1. Authenticity

Authenticty: Being true to one’s own character.

The first step before starting work on a new experience is to define why you exist and what your destination stands for, in other words, your purpose. This will define the type of experiences that will be authentic and aligned with who and where you are.

This is the step that most often get missed in the excitement of building a new experience. We jump right ahead to looking at markets, trends and new opportunities and forget to spend a few minutes asking why we should be the ones offering it and why it should be offered here.

This is a mistake we’ve made a few times and something we’ve learned the hard way. A few years ago, when we started to expand beyond the ski bus, it was suggested that we should offer golf tours since we have some great courses in the region and it would certainly appeal to our guests. To this day we have yet to sell a golf tour.

What we realized afterward is that nobody on our team was passionate about golfing and our guests weren’t the one suggesting the new tours. We could have offered a good experience, taking care of the details and making sure that every guest had a great day on the course. What we couldn’t do was get excited for the adventure because it never felt authentic, it never felt like us. They weren’t wrong suggesting that there are opportunities for golf tours, it just didn’t line up with who we are.

So, what makes an experience authentic?

Authenticity happens when we are being true to ourselves. Unlike the experience, which as we will discuss later comes from within the guest, authenticity comes from the operator, the destination, the guides and everyone involved in the delivery of the experience.

An experience needs to be aligned with both the purpose of the operator offering the tour and the destination’s sense of place for it to be authentic.

The guides who will be delivering the experience and the partners contributing to the tour also play an important role. Their motivations and purpose need to align with those of the experience provider and the destination.

Finally, we believe that sustainability is part of the making of an authentic experience. Guests expect us to do the right thing but we’re also finding that failing to care for our environment makes it nearly impossible for an experience to be authentic.

Two important questions we need to ask ourselves when working on a new experience are why us and why here. This will help us ensure that what we create is an authentic experience. 

Asking Why Us?

The best way we’ve found is to start by asking ourselves why us? Why should we be the ones offering this new experience? Before we can answer those questions, we need to spend some time looking why we do what we do.

Defining Our Why

Your purpose is what defines why you do what you do and how you do it. It is what connects you with your ideal guests and differentiates you from the competition. In our case, our purpose is:

To inspire you to play outside and help you experience your adventure so that you can discover the people, food and natural beauty of the region.

Defining your purpose and developing experiences this way takes more work, at least upfront, but starting with purpose allows you to create experiences that are authentic and that will resonate with your ideal guests. There are some great resources, like the book Find Your Why, available to help you define your purpose. A short term option that will help you find a starting point is to combine your mission and vision statements to identify why you do what you do. For example, the Waskasoo Environmental Education Society (WEES) vision statement is:

A community that values and cares for its natural and cultural heritage.

Their mission statement is:

Our mission is to engage our community in our natural environment and cultural heritage through interpretation and education.

Based on these statements, we get a glimpse of why they exist as well as the impact of what they do. A purpose statement should be simple, actionable and focused on how it will contribute to others. For example, WEES purpose may be:

To engage our community in our natural environment and cultural heritage so that our community gains an appreciation for the benefits of natural and cultural heritage.

Defining your why is something that you only need to do for your first experience. You’ll refine the wording over time but since your purpose is the core of who you are as an organization it shouldn’t change based on trends or market conditions.

Your purpose provides the first check to see if a new experience is something you should offer. In our case, an experience must tie in with the outdoors and a sense of adventure to be considered. It must leave the guests feeling like they have a new connection with our region, especially its people, food and natural beauty. If the new experience doesn’t do this then it’s probably best to let someone else offer it.

Now that we’ve established why we do what we do, it’s time to look at how we do it.

Defining Our How

The purpose answers why we do what we do. How we do it is defined by the values and principles that guide our actions on a daily basis. This, combined with our purpose, is what truly differentiates our experiences from similar ones offered by other operators or destinations. This is the answer to the “what makes this your experience” question.

This step helps define what you stand for and also helps limit things that would be out of character if you offered them. It’s important to write these as actionable items rather than a list of aspirational values likes excellence, innovation or collaboration. General terms like this don’t drive action nor do they provide clear direction. Instead, state them in a way that every team member knows what’s expected of them.

Defining these takes work upfront but will make it easier to build authentic experiences moving forward. Start by looking at how you operate, what are the non-negotiable principles that drive all your experiences? Ask your staff what matters most to them since many of those shared values are the reasons why they’ve chosen to work with you in the first place. This should give you a fairly long list as a starting point. Then eliminate or expand on generic values, those ideas that are great but not defined in a way that allows everybody to know what they need to do. Group the remaining ideas along themes until you have 3 to 5 core principles emerge.

