Manitoba Tourism Strategy Progress Report 2023–24
Manitoba encompasses Treaty 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Territories and communities who are signatories to Treaties 6 and 10. Manitoba is located on the ancestral land of the Anishinaabeg, Anishininewuk, Dakota Oyate, Denesuline and Nehethowuk Nations and is the Homeland of the Red River Métis. Northern Manitoba includes lands that were and are the ancestral lands of the Inuit.
Travel Manitoba respects the spirit and intent of Treaties and Treaty Making and remains committed to working in partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people in the spirit of truth, reconciliation and collaboration.
STEEP ROCK
Background
Travel Manitoba, the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce and the Manitoba government came together in 2019 to create a new vision for tourism in the province, recognizing that a whole-of-government approach and private sector input would be required to increase tourism’s contribution to the provincial economy. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the global tourism industry to a standstill, an updated Manitoba Tourism Strategy was released in 2021 to recognize the far-reaching impacts of the pandemic and the need for immediate and bold action to re-energize the industry. The Manitoba Tourism Strategy became the roadmap to recovery. Delivering on the strategy was key to rebuilding a solid base for short-term recovery.
After two years of uncertainty, early accomplishments pushed the Manitoba tourism industry towards the recovery stage. Data from Statistics Canada showed that visitor spending returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2022, largely due to improved domestic travel and partly due to inflation.
In 2023, the Manitoba Tourism Strategy was updated once more. As visitor confidence rebuilds and travel returns, the focus shifted from shortterm response to rebuilding for long-term growth. The strategy’s goal is to increase visitor spending by 50 per cent over 2019 levels to $2.5 billion by 2030 and grow visitation by 19 per cent to 12.8 million visitors.
The purpose of this annual progress report is to provide an update on the progress made towards the strategic initiatives outlined in the Manitoba Tourism Strategy. This report highlights the major accomplishments and key performance indicators for the 2023-24 fiscal year. By documenting these achievements and identifying areas for improvement, this report aims to ensure continued progress with the overarching objectives of the strategy.
Major Accomplishments
STRATEGIC GOAL 1: LEAD BRAND & MARKET POSITIONING
Key Initiatives:
Stimulate recovery and showcase Manitoba’s:
• Indigenous, Francophone and other cultural experiences.
• Unique and vibrant four seasons, including Canada’s home of world-class winter experiences.
• Exceptional water-based experiences such as fishing and paddling.
• Showcase diversity of wilderness and wildlife experiences, including support for Churchill as a leading international destination.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
The Spring Summer Campaign resulted in:
• 2,841 hotel bookings
• 1,211 airline tickets
• $800,000 gross bookings
• 159,420 business leads to partners
• 729,669 website visits
• 45,000 northern lures distributed
• 93 hosted media and influencers
• 14,235 sign-ups and contest entries
• 108 million impressions
• 1.58 million clicks/engagements
• $6,000 Bandwango pass sales
• 2.25 million campaign video views
Travel Manitoba
The Fall Winter Campaign resulted in:
• 14,108 hotel bookings
• 3,608 airline tickets
• $2,998,000 gross bookings
• 159,720 business leads to partners
• 634,000 website views
• 50,000 northern lures distributed
• 46 hosted media influencers
• 4,090 sign-ups and contest entries
• 117 million impressions
• 534,129 clicks/engagements
• $12,968 Bandwango pass sales
• 3.8 million campaign video views
Supported Indigenous Tourism Manitoba (ITM) with website and travel trade activities.
Created French assets for each pillar of the Spring Summer and Fall Winter campaigns, including videos and print ads.
Promoted winter experiences in Maclean’s and Escapism magazine as well as La Liberté newspaper, and through online publishers Daily Hive and BlogTO.
Partnered with the Ace Burpee team from Bell Media to explore winter in Manitoba and promote the experiences through their social channels and on-air.
Presented at the Northern Arts and Food Workshop in The Pas on how Travel Manitoba can support partners’ marketing and business efforts in the arts and culture sector.
