Personalized, Immersive, and Sustainable: The Evolution of Ontario’s Tourism Attractions!

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:01  
This is forward motion discussions about the important topic shaping Ontario's tourism industry. Here's your host, Andrew sigward, joining

Andrew Siegwart  0:10  
us today is Troy, young, President and CEO of attractions Ontario. Let's get to it. Well. Welcome to forward motion, Troy, how are you doing today? I'm doing well. Thank you very much, Andrew. We're pleased that you could join us. Let's get started. I was wondering if you could share with us a little bit about your career journey so far and what brought you to a career in tourism.

Troy Young  0:32  
I actually started out way back when working at Canada's Wonderland, although as a 17 year old, but I'm probably the only 17 year old out there who having a job at Canada's Wonderland quit after six weeks to instead go work at my local community museum. Okay, that resonated with me more than you know, taking pictures and running roller coasters. So my first real kind of summer jobs, back when I was a high school student, was, yeah, exactly that, working at Wonderland, and then I went and I worked for the Bowmanville Museum in Bowmanville, Ontario. And the year after that, I was at the Clark Museum and Archives. My undergrad is in history. I loved museums. I loved working at that community museum. And yeah, that actually stuck with me more than working at the glitz and glamor of Canada's Wonderland. But I mean, Canada's Wonderland is awesome too, of course, of course, was it just wasn't for me? Well, wasn't it wasn't that it wasn't for me. It was that the museum was more for me, that's right. So my my background, I start right at an early age in in tourism, but beyond that, then I went and I went off to university, came back, bought my community newspaper, ran that for a couple years, ran for town council, was on my local municipal council for a couple years. Wow, got my master's degree in public administration and ended up at Queen's Park working for the Minister of Tourism. I did that for a couple of years. Then the fine people of Ontario had decided that they had enough of the Mike Harris and Ernie eaves governments, and I found myself in need of a job, and happened to have met the then president of attractions Ontario, a guy named Rob Thorburn, who owns and ran, at the time, scenic caves up in Collingwood. Oh, no way I was about to reach out to rob to say, Hey, do you know of anything that's happening in tourism that I might be able to find a job. And I just happened to see like, literally, the day before I was going to reach out to him and add for a job opening to run attractions Ontario. So, so what the heck I applied, and I was one of six that they actually interviewed for. I won't go into details about who I was interviewing against, but I was rated number six. I know this because they gave me all the notes, which was weird. Afterwards, I was rated number six out of the six. So I don't know what I said in the interview that elevated me to the top spot, but they hired me, and I was like, great. I've got something to do for another year or two until I figure out what I really want to do. Well, that was 21 years ago, so I guess I still haven't figured out what I want to do, but attractions, Ontario has been awesome. Love it.

Andrew Siegwart  3:30  
One could say that your very first few jobs really did set the course, and that's where where it all began, didn't

Troy Young  3:37  
it? It did. I also teach at York University. I've been a professor in the business program there for 20 years as well, and I say this to my students all the time. I said, your careers are never going to be planned. The best thing is you never know what opportunities are going to arise. You never know what connections you've previously made are going to lead to something. They said, what you've got to be aware is you have to be introspective. You have to know what your strengths are. You have to know what it really appeals to you. And you need to know when to jump when an opportunity comes along. You also need to know when to say no and pass on things, because there's lots of times things are going to come by that you think are great and they're really not. You need to be really self aware and make the best choices. And I think I just Yeah, I knew when to take advantage of opportunities when they came forward. And here I am. And,

Andrew Siegwart  4:33  
you know, leveraging your network, right, as you said, when you reached out as you had some good relationships with folks, and that really helps you to find opportunities as they come. I'm curious. You mentioned owning a local newspaper. Tell us a little bit about that. I'm intrigued. Well,

Troy Young  4:47  
I was in my last year of university. I was studying a course on the French Revolution. We had one session about the power of the press in the French. Revolution, and how it was able to, you know, really influence things, and that kind of intrigued me. But, you know, I've always been the kind of person. Did I suddenly decide I wanted to go to journalism school and go get hired by somebody to work at a newspaper? Now it wasn't me, so I thought, I gotta just buy a newspaper. And I remember mentioning it to my father, and I'm lucky I had access to capital because my father owned a construction business. And he said, well, the local guy here in town, he's like in his 70s, he's probably ready to retire. Why don't you go ask him if he'll sell you his newspaper. So I did. I just walked in 2223 years of age, and said, Hey, I want to buy your newspaper. After I picked him up off the floor, he said, Okay, so that was it. Like I wasn't even done my first year of university. I started mentoring under him for about six months, and then I graduated. I literally wrote my last exam, went back and packed up my apartment with my then fiance, moved into my parents basement back home, and two days after writing my last exam, I was the proud owner of the Orna weekly times, and sitting there and going, how do I turn on the computers like I knew nothing real. Wow, I just jumped into it. And

Andrew Siegwart  6:14  
how long did, how long did that last? It lasted

Troy Young  6:16  
only two years, but it's because I found out some hard, hard lessons along the way, that the real money of the business was in the printing side, and I had no desire to learn how to run the printing presses and become a printer. See, he was a printer that did the newspaper as a height, right? Whereas I was trying to do the newspaper as my main thing. It was fine. I mean, I sold it at a profit, doubled the circulation and increased the ad revenues by 50% during that time. So, I mean, I made out okay. I just realized it wasn't going to be what was my long term career, that's right. And then I'd been covering local council. Became very critical of the local council, as