The most difficult part is having the discipline to always follow these and to turn down opportunities for new partnerships or experiences if they don’t align with your guiding principles. This is our list:

Get lost in the moment: Fun, shared experiences combined with breathtaking landscapes and amazing people create moments that naturally immerse us, making it easy to forget about daily life.

Simple is better: Life isn’t that complicated. Celebrate the simple pleasures, the raw beauty of nature and the connections with people you meet along the way.

Embrace the unexpected: Going on an adventure off the beaten path means that things are less structured. The best moments happen when you leave the checklist behind to create your own path.

Do the right thing: Caring for the environment and each other is not a trend, it’s part of living. Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures. Collect memories, not things.

Focus on the long term: Build relationships and memories that last. Taking the time to enjoy the journey will transform you.

Your guiding principles define how you deliver experiences. When you are considering a new experience, ask yourself if you can offer it within those constraints. For us it means that we avoid fabricated experiences or staging Instagram moments and instead look for locations that naturally provide these. It means that we build our tours for guests looking for deeper connections rather than those looking to complete a must-see list. If an experience doesn’t align with your guiding principles then it’s probably best to let someone else offer it.

Defining Our What

What you do is the one thing that will change over time. These are the products your guests will purchase. The reason they are purchasing them from you is what brings all your products together: your purpose and guiding principles.

When looking at building a new experience, ask yourself where it fits within your existing product line-up. Adding a new product category requires more investment, is this something you’re willing to take on at this point?

This is what we do: We’re an independent, locally owned tour company established in 2010 and based in Red Deer, Alberta. We craft a variety of outstanding experiences that showcase our passions and the region.

These are our product categories:

Adventure Travel

Influenced by the outdoors and outdoor culture, we offer adventures throughout Central Alberta and beyond that showcase breathtaking places and amazing people. Whether it’s a winter sightseeing tour exploring the ice bubbles of Abraham Lake, sharing the story behind local food or spending an evening snowshoeing under the stars, we’re here to help you experience your adventure.

We offer a collection of scheduled tours as the Explorer Series, full and half day adventures available on demand, and custom itineraries with local partners for individuals and groups of all sizes.

Pursuit Provisions

Food is part of all great adventures. It keeps us fuelled on the trail, helps us slow down to enjoy the moment over lunch, and gives us an excuse to get together and share the memories we’ve made along the way. Pursuit Provisions features some of our favourite outdoor inspired food like handcrafted ice pops, marshmallows, graham crackers, hot chocolate, granola, soups and more.

Basecamp + Cafe

Our basecamp in Red Deer brings together outdoor inspired food, gear sales and rentals along with tour bookings under one roof in a place designed to encourage exploring the region.

Explore Central Alberta

Our website for guests looking for a self-guided adventure in the region. Working with other local experts, we offer detailed trail guides and itineraries, recommendations for experiences that will appeal to our guests and meet their expectations along with an easier way to book adventures offered by the other great providers based in the region.

Crafting Outstanding Experiences

Our way of sharing some of the things we’ve learned along the way. The blog features behind the scenes stories on how we build experiences and our way to help others develop memorable experiences for our guests to enjoy when they visit the region.

The Guide’s Motivations

When considering whether we should be the ones offering an experience it’s important to take a few minutes to ensure that we have the right guides available to lead it. At this point we’re looking at more than technical skills or certifications, we’re making sure that their motivations align with the guests and the experience. Since the guide is the one engaging directly with the guests in the delivery of the tour, a poor alignment between the guide and the organization’s purpose or tour vision will be obvious to the guest.

Asking Why Here?

Should we offer this experience here? Sometimes the answer is obvious but most of the time it takes some work to decide.

The first step is identifying your destination’s sense of place, sometimes referred to as the destination’s essence or Place DNA as Destination Think defines it. This is similar to your purpose and will once again help you identify experiences that can be authentic and create a sense of place for your guests.

Our focus is on Central Alberta, a place of amazing contrasts, from the majestic rockies to the badlands and the parkland, from rural to urban, all within a short scenic drive. We believe that Central Alberta is a truly amazing place, with outstanding experiences to be shared with our guests. It’s still a little rough along the edges, making it hard sometimes for our visitors to see what we see, but with potential for new experiences that connect the people, food and natural beauty of the region.

