When Travel Gets Real: The Two Cowboys - New Zealand Beer and Culinary Experience 2018

Parking the Elusion

Here are some big numbers to keep in mind: Travel & Tourism constitutes ten percent of the world's GDP. The GDP contribution of travel touched $8 trillion in 2015 and is set to be rising to almost $12 trillion a decade from now. It is also one of the most fragmented, complex and misrepresented industries in the world!

Yet, for a small country like New Zealand, international visitors deliver $40 million in foreign exchange to the economy each day of the year. This is one in five export Dollars earned by the country. Domestic tourism contributes another $59 million in economic activity every day. Tourism generated a direct contribution to GDP of $14.7 billion, or 5.9% of GDP in 2017. Why is New Zealand so prosperous in their tourism campaign?

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We have our views about why New Zealand is punching above its weight in this sector. Firstly, the New Zealand landscape is unique. It has an incredibly diverse natural beauty from the North Island to the South. You don't have to go far to be in awe with the shades of greens, blacks, blues and whites that are dished up to your camera lens, all hours of the day and night. It is a nature photographer's paradise.

New Zealand has a rich and diverse cultural landscape too. It blends Pacific, European and Asian into a beautiful tapestry of people and community. It is probably one of the only places where you wash down a lamb dim sum donburi with limoncello, and have a creampuff with your kumara madras.

Speaking of food, it is an absolute culinary paradise. Everything grows and thrives in the fertile New Zealand climate. Agriculture has been the backbone of the economy since the country's inception. It was only in 2013 that Tourism took over from dairy as the dominating export of the nation. New Zealand attracts great culinary talent with all this beautiful produce, that is locally grown and innovatively cultivated. There is no shortage of food celebrations, shows and festivals which, together with sports, make the country an event magnet.

Getting Real Marketing Done Deep Downunder

Here is the real reason why we love New Zealand: Small businesses thrive! Competition is healthy, and people are innovative when they bring products and services to market. The tourism product is good, and it keeps growing. They know to celebrate their successes and tell their stories. Marketing is a crucial foundation for everyone involved in New Zealand's tourism businesses.

Our Canadian Provinces are missing this crucial point. It doesn't matter how many Dollars you throw at the not-for-profit staff-bloated destination supposed marketing organizations, if the product is not solidly good, even they cannot put lipstick on a pig. There must be an incentive for tourism and travel operators to market themselves. Like so many other matters, leaving a government in charge of this crucial business task is courting disaster.

Canada has a lot of natural splendour, but its entrepreneurs have lost their motivation. What should be a help to develop the tourism product of Canada has become like so many things in the country, just another destination marketing gravy train for tenure incentivized bureaucrats. What remains to be marketed then is... natural splendour. If only we - the Two Cowboys - can get a more significant chance to highlight Canada's tourism product and related businesses, then we may just be able to light the flame again of entrepreneurship and blow it stronger for Canada, our other home country.

In the meantime, while we sit out the cold winter months, we cannot get enough of exploring this great little country of New Zealand. We can call it our village because we also carry a Kiwi Passport. We are and remain committed to its success!

Enjoy our travels deep Downunder and we hope you can make the journey with us in person, one day. See you back in Canada again, soon.

Hendrik
Kiwi Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Episodes

Episode 2: Flying from Kelowna, BC to Auckland, NZ

Episode 3: Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival

Episode Next: Cooking in the Coromandel

Getting Lucky with Lucky Rentals

The Best Cafe in Dunedin

Wanaka, New Zealand

Lucky 2

Hosed for a Handpulled Beer

Lekker Man!

Weta Hot Chocolate

El Humero

Traveling Cowboys: Small Plates and Big Flavour at the Grande Brunch of Uncorked 2018 in Canmore, Alberta

Nine in a Row

For a town of fourteen thousand people, Canmore has so many restaurant choices that even if we eat at a different one every day, for a month, we still won't be able to try them all.

That is why we love our annual appointment with Andrew Nickerson and his team at Canmore's Uncorked Food Festival. The festival makes it easier to discover and enjoy the best Canmore's dining scene offers - restaurants we didn't know existed and dishes we haven't tried before. When we say the best, we don't only mean the food. We also suggest the people committed to promoting this great destination for culinary's sake. We applaud their effort.

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It is our third year of involvement in the event. Spring is always a great time in the mountains. The Uncorked food festival seals the deal for a visit and an appointment with this lovely destination.

