

Triple A Food Tours

Triple A Food Tours ?is an award-winning food tour business offering excursions across the North East of England. The founders formed the company after being inspired by a food tour experience around New York a decade ago, where they fell in love with the concept of exploring the city and learning about the best places to eat - all within a bustling atmosphere. From this excursion, lasting only a couple of hours, they decided to conduct some research and found that Newcastle didn't have any comparable experience. As a result, they decided to start their own company to bring the concept to North East England.

The first tour called "Taste of Newcastle" remains their most popular trip, in which they delve into the city and its atmosphere; all while visiting the best independent eateries and restaurants. The original concept for this tour had been to focus on the local recipes, but because the initial idea eliminated fantastic restaurants, the tour evolved to include the best independent restaurants and markets. As the company grew, new tours launched - helping to support even more local businesses! Triple A Food Tours launched two tours in Durham. They also have a cheese and wine tour, a Northumberland Coastline Tour and an Ouseburn Tour - in collaboration with the?Ouseburn Trust . These different and diverse experiences provide plenty of opportunities to interact, support and work with a variety of businesses.

Starting to Collaborate

When meeting local businesses, Triple A Food Tours were the first company to propose launching a food tour in the North East of England. It was important to start interacting with owners face-to-face to be able to show enthusiasm and build rapport since emails alone were not very successful at creating opportunities for collaboration. The restaurants and markets were open to collaboration, but the owners were unaware of the concept of a food tour. That meant it was quite daunting to pitch to local businesses, but the proposal was well received. However, businesses only got excited by the partnership after receiving their first customers and completely understanding the dynamics of the business and benefits for their organisation.

The idea was to bring business owners to the forefront on tours; honing in on why Triple A Food Tours are working with these specific restaurants and markets - showcasing their company's history, why they are providing exceptional culinary products and the reasons for including them in the tour. Including markets was also deemed to be of high significance since traders are still producing amazing quality food. Even though these business owners are extremely busy, they still make the time to enable consumers to talk face-to-face to the producers, who are good at interacting with consumers and showing their passion for what they do. Restauranters like to showcase their businesses, so it's relatively easy to keep good relationships with them.

Market Research

Market research remains important for any business. Triple A Food Tours assumed that their business would be seasonal and primarily attract international visitors. However, in reality, there is a healthy mix of customers from different walks of life. Despite monthly variations, the business is thriving and attracts visitors throughout the year and they also have a significant number of local visitors who want a nice day out. There were also unknown markets that saw the appeal of food tours, such as a growing corporate market, with the food tours providing a relaxed way to network. Similarly, with a strong tourism recovery, opportunities for collaboration are provided by cruise ships in South Shields. Collaboration can ultimately be seen as a continuous network, with interlinkages from large companies, right down to the smallest of SMEs, with many levels of interaction between businesses. This is at the very centre of a thriving destination.?

In terms of the marketing mix, Triple A Food Tours find their own website to be a popular channel for people to purchase tickets directly. They also advertise themselves on major excursion platforms, such as Viator and Airbnb, as well as on NewcastleGateshead Initiative's own platform. Triple A Food Tours also advertise themselves on the main social media platforms, and will also join TikTok after a discussion during a lecture they delivered at Newcastle College. Collaboration is not just about revenue generation opportunities, but also the sharing of knowledge and thoughts to work together for better outcomes, not only for individual businesses but the destination as a whole.

Future Collaborations

Businesses should not stand on their laurels and be complacent. They should try new ideas and launch new products and services to create new and exciting experiences. Think about how to come up with the next new innovation. To grow, businesses need to think about how to enhance existing experiences or come up with new ideas. Redress your business plans and continuously check your viability, while looking at things you haven't done that may drive even more business growth.

In this regard, Triple A Food Tours are looking to enhance the experience on their Northumbrian Coastline Food Tour by adding the sampling of products at local artisan bakers. They are also looking into the possibility of using bistro tables to sample produce on the beach. Collaboration can generate strong opportunities to develop relationships and continue to strengthen the mutual benefits, and ultimately both client satisfaction and revenue generation to support the local economy - a key aspect for place-based innovation.?

Dolomiti Paganella

Dolomiti Paganella ?is a Destination Management Organisation in Northern Italy, near Trentino. It is an Alpine destination, just over an hour from Verona and near the Austrian border. Being close to this major city and well-positioned for the motorway network is a key strength for the destination along with the iconic UNESCO World Heritage Dolomite mountain range and attractive lakes situated in the region.

The area managed and promoted by Dolomiti Paganella has expanded over the past couple of years from 5 villages to 13 villages; ensuring efficient collaboration among new partners is therefore an essential strategic aim. They also work with territories further down the valley, especially on developing wine tourism packages, so there is now a much broader product offering, including winter tourism and outdoor summer activities.?