Showcased Manitoba and Saskatchewan lodges and angling experiences during a familiarization tour (FAM) co-hosted with Tourism Saskatchewan which included private jet transfer between the lodges.
Supported North Star Tours and Heartland Tours to plan and execute world-class excursions for Silversea expedition cruise visitors while docked in Churchill.
Travel Manitoba
Travel Manitoba and ITM
Travel Manitoba
Support for Winnipeg and Brandon as Manitoba’s leading destinations for national meetings, conventions, festivals and events.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Hosted the following major events:
• 2023 World Police and Fire Games
• Student and Youth Travel Association (SYTA) conference
• Educational Travel Consortium conference, and
• Sport Events Congress
Collaborated with Tourism Winnipeg and Brandon First to secure meetings, incentive travel, conventions and event business.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba and Tourism Winnipeg
Travel Manitoba, Tourism Winnipeg and Brandon First
Engage new Canadians and newcomers as potential travellers within Manitoba and tourism ambassadors to their country of origin.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Researched target market demographics of newcomers, as well as marketing opportunities and the specific needs and gaps connecting to these audiences, and engaged with several community groups.
Sponsored and produced Tagalog marketing content to reach Filipino residents.
Launched a northern lights campaign for Mandarin-speaking audiences located in the Greater Toronto Area.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba
Leverage
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Partnered with Tourism Saskatchewan and Destination Canada for the second year of the Prairie Angling Program to promote fly-in, drive-to and ice fishing experiences in key U.S. marketing. As a direct result, non-resident angling sales have fully recovered to pre-pandemic sales levels.
The 2023 Prairie Angling Program resulted in:
• 21,468 non-resident angling licence sales (increase of more than 20 per cent over 2022-23)
• 43 million digital and social ad impressions
• 4.3 million video views
• 845,500 radio ad impressions
• 143,300 clicks on digital and social ads
Partnered with Destination Canada on a joint U.S. focused campaign to promote northern lights experiences in Manitoba, Yukon and Northwest Territories, which resulted in a 119 per cent lift in search interest for northern lights experiences.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba and Destination Canada
STRATEGIC GOAL 2: ADVANCE DESTINATION MANAGEMENT
Key Initiatives:
Develop a destination management plan to:
• Create a stronger enabling environment for tourism growth.
• Build industry capacity.
• Support the development and enhancement of experiences.
• Strengthen community and regional engagement.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Contracted MMGY NextFactor to create and deploy an industry-wide survey that measured the perceptions of local tourism stakeholders around the health, diversity and strength of the tourism industry in Manitoba. This assessment tool has been used by 375 other destinations worldwide and provides a benchmark report that can be compared to other Canadian destinations as well as previous results from similar surveys conducted in Manitoba in 2015 and 2019.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba
Develop a province-wide events strategy and secure an agile funding mechanism to support major bids.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Presented a province-wide major events acquisition framework to Manitoba government.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba, Tourism Winnipeg and Brandon First
Advance development of place brand communities by supporting the implementation of Destination Area Assessment recommendations.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In partnership with the Brandon Area Community Foundation, supported Brandon Riverbank Discovery Centre in the purchase of necessary equipment to establish and maintain a winter trail network for both walking and cross-country skiing.
Facilitated a Winter Tourism Planning Session with Clear Lake’s private stakeholders to strategize winter tourism concepts for the 2024 operating season. Ongoing meetings were held with Parks Canada to share outcomes of the stakeholder session and request support. Three innovative concepts emerged from the facilitated session, one of which included supporting the successful launch of an Indigenousowned ice fishing village.
Completed and presented the findings of the Tourism Readiness Assessment for St. Boniface and Francophone Tourism in Manitoba.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba, Brandon Area Community Foundation and Brandon Riverbank Discovery Centre
Travel Manitoba, Clear Lake Country and Parks Canada
Provided funding to Thompson and Flin Flon place brands which was instrumental in establishing local tourism committees. These organizations are partnering to develop regional tourism products showcasing the North in all four seasons.