Canmore Uncorked is a multiple award-winning food festival that returns each May for eleven days of remarkable dining experiences. It is the opportunity for restaurants of the town to showcase what they have to offer and to entice diners to try something new. For patrons, it is a flavour gauntlet that stretches the imagination and the waistlines. It is a must-do!

One way we make the most of the experience is to attend the Grande Brunch. Nine restaurants come together in one location to offer delicious taster morsels. The newly opened Grande Kitchen and Bar hosted the event this year which took place the first Sunday of the festival.

We tried everything, which proved to be an overly ambitious task. The portions were just enough to entice us to do another visit at participating restaurants. Together, it made for an amazingly delicious and very fulfilling meal.

Observations

Food festivals are for patrons. Patrons come with friends to celebrate, eat, explore, experience, meet and have fun with plates of food, mugs of beer, and glasses of wine. It is a familiar promotional drawcard used by destinations to entice new customers to visit and discover more about local businesses partaking in the celebrations.

Vendors are given an opportunity to reach new customers, fill their restaurants and move their products. It is a great marketing opportunity - when done right. The organizers of food festivals have the delicate balancing act of assuring there is enough variety, volume and value for attendees to make it worthwhile attending, and for participating businesses and the destination to see a return in the short and longer term.

Here in lies the crux of a successful food festival. Participating businesses and the destination, as a whole, must go all-out or risk being relegated to just another irrelevant mee-too food event of which there are far too many already. Businesses should make the most of the chance and strive to out-do each another. Not just each other in town, but other festivals, elsewhere.

We all know that with the demise of Canmore's destination marketing organization the Canmore Uncorked festival was left on shaky ground. Cudos to Andrew and his team for seeing it through and keeping the festival going. Unfortunately, herein lies the problem. We are of the opinion that Canmore's establishments overall are still not getting that this is their opportunity. It should not be just an event that continues. It should be the pinnacle food event in the Rocky Mountains!

In 2018, a few die-hard businesses and some newcomers remain committed to the festival's success, and they are reaping some of the potential rewards. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Canmore's food scene remains missing in action, and as a result, the town risks losing the opportunity.

It is no longer the "great" festival it once was. A celebration is not, and should not be for immediate profit or gain. If it was, it would be called a market. A longer perspective and commitment should prevail. The festival is there for the purpose of building marketing and promotional momentum for the times of the year when there isn't a festival. Profit follows from this momentum, and the awareness, excitement and the discovery drawcard it lit in customers. Participating businesses should commit their resources to building momentum like they would have done through any other marketing or promotional effort.

Canmore should be lucky to still have Uncorked. We hope to see it grow again to the grand festival it was once before. Andrew has our commitment and our vote to make it work. Now, all we need is for more of Canmore's food establishments to realize that this is their opportunity and get behind it. We are hopeful that it will happen before it is too late.

Hendrik van Wyk

Uncorked Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too. If you want to see us do more of these, then please forward the favour. We will use it for the next episode promoting a local business or event.

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Traveling Cowboys: Freeing our Cowboy Spirits at Waterton National Park, Alberta, Canada

Free Your Spirit

You should know that we have a favorite little piece of heaven at the southern most tip of our Alberta Province. Waterton National Park and Village is where we hang out at the beginning of every summer. There is just so much to do, with so many great people to meet. It is the place where our spirit soars as we get ready for summer.

Episode 1

Episode 2

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This year was no exception. We started with the Waterton Food Festival at the end of May. By the end of June, we were back to take in more of the sights and sounds of this great destination.

What to Do

Waterton's biggest attraction is what it offers hikers. There is a walk for any and all skill levels. It also provides the unique ability to hike the border between Canada and the USA. Remember to bring your passport for this unique experience. You will still have to be stamped in and out. It is a Peace Park, so better to keep it peaceful and keep your human footprint to a minimum by respecting the wildlife.

If you need any outdoor equipment, because the weather can change quickly and dramatically, then the Tamarack Store is the place to pick up what you need. It's been equipping hikers and trampers in the valley for more than forty years. Waterton Adventures, which operates from the Tamarack, offers day-trip and multi-day guided hikes to show you more of what the backcountry offers. If you are in a hurry, they offer a trail running experience.

Waterton's golf course is one for the bucket list. It is also one of Canada's oldest. Inspired by Stanley Thompson and constructed from 1929-1939, this 18-hole course will both challenge you and take your breath away. It is a public course that offers a range of amenities including club and cart rentals, a pro shop, a practice green and a licensed clubhouse. The 18 hole course is challenging, fun, and reminds you of why you started to play the game. Bring your windy game with you. There is bound to be a fresh breeze that will test your resolve, if not keep you cool on a hot day out.