We’re working with fantastic partners and discovering new ones on a regular basis. Our other site, explorecentralalberta.ca, brings together a lot of options when building a new experience.

When developing a new tour we need to make sure that it stays true to our region.

Working with Partners

Should we offer this experience here? Sometimes the answer is obvious but most of the time it takes some work to decide.

The first step is identifying your destination’s sense of place, sometimes referred to as the destination’s essence or Place DNA as Destination Think defines it. This is similar to your purpose and will once again help you identify experiences that can be authentic and create a sense of place for your guests.

Our focus is on Central Alberta, a place of amazing contrasts, from the majestic rockies to the badlands and the parkland, from rural to urban, all within a short scenic drive. We believe that Central Alberta is a truly amazing place, with outstanding experiences to be shared with our guests. It’s still a little rough along the edges, making it hard sometimes for our visitors to see what we see, but with potential for new experiences that connect the people, food and natural beauty of the region.

We’re working with fantastic partners and discovering new ones on a regular basis. Our other site, explorecentralalberta.ca, brings together a lot of options when building a new experience.

When developing a new tour we need to make sure that it stays true to our region.

Sustainability

The final piece of the puzzle to create an authentic experience is to do it in a sustainable manner.

Our goal at Pursuit Adventures is to inspire people to play outside and help them experience their adventure so that they discover the food, people and natural beauty of the region. The Outdoor Council of Canada’s mission is to promote outdoor education and activity so that every Canadian has access to outdoor education and activity. Many other organizations we work with have similar objectives.

These are positive objectives, getting more people to enjoy nature and creating connections with the places we love. If we are successful, it will mean more people exploring those places which comes with its own set of challenges.

Responsible Tourism

Responsible tourism and sustainable tourism are similar concepts, both addressing the need to account for the impact adventures can have on the economy, environment and society. Responsible tourism tends to focus on what we, as operators, guides and destinations, can do to minimize the negative impacts our tours can have while making sure that they generate greater economic benefits for our local communities and enhance their well-being.

How is it different from ecotourism? Responsible tourism can be applied to all types of activities, from hikes to food tours. Ecotourism on the other hand is travel for the specific purpose of visiting pristine, fragile and relatively undisturbed natural environments.

Demonstrating respect for the environment and support for our local communities influences our guests to behave similarly. Some of the things we can do, as guides and as organizations, include:

• incorporating sustainability into everything we do, including tour development;
• sourcing local food and products whenever possible;
• reducing our waste by using reusable supplies whenever feasible; and
• working with businesses and partners that share our vision for responsible tourism.

When we look at sustainability we aim to do the best we can within our resources, without being preachy. We don’t idle vehicles, except when using them as warming shelters on very cold days. We use re-usable cutlery and containers whenever possible and the best alternative when we must use disposable. We serve lunch picnic style to reduce food waste whenever possible. All of this is done as part of normal operations because it’s the right thing to do. Rather than teaching our guests we show them how it is just part of life and how easily it can be incorporated into their own life.

Leave no Trace

Leave No Trace is an example of something we can model for our guests while planning or guiding a tour. It is a set of seven principles on how we can reduce our impact while enjoying the outdoors. These are not rigid rules, but rather ethical guidelines we can use to help us in making decisions to reduce our impact on the environment.

Whenever possible, we should strive to not only minimize our impact but to also leave the place better than we found it. Sharing those efforts with the guests helps them see the ways in which progressive human impacts can destroy a site and how they can have a positive impact during their adventures. More information on the seven principles can be found at leavenotrace.ca.

Putting This Into Practice

Authenticity happens when the experience providers’s purpose, the guide’s motivations, the destination’s sense of place and sustainable practices align.

All of this takes time and work. On the positive side, once it’s done it gives us a much clearer picture of what type of experiences will be best aligned with who we are and our destinations. Tours that align this way sell better, create deeper connections with the guests and are a whole lot more fun to deliver.

This should be reviewed from time to time to see if anything has changed. It’s tempting to skip this step and jump right into identifying target markets, partnership opportunities and new experiences but we’ve learned from our mistakes that it’s better not to…

That being said, we know that this approach takes more time upfront and isn’t the only way to create memorable experiences. For larger operators in once in a lifetime destinations, we’ve often seen manipulations like using takeaways to increase pricing, special offers to display value, stoking the fear of missing out, tapping into the guest’s aspirations, creating a sense of peer pressure and exclusivety, and focusing on trends and novelty work very well, especially in the short term.

The next step is to look at who our ideal guests, what we have in common with them and why they might be interested in the experiences we have to offer.