Services

North American communities are rich in agricultural, cultural and natural heritage. Developing marketable tourism products which tap into the resources of your organization or community can be a daunting task without the guidance of experts who understand how the constantly evolving tourism industry works. Great Excursions can help you navigate that path to awaiting opportunities. We can help you clear hurdles faster and enter into trade relationships with buyers more efficiently. This is where the knowledge and experience of an industry supplier like Great Excursions can help you move step-by-step toward profitability.

We can help you develop your tourism strategy, deliver tourism workshops as well as contribute public speakers to your functions. We also provide strategic communications training pertinent to the the tourism industry anywhere in Canada.

Think of us as facilitators. We help make dreams come true by working with like-minded individuals toward a common goal. We design and bring to you the workshop that will help get you closer to your chosen objective.

Creating Wealth Through Rural Tourism

This one day workshop will give you the tools to start developing a unique tourism product - by finding unexplored opportunities in your community.

Learn to:

• Identify the elements that should constitute your tourism product; and
• Formulate proposals that will get the attention of the public, the media, and potential investors - on a regional, state/provincial, national and international level.

By working with other workshop participants, you will benefit from the input of creative minds. You will make invaluable contacts with resource people who can help.

You will gain a new understanding of the tourism potential of your operation and your community, and begin exploring ways to develop that potential. You will learn how to become a leader in building local tourism projects and developing initiatives that can be models for the world.

Can tourism generate revenue for rural communities and farm operators?

How do we compete in the market with classic tourist destinations?

By creating our unique brand of products... by finding the stories, identifying the traditions, and packaging the Great Plains of North America into unique offerings that reflect our regional identity.

At the end of the workshop day, you will receive a tourism resource assessment grid to bring back to your community or use in your own product development process. Also, within a few days after the workshop, a summary report will be provided to all participants, which documents the projects that have been discussed and outlines the necessary steps in the context of a phased-approach to a tourism experience production.

The Innovation Seekers Workshops Series

Are you feeling the need for a brainstorming exercise that will allow you to truly harness the creative potential of your teammates? Are you looking for someone who can draw on unexplored resources -- help establish a road map -- someone who can guide your whole team through the sometimes-torturous yet rewarding process of idea incubation?

Claude-Jean Harel's commitment to creativity manifests itself in his insatiable hunger for innovation. He combines the experience of the entrepreneur, the journalist and the anthropologist to seek creative solutions. His methods allow teams to become idea production systems that not only motivate participants but also help them focus on goals through a simple step-by-step approach not unlike that used by the best journalism production units in the world.

Participants will be surprised by how much fun they will have discovering for themselves the ways to take new products and experiences quickly from formulation to production and marketing. Claude-Jean brings to the field almost 20 years of broadcast media experience in the areas of science, business, society and agriculture. His work has generated national and international attention for the distinctive qualities of the North American Plains region.

Claude-Jean's contributions have helped win numerous awards such as the International Association of Business Communicators Silver Leaf Award. He was awarded the Commonwealth Relations Trust Bursary. His work was nominated for a UNESCO award and won New York Festivals Awards on different occasions. In 2004, he was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts in Archaeology and Heritage with Distinction at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom.

To find out more about the Great Excursions Business Innovation Strategies, please contact Claude-Jean directly at 1.306.791.4335.

Interpretive Planning Workshops

Interpretation is a communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and the inherent meanings in the resource. These planning workshops will help you identify the resources your community can tap into to generate a more compelling tourism image through heritage interpretation articulated in a plan.

This session will help you identify the resources your community can tap into to generate a more compelling tourism image through heritage interpretation.

Interpretation is a communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and the inherent meanings in the resource.

This session will help you identify the resources your community can tap into to generate a more compelling tourism image through heritage interpretation.