Journey Towards Diversifying Tourism

Dolomiti Paganella have been on a long journey to transform and become a year-round destination. In the Alps, the winter is historically the most important season for the tourism sector - both in terms of visitor volumes and pressures. The summer performance of tourism in the villages managed by Dolomiti Paganella was also strong, but the perception was that it is the weaker season and there had been no specific tourism strategy for the spring, summer and autumn seasons.?

In 2015, the new strategy identified that the winter season was a mature product with limited opportunities for growth. Climate change is also posing a lot of challenges for the winter sports market, with temperatures rising significantly. Similarly, in summer, the increasing temperatures could also pose challenges regarding water scarcity. Dolomiti Paganella's new strategy identified plenty of opportunities to develop new products and experiences. Italian families are a key market for the destination during the summer holidays from mid-June to the end of August. However, there was the potential to extend the tourism season from May until October/November.?

Summer requires a multi-product approach and unlike winter (e.g. skiing) cannot just rely on one type of activity. There is a need to offer trekking, outdoor activities and wine tourism alongside biking to provide multi-experience holidays. While tourists may be driven by a strong motivation for one type of activity, they also like to have a variety of experiences in the summer so that it is enjoyable for all family members.?

When designing the new mountain biking product, Dolomiti Paganella started with six trails and identified the development opportunities for attracting new audiences and reducing seasonality. Dolomiti Paganella coordinated between the lift companies and the different municipalities to develop the biking product offering. In 2015, around 4,000-5,000 bikers bought passes to access the lifts and by 2022, 42,000 bikers used the trails, demonstrating the success of this new product. Biking also remained very resilient as a product category during the COVID pandemic.?

Biking has become a key pillar for the destination and in partnership with the lift companies, Dolomiti Paganella decided to start the season early. The planned closure for the winter season is 10 April (but remains weather dependent), while three of the bike trails are scheduled to open on 8 April. This means that Dolomiti Paganella can now be considered a year-round destination, with no stop between the winter and summer products. While the biking season starts slowly, it acts as a strong signal for hoteliers, restauranters and other tourism providers for the season ahead. In fact, the lifts are now open longer for mountain biking than skiing. Overall, the lifts remaining open has helped hoteliers and alpine guides to create new products and creates opportunities for other organisations.?

Approach to Collaboration

DMOs need to work collaboratively; they are in the middle between the tourists and the local community but do not actually own anything. The development of the bike sector was the first time Dolomiti Paganella collaborated intensively with lift companies to coordinate the design and maintenance of trails, marketing, branding and communications as well as sponsorship and events. The strategy was developed by the DMO after they held lots of meetings with the different stakeholders. With the growth of mountain biking in the destination, the number of rental companies increased eightfold, from only one when the product first launched to eight currently.

In terms of collaboration, a clear strategy is needed so that businesses and the local community understand your ambitions. Stakeholders are busy managing their own company; if the strategy is unclear, it is hard to get alignment. The strategy should not change frequently, so you should be prepared to occasionally say no to stakeholders and work together to find the best compromise. You need a lot of empathy and to understand their businesses. To make big strategic shifts, then you need to go further than just having meetings as otherwise, you can't come up with truly innovative solutions.

Dolomiti Paganella work with a large range of stakeholders from small businesses to powerful and influential lift companies that can invest significantly in the destination. The collaborative model works by Dolomiti Paganella controlling the majority of the strategic aspects and showing the lift companies the best ways to invest and manage resources.?

When designing the bike trails, the tourism operators wanted all routes to be easy. However, this would make all routes fairly homogenous. One of the main strengths of Dolomiti Paganella's bike trails is diversity - having easy trails showcasing panoramic views and technical trails. By having a strategy, it's easier to guide stakeholders on a clear path. Without a clear strategy or guide, there would have been a lot of repetition and similarities, causing disorder within the destination.?

The development of bike trails is just one example and is replicable with family trips and other outdoor activities. Dolomiti Paganella do a lot of work with alpine guides to create top experiences for trekking, via ferrata, climbing and now for wine tourism. With tourism as the main industry, with 2 million overnight stays; of which 65% are from April-November and 35% from December-March, meaning that seasonality has been significantly reduced within the destination.

Involving the Local Community

Dolomiti Paganella's?Future Lab ?was conceptualised in late 2018 and was officially launched in October 2019. The idea was to design together with the local community the "destination of the future". Almost everyone in the destination has links to the tourism sector and the Future Lab aims to make the community more responsible and shape the future, rather than passively waiting for change. Therefore, the ambition was to change mindsets. There were four key questions:

1. The destination's DNA?- Why should people visit the destination, instead of other places?
2. The role of new generations?- 99% of companies are run by families, but younger generations are less interested in tourism and looking to move to other industries. Generation Z have different expectations and want to incorporate technology more and have a better work-life balance.?
3. The role of the climate crisis?- The destination is trying to deseasonalise and identify tourism development opportunities outside of the winter season.
4. Finding the right balance between the local community, visitors and nature

The process began with a series of stakeholder meetings. COVID-19 meant that the methodology needed to change, but it was important that the process had already been started as lots of entrepreneurs had invested in the idea of finding a pathway to a sustainable future. There were lots of pessimistic views about the future of the industry during the COVID-19 period, but having launched the Future Lab before this massive disruption helped the destination to navigate through the challenging times.