Andrew Siegwart  7:03  
good local community papers do, and did, yeah, yes, when

Troy Young  7:07  
I toyed with the idea of going to law school at that point, but I decided against it, and thought, You know what, I've been really hard on these local politicians. I should see to really put my money where my mouth is, and that's what got me to run. So I threw my name in the hat, and, holy crap, I won. So suddenly I'm on local council, and I was on local council, and that was when I decided to just looking at municipal world one day, and they there was a certificate program from the University of Western Ontario, and I thought I should really learn a little bit more about how municipalities run if I'm going to be into this. And that's when I contacted them, and they said, Well, you know, we have a master's degree program. I had no desire to get a master's degree at that point, but I went, Yeah, all right, let's do it. So I got my master's degree in local government specifically. And it was through that I made local connections with, actually, too. When I was at the newspaper, I made connections with our local MPP, John O'Toole. And John O'Toole was very instrumental in getting me into Queen's Park, because after my time on council, I decided, what the heck I'll run for mayor, and I didn't win that. And you know what? That's one of those elements. When I say sometimes what you think you want, not getting it. It's the best thing that could ever happen to you. I am so happy I didn't win that election, because there's a very good chance I could have still been the same local mayor and never done anything else and gone anywhere else. So it opened up avenues to me, and it got us into Toronto, which is kind of where my wife and I had always wanted to be anyway, and that's where I got my couple years at Queen's Park segued into attractions Ontario. And how did I start teaching at York again, the director of business or government relations at the L, C, B, O was my main contact because I was in charge of beverage alcohol. At the time, he'd been contacted by a professor up at York who was doing a case study on the LCBO, and she liked him, and said, Hey, I've got openings for professors. So he went to teach, and then he called me into the blue one day and said, You got a master's degree, right? So again, that master's degree I never thought about getting. And I said, Yeah. He said, Would you like to teach? What? No, I've never thought about being a university lecturer. You crazy? He says, Well, we got an opportunity if you want to try it. And I went, Yeah, I might be good at it. And that was 20 years ago. Again, these you never know when things are just going to suddenly fall into your lap. You just got to be ready to go when they do. So I've been very lucky.

Andrew Siegwart  9:46  
You have been but I think the secret method here is that you have taken opportunities as they've come, and taken the learning opportunities always, like I heard you say, like when you worked, when you bought the newspaper, The. You had a mentorship program there for a while so you were it seems like you're always in learning mode and expanding mode, and then that just tends to set you up for more opportunities. So I just think it's great advice. I mean, you never know where your path is going to lead, but if you're always in learning mode, there's probably more pathways ahead of you,

Troy Young  10:17  
exactly. And like I said, this is where the introspection comes in. Like, you have to know when these opportunities are presented, which ones are good for you. Like, I'm only talking about the ones I actually took advantage of, right? There's clearly been a lot of other opportunities that have come my way, which I was smart enough to say, You know what? That's not right for me. And we can get too easily caught up in what's this going to pay me? What am I going to get out of this? Oh, look, it's going to be a big wage or a fancy title, and that's not enough. You can chase after that, and it can be the source of making a whole bunch of wrong decisions for you. Sounds

Andrew Siegwart  10:58  
like what you followed was decision making that focused on topics and subjects that you were interested in, yes, and so because you were interested in them, they were stickier, and you you jumped in a little more. So I think that's always a good North Star, isn't it? Stickier

Troy Young  11:12  
is a very good word for this. Yeah,

Andrew Siegwart  11:15  
let's get started, um, sort of talking about the wonderful world of attractions and sort of what what it all means and what's happening in that space. But I'm wondering if you could just start by give us a sense of how you define attractions and what makes something an attraction like, what is, what does, what does that really mean? Attractions

Troy Young  11:31  
material, we have a definition that we use, right? I'm gonna read it out here too. It says a tourist attraction is any site, activity or experience that draws visitors for leisure, cultural, educational, recreational or entertainment purposes. Attractions can be natural, cultural, historical, recreational or commercial, and serve as key motivators for travel, contributing to the economic and social fabric of a destination. So there's our very anec analytical academic definition, definition of what we use. And within that, there is some variances, of course. So we've got members that fit all those categories, and we'll go and we'll talk to DMOS about, you know, promoting their destination. And so often they'll say, Well, I don't have any attractions to which then I always smart ass that I am come back with, oh, I guess you're not in tourism then, and that just sets them off. Then they get mad, and they start listing all the things that they do to promote their area. And I go, well, guess what? You just summed up your attractions. You do have attractions. People Too often think of, when I say attractions, they're thinking of Canada's Wonderland. They're thinking of wild water kingdom and things of that nature. And yes, they definitely are. But so is that local museum? So is that small art gallery? So is that small roadside Zoo? So is that natural walking trail that nobody pays a fee to go into. So is that little local cafe that everybody knows and comes to retail can be your attraction like I think we were on a call the other day, and I mentioned this. I said, the average Old Navy store is not an attraction, but if I'm in North London, and there's an Old Navy big box store, and it is the only Old Navy around for 100 kilometers, and people are driving into London so they can go shop at that Old Navy, suddenly that Old Navy is a tourist attraction because it is bringing people in. It is bringing spend into London's economy. And while they've come all that way to go to that Old Navy, they're probably stopping for lunch, they're probably filling up at the gas station, and that's all contributing to the local visitor economy. So I would never argue that an Old Navy is a tourist attraction, but it can be in certain circumstances. So our definition is about as you know, loose as we can make it. What is it that is going to bring people to your area? What attracts people to your area? That's the

Andrew Siegwart  14:14  
attraction. What is your unique value proposition that people come for? Yeah, on that point, just this weekend, I was at a sport check in Owen Sound my partner and I were behind a man and his son, and he was buying a hockey stick, and that was about a $200 hockey stick. And I went to the to the the young man working at the counter, and I said, My gosh, hockey sticks have become much more expensive than I remember. He was giving us an educational on all that. And then he said, you know, people don't think of it this way, but we are the number two hockey supplier in the entire province, and it's because we service such a large, wide geography, and people come from all the way up the Bruce and all the way along the eastern shore of Lake Huron. And just to your point, he this. Sales Associate in a sport check knew very well that they were an attraction to that community. I thought it was fascinating so

Troy Young  15:06  
and that's why it's different by every destination, something that may qualify as an attraction in one destination may not do anything to draw people in at another one. Do

Andrew Siegwart  15:16  
you see that different destination communities do a good job of identifying their attractions and the full scale of their attractions. Or do you think that there's work to be done? For example, are there certain attractions that tend to get more more coverage than others, like, you know how what good of a job are we doing of telling the whole story? Well,