Then there are the horses. It is Alberta, and you have to see a little bit of this great sky the way it was meant to be done, on horseback. Waterton is the start of the Alberta Cowboy Trail for us, and it begins at Alpine Stables. The Stables is a family operation established in Waterton since 1969. Dee and Lorna Barrus and their young family began with 25 to 30 good ranch horses and a desire to show visitors the splendors of the Alberta Rockies. Dee’s ranching savvy, her tracking and trapping experience, love of the wilderness, and his adventurous spirit combined to ensure a memorable ride, whether of one hour or five-day duration. This tradition is carried on by their capable and enthusiastic family, now into the third generation. Today Alpine Stables has fifty head of experienced mountain horses ready to accommodate both beginners and the most experienced riders.

Take home a special memory by enjoying a "two-nation vacation". Step aboard the historic M.V. International for a two-hour cruise. The boat is in its 90th year of operation and continues to be lovingly restored. It travels along the shoreline of beautiful Upper Waterton Lake and across the International border to Goat Haunt, Montana, several times a day. Shoreline Cruises operates the boat and provides this iconic cruise on one of the few remaining ships of its type, in the world.

There is so much that Waterton offers a visitor. It is a place that stays with you. In Waterton, people welcome you with open arms. The scenery is always breathtaking. The wildlife an experience. It is where we free our spirits and where we recommend you should do it too.

Hendrik van Wyk

Waterton Cowboy

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Tamarack Outdoor Store

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o-CNN: Destination Marketing Just Tanked in Canmore, Alberta

The Mountains Are All We Need

Or is it?

Canmore Business and Tourism (CBT) packed it in, closed, retired, ceased operations and left the building. The voice of, and for Canmore business is silent. Call it what you will, but things are not going to be what they've been before.

I am not going to make this a long post. Watch the video for our thoughts on the matter. 

Alberta's businesses are hurting, and as a result its people are hurting. For a short while, here in the mountains we thought we may be immune to the contagion that is murdering the enterprising spirit of Entrepreneurs and Producers in the rest of the province. Business is good in Canmore we tell ourselves. Tourism is up. We are lucky. People can work. While it is famine everywhere else, the mountain towns are thriving. 

It is then unfortunate that here too finally we have to face the reality that maybe our own community is not really as immune as we thought. No, we are not referring to the fall in oil revenues as the driver for our misfortune and the supposed cause for the Alberta recession. Rather, we are pointing to a lack of realization and understanding of what makes a community and a Province's future possible and successful in the first place: It is its Producers, the entrepreneurs, their businesses that follow, the jobs that are created as a result, and the opportunities it presents for people to move here, live and thrive. We profile them and make videos of what they do. You can see who they are on this site.

Contrary to (more recent) popular belief: Without a healthy and thriving business base, there is no community. As they say in the country of my birth - Africa: "If you eat the chicken, you have no more eggs." Give businesses a reason to be here and Entrepreneurs the encouragement to establish themselves, and see how well the rest of the people do as a result. Why is this so hard for our politicians to get? Market this destination.

Every weekend, thousands of cars drive by our town. Thousands of opportunities are lost until we flag them down and tell them our story, and show them what we have on offer. Canmore Business and Tourism was tasked to do this job, and they've done well with what they had at their disposal.

While the model for Canmore Business and Tourism was less than ideal, its motive, commitment and results were exemplary. Surely, there was a way to make it work then, Mr Mayor?

Canmore is not a business friendly town. Ask any entrepreneur and established business owner that tries to start or operate here, and they will testify to the hazards of navigating high operating costs, stupid property lease fees, labour shortage, skewed zoning laws, high living cost, autocratic and overbearing permitting, and a less than business friendly Town Council. Then add the more recent Provincial Government's taxation and legislative agenda, and it is a wonder any business is left in Alberta.

It is sad to see the one party, who was seen to be standing for the success of businesses in this town decide to call it quits. I personally don't blame them.

CBT just had to finally do what most businesses do under similar circumstances: They close down and/or leave. As a community we are going to be worse off for it. I cannot fathom what our Town Council was thinking to let this happen. Someone will have to take this one for the team.

Hendrik van Wyk

Canmore Business Owner

P.S. If Canmore Town Council think they can step in and do the job of destination marketing, then it will be time for us to reconsider our commitment to this lovely town too. I hear Nordegg is looking for new businesses... and they have mountains!

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