Dolomiti Paganella published the?Charter of Values ?last year. These are ten guiding values towards the future, which are currently being used to develop projects. There are 2 key pillars:

Creating a?concept for a new narrative ?- Dolomiti Paganella aim to use fewer branded materials and only use digital communication and press releases. They are shifting from an attraction-based approach to marketing towards communicating their values and explaining why and how things are done; which requires cooperation from all tourism operators in terms of aligning messages.

Sustainability projects?- Dolomiti Paganella aim to better protect their natural environment and also improve the quality of life for locals and tourists. To do this, they?are undertaking a variety of different projects:

1. Reducing tourism pressure ?at Lake Molveno: Lots of domestic daytrippers drive to the area on weekends due to the easy accessibility of the car park near the lake. On the other hand, overnight visitors typically use public transport arranged by the DMO. To reduce the tourism pressure at this natural attraction, there are two stages for progressing this project:(a)?Identifying the carrying capacity?to preserve the pristine nature and keep a good quality of life for locals and tourists. (b)?Develop new ways to arrive at the lake, such as limiting the number of people allowed to visit, better communication about car park availability, or pre-booking spaces. Dolomiti Paganella are working with the municipality to provide the right tools and information to give them the power to make the right decision. This collaboration on knowledge exchange to drive decision-making processes appears easy but is actually very challenging and requires the correct methodological approach since there is a need to study and understand the flow of tourist movements and then pilot test potential solutions.
2. Dolomiti Paganella Calculator,?in collaboration with?EarthCheck , to develop a specific tool inside the platform for hoteliers, lift companies and other tourism operators to calculate their carbon emissions, water usage, food supply and waste. The goal is not a certification, but to show the potential improvement for reducing waste and emissions. If you don't calculate your current performance, then you can't improve. The tool is still in the development stage, but the community has been launched and will enter the engagement phase.
3. A Manual of Good Sustainability Practice?has been printed and distributed to 6,000 people that live and work in the region. It's a tool that contains tips for improving tourist governance and minimising any negative impacts of tourism on the destination.

The Keys to Successful Innovation

Innovation within a destination requires changing mindsets from just repeating past successful actions. There is a need to anticipate what changes will happen in the future and try new things that will help you achieve your overall objectives and accomplish your strategy.?

Destinations should accept that tourists are not always right. The local community should decide the rules of engagement, and the industry must be prepared to say no to some requests to keep a harmonious balance in the destination for nature and society.

Conclusion

Collaboration is key to establishing a shared vision for a destination and fostering creative approaches, which is crucial for successful innovation. A clear strategy is required for aligning all stakeholders and guiding businesses to follow similar ethos and promotional messages. To do so, collaboration must ensure that stakeholders of all sizes are engaged and have their views included in consultation processes. It can also be valuable to consider both local, regional and even international partners to boost tourism within your neighbourhood and surrounding areas. Collaboration is full of interlinkages between different organisations and networks, providing plenty of opportunities for building new business opportunities.

Significantly, collaboration is not just about revenue-generating opportunities, but also knowledge sharing. Collaboration involves hard work and it is challenging to be effective. It's important to remain flexible and be willing to compromise, but also to know where to set your limits. This is even more complex at a destination level since DMOs don't physically own the destination's resources and therefore need to carefully manage and liaise with the companies.?

Doing research is central to identifying the available opportunities for launching new partnerships. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of your business, monitor consumer trends and understand the needs and desires of your target markets and find which organisations share your ambitions. Don't be afraid to experiment and try new ideas. Enhancing collaboration can improve customer experiences or boost efficiency within your company, or even highlight the potential for developing new products which boost resiliency and attract new markets. However, there is a need to go beyond just having meetings and think about how you can work together in a more interactive manner.

When companies or destinations aim to start working with new partners, it's important to be empathetic and learn about each organisation's operations to identify opportunities for enhancing relationships and creating mutual benefits. When starting engagement with a new organisation, face-to-face meetings are key for building rapport and facilitating enthusiasm. Generally, organisations are open to new collaborative opportunities, but there is a need to be clear about the overall objectives of new partnerships. When companies see that their business is being showcased by their partners, they usually find time to participate and engage in operational activities, despite their busy schedules. This shows the strong value and strategic perspective of effective partnerships.