First impressions are everything, especially in tourism.
How your business, storefront or attraction looks to a newcomer–both in-person and online–can dictate whether or not they choose to buy into what you’re offering. A failure to capitalize on the first impression can result in potential customers undermining the value of your business, resulting in lost sales and revenue.
For thriving businesses like Salmon Valley Campground in the heart of BC, just a stone’s throw away from Prince George, touchpoints are a priority, and ensuring that they complement the magic of the natural environment in which they are placed is crucial.
Owner of Salmon Valley Campground and mentor at Firecircle, Canada’s only tourism entrepreneurship accelerator, Bobbi Carpino, says “creating a safe, beautiful and welcoming space for the season ahead” is what brings guests back year after year and attracts new campers and daily visitors.
While the process isn’t always glamorous and requires getting your hands dirty, the return on investment is always worth it.
“As the last of the snow melts in early spring, we begin the quiet, intentional work of waking the campground up after a long winter,” Carpino thoughtfully explains. “It is boots on the ground, moving branches, clearing leaves and walking tens of thousands of steps each day to ensure every corner of the property is cared for.”
With love and intention, Carpino breathes new life into her campground each season—earning glowing reviews and returning guests.
“Our buildings aren’t elaborate, but they are warm and welcoming, with well-loved picnic tables, twinkling patio lights, and thoughtful touches like flowers and tidy grounds that invite people to exhale and settle in,” explains Carpino. “We want our guests to know, even before they arrive at their site or hear the river flowing, that we have taken the time, and that they are worth the effort.”
Putting in that extra personal attention is something she says Firecircle has taught her. This effort keeps Salmon Valley’s brand story alive and obvious to her guests.
“Through Firecircle, I was encouraged to pause and consider every touchpoint, our website, our signage, the welcome at the office and all the other details as an opportunity to tell a story, to build connection and to show our guests that they matter from the very beginning,” says Carpino.
Firecircle is dedicated to helping their members craft and understand their brand story and use it to guide everything in their business, from marketing, to operations, to physical design. They are firm believers in the power of the first impression and they have the expertise tourism businesses need to feel confident in the look and feel of their brand, both online and in real life.
The Firecircle team has put together some tips that business owners can use to spruce up their physical design game and enter peak tourism season with their best foot (and face) forward:
Start small and scale up. Refreshing your business’s appearance doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. Begin with high-impact, relatively low-cost improvements, like creating better lighting, touching up your paint, buying contemporary lampshades for your lamps, add tasteful decorative cushions to a bed, buy new paddles or PFDs for your canoes, change the table top decor at your cafe, or refresh your site signage. Make these small improvements (and quick wins) before investing in major structural changes.
Get a professional opinion. You don’t always have to be an expert! If you’re buying or building or adding a new space to your business, get in touch with architects, interior designers, or hotel design specialists who understand the nuances of the hospitality industry. It may just give you an entirely new perspective and, as we say at Firecircle, good design is never bad.
Always stay true to your story. Your brand story is what makes you authentic. Every design choice should reflect your unique identity. Design, build and buy furniture, fixtures, equipment and vehicles that are ‘on-brand’ for your business and that your guests will expect from you. Lean into the things that make you special!
“Firecircle reminded me that every interaction, from the first click on our website to the feeling a guest gets when they walk up to our Treat Shack–shapes how they remember us. And those memories matter,” shares Carpino. “This program has helped me bring even more heart into the way we do things, so that our guests don’t just visit Salmon Valley Campground, they feel it.”