Troy Young  15:38  
like any industry or anything, you're only as good as the people you've got working in them. Some DMOS are very good, right? They understand, yeah, destination marketing awareness is. They understand exactly what it is they're there for and what their their goal is, and other ones, especially ones that are part of a municipality. Maybe it's a small municipality, maybe they don't have a lot of tourism. They tend not to see the big picture. That maybe it's because also they don't have the resources to play in the big picture. But it's different, and I don't want to just say that's different by size and location, because, you know, we might have some very small DMOS who do get it, and it's the nature of whoever you've got employed in that small community. Were they people that really understood tourism when they got there, or was it, you know, somebody who was local who just happened to get the job and has now just stayed in it for the last 40 years without really connecting with the greater tourism product? So I it's, there is no one uniform answer I can give. It really comes down to who's there, who's employed, and sometimes, if they are municipally run or associated with the municipality, it can change council to council. Right? Does the council understand the value of tourism? And if they do, they might be putting the the kind of resources necessary to the DMO to make it effective. And if they don't see it as something that's of value, they won't. So turnover, yeah, I mean, you can have a DMO that was, it was hugely effective, and then suddenly becomes not, or wasn't on the radar, and suddenly doing great and innovative things, because somebody new showed up and went, let's do this. It's,

Andrew Siegwart  17:36  
it's definitely a truism that things change, and you always have to work hard and constantly educate and communicate, and that it's never a one and done. It's always evolving. Sorry, on

Troy Young  17:51  
that same topic, at that's our biggest issue at attractions Ontario, in dealing with our members, we'll have had somebody that we've had a great working relationship with who's invested a lot of their marketing dollars in through us, because that's mainly what we do, is marketing, and they'll have done it for 15 years. That person leaves, somebody new comes in, they don't even talk to us, and next thing you know, they've pulled all the marketing without even bothering to see why were we spending all this money with you? Maybe we should find that out. And it's frustrating, because you're always constantly having to be in re education mode. Whenever there's a change of people, the good ones, they come in and they see, okay, why were we spending let's let's talk. I'll give you the chance to resell me on this. And if we do our job right, we keep them, and if we don't, we don't. But it's the ones that go, oh, well, I've already allocated that somewhere else without even questioning why. The funny thing I once had, because we sell coupons, and the owner of a company called us up all in a huff, saying, where's my coupon? That coupon, it was huge. We do. And I'm like, Well, you hired new staff, right? Yeah. Well, your marketing team told us they didn't need a coupon this year and pulled it out. Maybe they should have talked to you first before they made that call like this. And this is, this has been a ongoing, constant source of frustration for the last 21 years.

Andrew Siegwart  19:19  
Yeah, it's, it is not easy to stay on top of all that. And of course, as people change, they bring new ideas, and they want to try different things and but at the end of the day, you know you don't want to lose sight of what works well exactly. I'm sure in your time, you've seen many trends come and go over the years in this space. Can you give us a sense of how attractions have changed over the past decade? Like, how have they evolved? What factors lead to an attraction that endures? How have

Troy Young  19:44  
they evolved? Consumer preferences change, obviously, technological advances change to make things different, and we've just got even broader societal changes right, like people now want personal. Experiences. They're they're concerned about sustainability and sustainable tourism. They are wanting meaningful storytelling or digital interactivity that didn't exist before, right? So they're looking for things that can resonate with them, connect with them on an emotional level. They're much more interested in being educated or finding unique experiences and authentic, unique experiences, right that they can't just find anywhere else. I think the biggest shift has been in the consumers, the people that are coming to attractions today are definitely not the same people that were coming 40 years ago. So how has that mix changed? Well, like I said, I think they're they're looking more for these personalized experiences. They're looking for more interactivity. They are interested in what is the sustainability of your business. Now, some may find that that's not a big deal sustainability especially, but there are definitely those that have made sustainability a key pillar of what they are about, and they're using that to tap into the markets of the people that do care. So I think those are some of the the issues. I'm pretty sure, 40 years ago, a lot of tourist attractions out there were not worried about how they were inter interacting with the environment, or what they were doing for long term environmental issues. But now they have to be because it's being demanded. I also think things like immersive experiences. Now, the immersive experience that has been huge. We've seen a lot of new immersive type attractions opening or places that are incorporating more immersive things into them. I think we may almost be at a point where it's a trend that is going to have peaked,

Andrew Siegwart  22:07  
it's it's at its set your saturation point, perhaps, yeah, yeah, because everybody's jumped on it. Would you define immersive as being driven by technology or a blend of in person, technological and other experiential elements, or is it defined a little differently?

Troy Young  22:23  
Well, no, I think what we're thinking of is the ones that are able to use technology in such a way, particularly like the traveling immersive shows, where all I need is a blank space. Give me a blank space. I can set up my tech and give you an experience, whether it's like the Van Gogh exhibit that was here years ago, or there was the Disney immersive. I know there's the Dungeons and Dragons immersive out at square one right now, I want to get out and check things like that, where they're able to take a relatively blank canvas and use technology to give you a type of experience I think has has changed now, the thing for that is I can relatively quickly and relatively inexpensively compared to some of the more traditional bricks and mortar attractions offer you. That kind of experience, augmented reality, virtual reality, but even if you're looking at museums, I mean, museums have got to be getting away from a more static experience where I just go in, look at an artifact and read the card. They're getting into more digital story telling, storytelling. They're getting into more augmented reality, being able to experience things in a different way.

Andrew Siegwart  23:41  
Yeah, multimedia installations and things like that, yeah, because people

Troy Young  23:45  
are going to demand it. And I think technology is making it more affordable, more accessible to some places, like at one point, it would have been out of the reach of a small tourist attraction to use some some of this type of technology, but just like TVs, right? They keep coming down in price and they keep getting bigger. We're seeing this as a trend that's happening, that is going to happen, but I think we may be approaching over saturation of standalone immersives, where that is the entire attraction, but I don't know, we'll see it's probably still got a few years left before it peaks, and you will see probably a little bit of a contraction where then those tried and true ones that have managed to really figure it out stick, and some of the newer ones, It's like a restaurant, right? Some of the

Andrew Siegwart  24:42  
menu is always changing, right? There's always a new, a new, a new formula. Is there something that you see on the horizon, trend wise, that might be, you know, coming up behind there, or ready to sort of capture that top spot, in terms of that, that big trend? Boy,

Troy Young  24:58  
if I knew that, I. Probably be investing in it and doing it myself right now. I don't think anybody can really predict. It takes one person to take a risk and have that risk pay off. And when that happens, everybody else sees that and goes, well, how do I get in on that? So we get these cyclical trends right. Like a few years ago, everybody was opening escape rooms. Now they're everywhere. The really good ones, they last. The ones that don't quite hit the mark, they're the ones that'll fall off so and you but that's a thing too. You've got to keep refreshing that. If I have the same escape room and I'm offering one experience, and I've been around for 10 years. Well, I've already done that one multiple times. I know the answers. I know how to get out like that's no longer fun, so they've got to constantly keep up and keep moving and keep refreshing that experience. You know, there's always going to be something like that. Something will hit. Everybody will jump on board. It'll oversaturate, then it'll contract. Some of them will stay, and we'll find out what the next new big thing is.

