THE OPPORTUNITY

First impressions are lasting impressions. Downtown Collingwood hired BC Hughes to complete a downtown assessment and formulate recommendations (including action plans) which would help identify and prioritize opportunities related to three main areas:

• Visitor Experiences
• Physical infrastructure
• Brand Validation

then hired the BC Hughes Marketing Team to create the visuals to make it come to life.

THE PROCESS

The BC Hughes team:

• Photo documented all findings during the site visit
• Extensively reviewed the community CIP, strategic plans, heritage programs, and community tourism studies
• Created downtown evaluation assessment criteria
• Assessed downtown experiences, businesses, streetscaping, wayfinding signage and visitor amenities,
• Highlighted comparable case studies to illustrate examples related to the identified opportunities, and
• Provided step by step action plans for implementation of the visitor experience and brand recommendations.

THE OUTCOME

As a result of the Visitor Experience and Brand Validation Assessment, Downtown Collingwood received researched and detailed recommendations complete with photo documentation, case studies and 20 actionable recommendations directly related to:  municipal streetscaping infrastructure projects, customer service, wayfinding/ signage, visitor amenities, animation, parking, business beautification, and downtown branding. These recommendations helped Downtown Collingwood action their visitor experience enhancement plans.