Travel Manitoba and Economic Development Council for Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities (CDEM)
Travel Manitoba, Thompson Community Development Corporation and Flin Flon, Denare Beach and Creighton (FDC) Regional Economic Development Commission.
Increase the number of market-ready tourism businesses in Manitoba, with consideration of the following world-class demand generating experiences, the North, Indigenous, francophone, winter, trails, human rights and reconciliation.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Piloted a tool to assess the tourism-readiness status of Travel Manitoba’s industry database on a quarterly basis. The number of market- and export-ready tourism businesses grew from 840 at the end of 2022-23 to 955 at the end of 2023-24.
Conducted a survey of residents to gather insights into trail usage, barriers to winter trail use and desired amenities.
Advanced the Northern Manitoba Tourism Strategy
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba
Advanced the Manitoba Indigenous Tourism Strategy Indigenous Tourism Manitoba, Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada and Travel Manitoba
Advanced the Francophone Tourism Strategy
Supported the National Indigenous Residential School Museum of Canada (NIRSM) to complete phase one of its expansion plans.
Travel Manitoba, Tourism Riel and CDEM
Travel Manitoba, ITM, Parks Canada and NIRSM
Ensure the tourism industry has access to business advice and training on intelligence, best practices, business case formulation, market readiness, business development and funding sources.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Developed a new industry website. The new site includes significant content to support destination management objectives, including business and community development resources. The new website will be launched in late 2024.
Informed industry members and related professionals with the latest tourism insights, research, news and grant opportunities through e-newsletter, Travel Currents.
Supported an economic impact assessment of tourism in Portage la Prairie with the results presented at a community session.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba
Travel Manitoba and Portage Regional Economic Development (PRED)
STRATEGIC GOAL 3: FOSTER COLLABORATION AND BUILD SUPPORT FOR TOURISM
Key Initiatives:
Collaborate with Tourism Winnipeg on research, branding, marketing and experience development.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Celebrated the tourism industry at the first annual tourism awards, co-hosted with Tourism Winnipeg at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The event celebrated operators, businesses, employees, volunteers, campaigns and events in Winnipeg and across the province.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba and Tourism Winnipeg
Prioritize diversity and inclusivity in tourism development and promotion.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Continued to ensure that individuals from diverse backgrounds are represented in marketing materials.
Researched target market demographics of newcomers, the specific needs and gaps connecting to these audiences and engaged with several community groups.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba
Create a public awareness campaign on the province-wide value of tourism including job creation and retention, residential tax savings, innovation and education, infrastructure improvements and quality of life.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Leveraged public engagement opportunities to increase awareness of the value of tourism. This included speaking opportunities at the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce Economic Development tours in Morden-Winkler, Flin Flon, Steinbach and Niverville.
STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
Travel Manitoba and Manitoba Chambers of Commerce
Conclusion and Next Steps
Travel Manitoba and its partners have made remarkable progress in advancing the goals of the Manitoba Tourism Strategy. In 2023-24, Travel Manitoba celebrated major successes, including:
• The Canada’s Heart is Calling brand was recognized as a finalist at the World Media Awards alongside tourism giants Abu Dhabi, London and Wales.
• Northern lights experiences are more popular than ever after a joint U.S. focused campaign with our partners and Destination Canada.
• The fishing sector recovered to pre-pandemic levels thanks in part to the Prairie Angling Program partnership with Destination Canada and Tourism Saskatchewan.
• The return of major events like the 2023 World Police and Fire Games, the Student and Youth Travel Association, the Educational Travel Consortium conference and the Sport Events Congress which brought thousands of delegates, participants and spectators to the province.
• Hosted the first joint Tourism Awards with Tourism Winnipeg which celebrated operators, businesses, employees, volunteers, campaigns and events in Winnipeg and across the province.
In 2023, visitation to Manitoba surpassed 10 million for the first time since the pandemic with an increase of 19 per cent over 2022 levels and visitor spending reached $1.82 billion. Travel Manitoba remains committed to building on this momentum to reach the goal of $2.5 billion in visitor spending from 12.8 million visitors annually by 2030.