Andrew Siegwart  26:10  
I have a theory. I mean, I know, you know, during the pandemic, certainly here in Ontario, but all across Canada, there was this renewed interest in outdoor adventure, and you've seen some outdoor wellness trends start to really percolate and grow. And I find it interesting these sort of immersive technological or cultural experiences contrasted with the raw nature and the outdoors. And so I wonder if there's going to be an interplay between those two spheres going forward. And because I think that they bring something different. But there's a there's a through line between them, so that'll be interesting to watch.

Andrew Siegwart  26:51  
When we were when we were preparing to chat. You gave me a few examples of some properties that and attractions that have been working hard to refresh and bring some new, you know, adapt their their locations to to sort of meet this, this need to evolve and improve and enhance. Could you share a few of those with us? Yeah, like one

Troy Young  27:11  
I keep coming back to is the CN Tower. The CN Tower right there. It's an icon in Toronto. They could have just left it completely as is, and it would still be a major tourist attraction. But what have they done over the years? They added edge walk, so now it's not just a passive I'm up in the tower looking out. I'm literally walking around the outside of the tower having this, you know, thrilling experience over the city the addition of the floor to ceiling windows so that we're getting a better view. These are all investments they're doing into the tower that you could have almost argued, did you really need to? Because you still would have been drawing people in. But they're not content to sit back, right? They're constantly evolving and bringing in these these newer experiences that are key in keeping with what the expectations are of today's visitor. Because if the CN Tower doesn't do that, but other places around the world are, and I've gone to visit them, and then I come to the CN Tower, I'll be like, well, this is kind of tired compared to what I've seen. So they're keeping at that forefront, even putting in the little glass floor, not the big glass floor that it's been there for years, but the glass floor in the elevator that

Andrew Siegwart  28:38  
was an innovative just a little extra something, yeah, just those little

Troy Young  28:41  
extra things. The CN Tower has been great at that. But I also look at Niagara Parks, and what they've been doing down there. David Ames is the CEO at Niagara Parks. Since he's been there, they've totally shaken things up with the power plant that was renovated, and the tunnel that you can walk out and get right down lower at the falls. I mean, these are things that are changing the attractions environment, even something like the railway tunnel in Brockville. Honestly, who would have thought putting some lights up in an old tunnel would be an attraction? And I remember when I first heard about it, that was exactly my thought, until I went and saw it, and then I was like, Oh, I get it now. So anybody that's watching this, if you haven't been to Brockville to go to that railway tunnel, oh, my God, you've got to do it, you would think that it's something that's relatively simple, but it's an amazing experience. So these are taking existing things, tweaking them. In some cases, it's not just a tweaks cases, it's a major investment, but it's still keeping it fresh, keeping it moving along, adding things that exceed your. Or visitors expectations. The problem is, when I add these things and I exceed my visitors expectations, I've now raised the expectations for everybody else, and we've got to constantly keep doing this right, or we fall behind. Because what are some of the trends in other jurisdictions? What are they doing with their towers and abandoned tunnels? It's

Andrew Siegwart  30:20  
always staying ahead, bringing something new to the table. And I think what I love about those examples is they really highlight how even some of our most iconic destinations and places that see probably the most visitation keep it refreshed and add and I think that's part of the story that is really important. Well, exactly, you know, even if you're a local and you live in a community, it gives you a reason to rediscover your own community. It gives you a reason to bring your friends and relatives to check something out and re experience right? Exactly

Troy Young  30:54  
like I always say to people, like, whenever we have a special event, I will take them up to dinner at the CN Tower, because so many people locally never think, why should go up to CN Tower? And that's the thing. If you book reservations, dining reservations at 360 you get entry into the tower for free when you when you figure out what you're paying for dinner there and deduct the price tag to get into the tower, man, you're getting. It's great value. And you get to do all that. And everybody I take up there is like, Wow. I mean, we sit here in Toronto, I see it from my front step, like every day, but we never think about just going to check

Andrew Siegwart  31:40  
it out. Tell us. What can you share about the economic impact of attractions in Ontario? Wow,

Troy Young  31:45  
the economic impact. So what's the economic impact of tourism? Pretty much all of that is tied directly to your attractions, apart from visiting friends and family, where that's the catalyst to why I came to an area or business travel, like I've come for a conference, or I've come for a set of meetings, it's the attractions that brought somebody here. Take the business travel out, take the visiting friends and family out of the overall economic mix, and all of that that's left is because of the attractions. If you start to really segment it down and base it just on what was the cost of the tickets that were sold or other things like that, you're almost belittling the impact of the nature of attractions. And this was my big frustration, and why we kind of got around to starting the Canadian attractions network, which we'll segue into in a little bit, was that when the pandemic hit federally, all the discussions were around restaurants and hotels and airlines, and that's because they had national voices talking about it, and the attractions industry didn't but all the energy you're putting into helping prop up the restaurant industry or helping to prop up the hotel industry, what props those up more than anything else is my tourist attractions, because that's why people travel to visit our destinations. Take the attractions out of the mix. There's no impetus to come. They are the demand generators. You've got attractions, you're going to fill your hotels, you're going to have that incremental business at the restaurants. So everything in tourism except visiting friends and family and the business side, starts with the attraction. And in a case like that, I would count a festival as an attraction if it generates the demand during that period.

