Sometme ago my eTourism colleague and fellow soccer fan, William Bakker, a remarkable eTourism professional himself, wrote a blog post on his blog Wilhelmus about the "Great Balls of Fire." No, not the great hit song written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer and made famous by Jerry Lee Lewis. William was writing about cheese balls, yes cheese balls. But not just any kind of cheese balls. He was writing about Oregon's restaurant Salvador Molly's spicy habanero cheese balls. Apparently, these cheese balls are so good, so remarkable, that William and his friends drove 5 hours from Vancouver to eat this marvel of hot cuisine. The point of his post was to ask the question:
"What’s the remarkable thing your business or destination has that’s worth driving 5 hours for?"
A corollary to the post is that not all remarkable things (or people) are remarkable to everyone. You might love Eminem and think he's a remarkable artist, while I may disagree and say that Michael Bublé is truly remarkable (I happen to like both artists, but you get the point). The main thing is to achieve critical mass. In the fragmented world we live in where there are countless substitutes for every product and service out there, the key thing is to create something that is remarkable to enough people that it makes it viable at worst and enormously successful at best.
The famous marketing blogger Seth Godin wrote a now famous blog post about "How to be Remarkable." I won't quote the entire post here. You can read it by clicking on the title. And while I don't necessarily agree with all of Seth's statements he makes very good points, especially his mentioning that it is not what's remarkable to you, but what's remarkable to me (ie your customers, fans or guests) and that what's remarkable today may not necessarily be remarkable tomorrow (e.g. iPhone).
The Toronto International Film Festival is one attraction, if we can call it that, that keeps getting more remarkable every year (Caribana might be another example). Of course, that must have something to do with the remarkable films the festival manages to show every year. The star power that the festival attracts does not hurt either. This year, on its the 35th anniversary, the festival celebrated by opening its own building, the Bell Lightbox. The new headquarters of TIFF has brand new cinemas with state of the art technology. Bell Lightbox will not only be the festival's headquarters, but also run many of TIFF's programs all year long, including film related exhibits, starting with a Tim Burton Art show. The Toronto International Film Festival started 35 years ago as the Festival of Festivals. It was started by a few friends who loved film. It was their initial passion and the response of Torontonians that made the festival what it is today. Remarkable.
One of the problems with many tourism destinations and businesses is that they're not remarkable at all. For those that were once remarkable the problem is how to recapture their former glory. And the tourism boards cannot create the remarkable attractions or businesses. Tourism boards are marketing organizations. Their job is to promote the destinations, which very few do in remarkable ways. To grow tourism, industry stakeholders must reach out beyond their silos and foster a culture of excellence inside and outside the industry. Our roads must be remarkable, our public transportation systems must be remarkable, our taxi drivers must be remarkable (good luck with that one), our customs officers at point of entry should be remarkably friendly (one can only dream), etc. In a fiercely competitive global tourism industry, the winners will be those who manage to be remarkable.
Jaime