Andrew Siegwart  33:45  
The other thing that I think is really important about attractions, particularly if you look at a community's strategy in terms of where they want to grow and how they want to expand, you know, we have challenges with seasonality, or we have a lot of markets that don't quite have hotels yet, or maybe they don't have the restaurants that they're looking for. So investing in attractions and doing that all together, you're planning on a hotel being built concurrently, looking at different attractions and experiences alongside of that can really help grow the market, the economy, and can help round out gaps in in services and experiences. So to me, it's it's an important part of the broader ecosystem in terms of growth and sustainability. Well,

Troy Young  34:33  
I've never worked in the hotel sector, but I would suspect that if I was investing in hotel properties. First question I would ask is, why would people come here? Why will people come here? I need to know why people are willing to come here to put them into my hotel. And if I'm not asking, what attractions Do you have that people come to visit? Then. And I am not going to be able to make a proper decision unless, of course, again, I'm catering mainly to business travelers, and I know that, and there's a lot of business hotels and that 90% of their business is from the business community. And that's fine. We get that, but if it's not, and I'm looking at a jurisdiction that you know is under service for hotels. You got to give them a compelling reason of why they're going to come. And it starts with the attractions. And I think, though it's it's very easy to get caught up in. Oh, well, let's do some sort of economic impact study. What do we need? What kind of attraction should we put in? And everybody's going to go, Hey, amuse the park. They'll do it. No, it won't. Look at what your strengths already are. Why are people already coming to your community and build on that right? Start from your position of strength and that position of uniqueness. Don't try to duplicate what other places can offer, because now you're just in direct competition with somebody else down the road, you don't want to do that. You want to look at what already separates us, and what product do we already have? And this is the thing people always forget to work on the product that already exists. They're so worried about what's new and flashy that we can bring in. Well, maybe we need some money to invest in the tired old product that's already there. I remember, years ago, was at a meeting, and Peter Elmhurst was there from Elmhurst resort, and he was passionately arguing for a form of government grant that existing businesses could apply for to redevelop their own business. And he talked about the Elmhurst hotel, and he wasn't asking for the grant for him, for now, he was basically saying, you know, when his parents ran it, and what it was there was a grant that was available in the 70s that they took advantage of. And he said, basically, the Elmhurst hotel that you know today exists because of that. If we had not been able to access that money, then we wouldn't have been able to grow into what we are now. So how many other businesses that we have that are out there that are 3040, 50 years old, that are in desperate need of some of this revitalization that is going to make them match the what the current traveling public expects would benefit from that kind of investment, huge but we often get caught Up in, well, what new can we bring it? No, no, yeah. What do

Andrew Siegwart  37:44  
you have that you can re imagine and re envision? And, you know, in so many communities, especially in smaller communities, but big ones too. There are a lot of sites that have been left that are underdeveloped, that have something special about them, that they could become something incredible. And so I think there's, there's all sorts of opportunity there. I'm wondering on the on the business side. So if you were, if you, if you were a community that maybe had more business travel and more corporate travel, what kind of attractions Do you see being put into market that actually appeals to that segment? A little

Troy Young  38:19  
bit of a tough one, because, I mean, if I'm coming for a conference, there's a chance I'm not leaving the conference center. There may be some on the opening night Gala, they may have us go somewhere to see one of the local attractions. But is that enough to compel me to come back, especially later with my family, probably not. And I think that this is why us at attractions Ontario, we we sometimes get a little put off by all the focus on conventions and business travel, because it really doesn't do much to lift everybody else, or at least not as much as it could because, I mean, yeah, the hotels benefit from it, because the hotels are full. So, I mean, from that kind of economic activity, it's great, but how much of it trickles down to the smaller players? Not a lot. So whenever we see these, these big investments that we're going to do into the meeting and event planning, or we're going to redevelop a convention center. I mean, this is great, but for a lot of the the people in tourism, it doesn't have that much a lift. So I don't know, because, again, if I'm here for a meeting, I'm probably seeing the inside of a conference room, and I'm seeing my hotel and maybe the bars and restaurants that are near that hotel will see my business, but then I'm out of here as quickly as I can to get on to the next thing. So I don't know,

Andrew Siegwart  39:50  
back in my Blue Mountain days, you know, one of the things that we would do a lot was we would leverage attractions and experiences as part of the corporate experience. Experience. So when business travel was coming, we would look at things like, how do we work with our local AX throwing business and some team building experiences and local restaurants, or we did a great collab with river canoeing and paddleboarding outfitters to sort of get that kind of extra team building experiences above and beyond what was happening in the conference centers. And I think what that took was a bit more collaboration, right? The conference center isn't just hoarding all the business, so to speak, but I think there, there is a place making your business meetings experience more rich through attractions. But we were very lucky in that we had this like this very compressed site, but when it worked, it was magic. And then the idea was, over time, what we would see is people would start to bring their family the next time. So

Troy Young  40:50  
in a case like that, that is really relying on the business entity that's bringing people in, accessing what is there locally to make that experience bigger. You You asked, What kind of attractions could we put in and that, I don't think we can do the really, it has to be coming from that business community that to say, and I mean, places like a destination Toronto do a great job when they're selling for national conventions, like big, major conventions, they, of course, do sell. Look at all the things you can do in Toronto. It is more than just come to the convention center and stay in the convention center. So it's not that they don't do that, but it's still a very condensed time. Maybe somebody will bring family along with them if it really looks like an interesting city to visit, but again, that is probably more reliant on the business planners to make that connection. It would be smart to work with your hotel sector because of that too. Is there a way that we can sell this as such an event that, yes, they will bring their family and they'll tack on a couple days either at the end or the beginning, to enjoy those things. Yeah, but if the people pitching the the convention aren't the ones driving it, I don't think it happens organically.

Andrew Siegwart  42:15  
Creative co marketing and packaging takes time. My sense and my experience has been, is that it doesn't happen overnight, but once that process starts to happen within markets, and then everyone starts to really succeed, that's when you get magic. And when I look at those markets where business and conventions business is growing, it's usually because they have a good connectivity and they can offer something more, right? So I think there's an opportunity there for attractions, for sure,

Troy Young  42:44  
well, and it's got to be tough from the people that are helping to plan the conventions, like I look at something like again, destination Toronto, you're not booking people today for August. You're booking people today for August, 2032 so it's hard to say, Oh, you're gonna have these attractions. Maybe they're not even gonna be there by the time your convention gets here. Yeah, it's a consideration, no doubt. So there's only so much that can be done with that kind of business community. And again, it's the reliant on the nature of the destination that's that's bringing in that business the size of these conventions. If you're going to a small convention in, say, North Bay, you're probably showing up the day it starts and leaving the day it ends like you're not and you're probably the entire time you're there at the site that is hosting the convention, it's trickier for them to be able to convince you to add but something like Toronto or Ottawa, Niagara Falls, they will have a much easier time of convincing you to stay and enjoy some of the other things. It's

Andrew Siegwart  43:56  
a really good point. You're highlighting some of the challenges in in really pulling everything together and and also making sure that it's what the customer wants to do at the end of the day. If that kind of market, it has a more compressed time, it does make sense to look at other markets that you know, whether that's leisure or whether that's families, or whether that's visiting friends and relatives, those folks who are more aligned to discover you, right? So talk to us about the can initiative, the Canadian attractions network. This is a great example of collaboration coming together. So talk to us a bit about why you've launched this and what you're hoping to achieve. Well,

Troy Young  44:35  
it really came out of the pandemic, because everything that was coming out of Destination Canada and tyac, at the time, was focused on, as I said earlier, the airlines, the food services industry and the hotel sector, because those were the organizations or sectors that had nationwide organizations speaking on their behalf. Track. Actions didn't as it stands, we're really the only attractions organization provincially anywhere in Canada. Quebec has one, but they're operating slightly different than we are. They're getting direct funding from the government. They're delivering services on the government. They're a much bigger organization than I am. They're not a grassroots type organization like we are, but beyond us and Quebec, nothing exists in any province. So there was no continuity. We tried to reach out to the various provincial organizations, like the titles of each province, and we didn't get very far with that, and we tried to reach out to the different provincial marketing organizations, and only got so far, started to reach out to individual DMOS, but it was we weren't getting to the attractions themselves. So then I originally reached out to Iapa, the International Association of Amusement parks and attractions, and said, Listen, guys, you're the closest thing we got to a national network, because you are a membership based organization, and you have members in every province, so giddy up. Let's go. And we ended up having these cross Canada calls, which was great. So we did get some, and Iapa has has been increasing the amount of advocacy they've been doing in Canada, but it still takes a back seat to what they do in the States, right? Like they're located in Washington, their their whole purpose for being is really, even though they say they're international and they do international work, their number one focus is the US, yeah, it

Andrew Siegwart  46:45  
will be interesting to see whether internationally based organizations can really speak on behalf of Canadian business. Well, they have to learn

Troy Young  46:53  
they they have to hear from their business, their their local members, right? So their local members were kind of push, pressuring them as well, saying, What are you doing for us in the mix of all this? And then I came along and said, We need somebody. So we started to have those calls. And then it came up, and I was like, on one of these calls, I'm like, I'm glad we're having these calls. What's our end game here? What are we doing? Like, what do we hope to get out of this? So we had some conversations with Iapa to try to get them to support this, and there was support in principle, but we never managed to get it off the ground. And I happened to be talking to your predecessor one day and said that we were trying to do something like this. And he got me on to the PT dia

Andrew Siegwart  47:40  
provincial and territorial tourism industry associations network, which is a committee of Tourism Industry Association of Canada, correct? So

Troy Young  47:49  
I spoke to them, and I spoke to Walt Judas, who is your counterpart in BC, there was some minor interest. Walt was the biggest one and the one that pushed it the most, and he got me, made me some connections with a couple of attractions, Capilano Suspension Bridge and Bucha gardens. And from there we got attractions Victoria to the table, started to slowly make connections. And one of the guys that was on those cross Canada calls Bubba in from Callaway Park in Calgary. He was kind of heading up the the Canadian voice at Iapa. He managed to bring in all the Calgary attractions, and that's where we really started. So it was us at attractions Ontario, these couple places in BC and the Calgary attractions. And we came together and said, Yeah, we're going to form our own little network. And that was October of 2023 I spent most of 2024 trying to work with Iapa to make this a little bit more of a formal thing. And it didn't happen. And finally, at the end of last year, I said, it's we're going to go on our own trying to make this go, which I think is great. Well, it's been a long slog, and it doesn't make attractions Ontario any money, and it takes a lot of time, so I have to balance it with my day job of running attractions Ontario and making sure my organization is actually working and doing what it's supposed to do. So can is one of those nice to haves that whenever I've got the time and the ability to I devote to it. So tell

Andrew Siegwart  49:25  
me, Troy, what? What's on the agenda? So you've you've formed, you've got a good team. You're wanting to speak on behalf of attractions across the the country. What are the key priorities right now?

Troy Young  49:36  
The key priorities are just to make sure that you know, if we ever have another event like the pandemic, kind of like a trade war, our biggest neighbor, that when the government is making decisions on how they're going to support tourism, the tourist attraction. Are not left out like our industry benefited from things like sues and SIRs from the during the pandemic, but those weren't created specifically to help us. We just were lucky that we qualified. If we hadn't, our industry would have been sunk. I don't know how many of my members only are still around because of that. My organization is only still around because we were able to tap into it. Oh,

Andrew Siegwart  50:31  
yeah. Most, most sectors would be in the same boat. Absolutely, yeah. But

Troy Young  50:36  
there was nothing done specifically for attractions. There were stuff that was done for restaurants, the hotels got some extra and as did the airlines. But where was the attractions? The very foundation of tourism in this country was an afterthought. We weren't mentioned, and we rarely are. Whenever you you look at any of the messaging that comes out about tourism, there's never any focus on attractions, unless it's to pay lip service to the attractions. But of course, everybody uses the attractions front and center in their marketing because they understand that's what's going to bring people here. But when it's time for policy decisions and aid to industry, nobody's going, Hey, what are we doing for the attraction sector? So that's kind of why can is form now we're up to it keeps growing. I'm almost 90 individual attractions members right now. I've got a couple institutional members like Canada's accredited zoos and aquariums that have joined, as well as the Canadian Association of science centers. No, that's great. Between those national organizations and attractions Ontario and some of the smaller attractions groups in cities that have joined, we're representing over 1000 tourist attractions across the country. Now that number seems big, but this is another problem I have. If you look at the stats, can data for Ontario and try to figure out how many tourist attractions do we have? The number they'll spit out is somewhere between 2006 1000. And I'm like, which is it? Because that's a 4000 spread. So we've been trying to get the Government of Ontario to do a proper attractions inventory. Like, again, how badly was our sector damaged by the pandemic? We don't know, because we don't have a baseline, right? Like, we haven't had anything to compare it to. We've got best guesses. Even when you asked me earlier, what is your economic impact, impact of attractions? I don't know, because I can't even tell you how many attractions we've got. It's It's weird that I can't get people to see that we need this kind of data so that we're making smart decisions.

Andrew Siegwart  53:00  
I'm trying to scan and remember back, because, of course, when all that happened, you know, I was in market, working in a very different type of organization, and for me, it seems strange to have gone through an experience where attractions wouldn't have been on the same level playing field as every other sector and tourism, because they're critical. So for me, it's sort of a puzzling I think the way to look at it is, we learned a lot from the pandemic. I mean, I can tell you, I worked in a in a sector at the time where the attractions all were shut down in a way that other places weren't, without very much warning. So that was not helpful. I feel like going forward as we are looking at things like the pandemic, or as we're looking at things like, how do we respond to tariffs, how do we respond to a trade war or trade disputes, I think what we have to be doing, whether it's at the provincial level or at the national level, is not rush to throw solutions on a table until we've looked at the whole ecosystem, and I think that's what we really need to be doing. And I'll tell you at tayo, we have resisted. I've had I get calls from media, or, you know, some folks will come forward and say, well, we should do this one thing, and that'll fix everything. Or let's just focus on the local market, and we're good, it'll be just like the pandemic. Staycations were fine. And my advice to everyone has been until we have a good handle on what's going to happen and how it will impact every sector. We shouldn't be putting forward recommendations for changes until we know the bigger impact. It's my hope that that's what we're going to do this time and learn from I would guess that the formation of networks like yours will help to ensure that that's the case. So that's, that's the opportunity I see in front of us, for sure, and

Troy Young  54:49  
that's what we're hoping, right that I think when I, when I go back to the pandemic and saying things like, well, the attractions were left out again, I think. The only reason they were left out is because they didn't have a national voice. If I'm the advocacy person and I'm hearing from the hotel sector who's coming to me with defined issues and potential solutions, that's easy for me to then take it to government. So if the restaurants with restaurants Canada are there, and the hotel Association of Canada is there in the airline industry, and they're all coming in with very defined this is my problem. This is what I need to happen. Please make it happen. Then it's easier for the advocacy body to do that. The attractions weren't doing that. And quite honestly, when I talk to my counterparts that say, like camping in Ontario, resorts of Ontario, and they talk about what advocacy work I'm doing, this is why I say we don't really do a lot of advocacy work, because for campgrounds, say an issue comes up. It affects all the campgrounds equally for the attraction sector, I've got a small roadside zoo, I've got a small local museum, I've got a major museum like the ROM I've got water parks. I've got very diverse, yeah, I don't have enough of any one member that is potentially impacted by a particular policy that I can go in and advocate for. The things that are going to affect all my members are stuff that's going to affect all tourism businesses, or all businesses in general. At that case, tio is better situated, or Chamber of Commerce is better situated. So for me, because of the diversity of our membership base. I don't have the same ability to go in like resorts of Ontario or a camping in Ontario, who are very specific, when something comes down that hits a campground, all their members are probably negatively impacted by it.

Andrew Siegwart  56:56  
One of the models that we've been deploying here in Ontario is we work closely with all the sector orgs so that we we advocate together. Yeah, there isn't an opportunity for any one sector to feel left out, because we're always bringing the big, the full story together. You know, we work with yourself and all of our other partners whenever we do these Advocacy Days. And our work is reflective of the bigger picture, but that comes from active engagement, and the industry being engaged and participating. And so I guess what I'm what I'm hearing from you, is that this is what you're working on doing to help the national associations carry your message forward. And so I think it's, it's a good thing. Our

Troy Young  57:37  
conversation has been with tayc right off the bat to say, listen, we're forming this to help you do your job. That's right, I'm not trying to do your job for you, and I'm not saying that you're bad at your job because they're not. Beth is amazing.

Andrew Siegwart  57:54  
Yeah, it's, it's about, it's about saying we, we are taking accountability for our end of this bargain, and we're bringing you more of what we need, what you need to help us, which is exactly is what's needed.

Troy Young  58:05  
How can I help you be more successful at what it is you do? So if we can add that extra layer, just to feed that information to them so that they can advocate more effectively. That's what the network is for. You are

Andrew Siegwart  58:23  
pulling the community together, lighting a spark and and helping those organizations who who have the capacity to do the work. You're helping them get the the raw materials they need to make it successful. So I think that collaborative model, I think will will bear good fruit. One of the things we've been talking about at a macro level in tourism is, how do we improve our productivity, our efficiency, and how do we improve outcomes? And to me, this is a perfect example of collaborating as a team and then finding the right partners within organizations to work with right so all of the provincial organizations, the national organizations, and then all of your members across this can network, should be able to achieve more with more ease, more efficient resources and and I think that's a good thing. That's what we need. I'm wondering. You work at York and you have been in the the education sphere for quite some time. There are a lot of challenges in the education sector right now, as it relates to schools, as it relates to, you know, recruiting students in terms of building strong a strong workforce for the future. I'm wondering, with that extra knowledge that you have, what what kind of advice would you have for operators in the industry in terms of building the next generation workforce. What do we need to do differently to to be better employers and to see our workforces thrive? Well, I

Troy Young  59:47  
mean, this is a big part of what I teach, also to the point that attractions, Ontario does have some consulting services where we'll come in and for a fee, i. Help you do all that, but I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you the free version. Sure, the teaser. And to me, it's about, there's a video that I use to my students, and it's with Steve Jobs. And I don't believe everything he says in the video, because, you know, we've heard all sort of stuff about Steve Jobs. There's, some things that I've used in my own organization, and it's you as the boss need to know when to let go. This is a big problem. People think that they need to be on top of everything, and you don't what is going to resonate with your employees and keep them long term. And I mean, you mentioned earlier that I've been a attraction center. I said 21 years. Well, I've got four staff. Two of them have been with me for 20 years. One has been with me for 18 years, and the newest one has been with me for eight no one has actually left, because we just keep growing. No one has left the organization in over 20 years. Why is that? It's not because I pay them so much. It has to do with giving them purpose. When it comes to salary, there's a sweet spot. You don't have to be the highest paying in your sector. What you have to do is pay people enough that money is no longer an issue for them, right? And everybody in your organization is going to have a different threshold. That's true. You got to figure out what that is. So you've got to pay them enough where money is no longer the issue. There are things with any work they're called hygiene factors. They are things that cause job dissatisfaction. So micromanagement is a hygiene factor. It causes dissatisfaction. Me not getting paid enough causes dissatisfaction. You've got to find out what those are and eliminate them. So once you can find out what the negative aspects of working for you are, and you've worked to eliminate them, what are some of the positive things that you need to do for your staff, mastery, purpose, they want to know that they have value. So to me, it's allowing them to own their jobs. Over the years, as time has gone on and my staff have matured into their roles, I'm doing far less now than I used to. Some of the things that I used to be responsible for, my staff have now taken on not because I delegated it to them, but because they came to me and said, I want to do more. And of course, with that, more usually means a little bit more money, but that's fine. I don't mind doing it in that case, but they have then taken this incorporated into their jobs, and I let them do it. I always say to them, and I've said this all along. Your successes are yours. Your failures are mine. Why? I have no desire to take your success from you. I don't need to take, you, know, ownership of it. I am going to brag to anybody that you did this, to your My board of directors to anybody else, because that's what makes me look good, that I've created the environment where they're thriving. But when I say that your failures are your are mine, I mean is because I'm like, Did I give you the resources that you needed? Did I give you the support that you needed? Did we have everything as a go were Were there times when maybe I should have stepped in and I didn't? So again, I never blame anybody. When something goes wrong, the one thing that'll set me off and turn me into an ogre is if, because I'm pretty easy going up normally, is if somebody comes to me and says, Well, this was a problem, and they look for someone to blame. You know, just own up to it. It didn't work the way we intended. Own that and then tell me how you're going to fix it. Now, we may not fix it your way. I may have my own ideas on how to fix it, but let's fix it. Just do it like people make mistakes. Whatever Mistakes happen, nobody's perfect move on from that. So they get that sense of ownership, that they're allowed to make mistakes and they're not going to be punished for it. You're held accountable, but you're not punished. That's why I say it's on me. So if something happens, I'll go to the board of directors, and yep, it it happened. It's me, right, like, I don't mind. So you've got to be able to, as the boss, have that kind of mindset. And I didn't always have that mindset. Yeah,

Andrew Siegwart  1:04:50  
it comes with experience and it it does trial and error. When I

Troy Young  1:04:53  
first got here, I thought I had to do everything. I mean, I was 34 years old, 38 No, it's 3232 I got here, I was just making a name for myself, right? And I thought that I had to be everything in all things. So I probably made a lot of mistakes, lucky that they did stick with me through those, those formative years, but they did, and you get to the point where you realize what's important and what's not important. So if you can do that, and if you can create the kind of work environment where people feel that they matter, and that what they're doing matters to the organization, and that they have the ability to take chances and take risks and it's not going to come back to bite them. That's what creates loyal employees, and that's how you build a resilient workforce, because there's nothing more wasteful than having to go through a hiring process retrain people. All that institutional knowledge is lost. The one problem or issue for attractions Ontario is there's a lot of institutional knowledge now with the people that I have on staff, and when one goes it'll probably be a domino effect,

Andrew Siegwart  1:06:13  
right? Yeah, you have that opposite effect of planning for the future, right?

Troy Young  1:06:18  
Because, man, retirement is not here yet, but I can see it. It's calling to me, and what happens after that? I don't know.

Andrew Siegwart  1:06:27  
I think that is a sage advice. I mean, know thyself, know what your organization is capable of, and what you can offer, give people that sense that they matter, and empower them to test and learn and and to continue to

Troy Young  1:06:41  
grow just a couple of $1,000 I'll come into your organization and give you a hands on, personalized workshop on how to do

Andrew Siegwart  1:06:50  
that. There you go. Everyone, another resource at our fingertips. Well, I want to thank you spending some time with us today, sharing your knowledge and experience. I mean you. You've got such a depth of knowledge and and an understanding of how the attraction sector functions. It's not as clear as it would seem up front. And I think people need to know that great work on your collaborative networks and charting a course for the future. We'll see you soon. Maybe we'll have to a tour of some of your favorite attractions soon. Let's do that.

Troy Young  1:07:18  
People ask me, what was my favorite getaway from Toronto, you're gonna like this. Oh yeah, yeah, because I would say you go to Collingwood. You drive on up. You do scenic caves in the morning, walk through the trees, go across the suspension bridge, do all of that at scenic caves. That afternoon, you go to Scandinavia spa. You know, you work out all the tension, just enjoy yourself. And you go to the village at Blue and you check into your hotel. I do kind of like the west end of the last couple times it's been at the village in and then you enjoy the restaurants, everything right there at Blue Mountain. You have a great sleep. You wake up the next morning, you do the adventure park, you sliding down the the on the roller coaster, and then you pack up and go home. There's your 24 hour getaway outside of Toronto. It's two and a half hours away. It is the best value, the best fun, and you're going to enjoy it. Literally, that is my favorite destination outside of Toronto, so you had something to do with that? Yeah, I

Andrew Siegwart  1:08:26  
played a little role on that. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And I'll tell you what you're describing, I think is the is a great best practice as well, because it is this amalgam of food and beverage, hotels, destination marketing organizations, attractions, operators, all working together. And I think that's partly why it's so seamless. Because it is a connected ecosystem. It's a little

Troy Young  1:08:45  
bit of everything right there. My absolute favorite attraction in the entire province is the It's a hidden gem. Niagara Parks, White Water walk. If you've never done it, why haven't you done it? It is literally the most amazing thing, although the one thing that I truly was touched by, and it has stuck with me for years, was the polar bear Express going up to Moosonee.

Andrew Siegwart  1:09:10  
Oh, wow, yeah, that's on my list, for sure. So those

Troy Young  1:09:15  
are my you've just gotten out of me, my three biggest attraction things in the province, so

Andrew Siegwart  1:09:21  
you're the man who, who, who knows what you're talking about on this front so thank you. Appreciate the tips. Thank you.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  1:09:29  
Thanks for listening to forward motion. This show is created by the tourism industry association of Ontario and is recognized by government as the voice of tourism and produced by everyone at the sound off media company you.