DESTINATION MANAGEMENT PLAN
Maine Office of Tourism
OVERVIEW
With ninety percent of its area covered in forest and a coastline that, if made straight, would stretch all the way to California, Maine draws over 15 million visitors a year who spend over $8 billion annually. But the trees and shorelines are not just assets of Maine’s tourism economy. They are also two critical strands of the state’s DNA. It was with this in mind that Maine Office of Tourism (MOT), part of the Department of Economic and Community Development, invited Coraggio to facilitate a strategic planning process to guide the organization as it swings its mission more directly toward destination stewardship. Using our Get Clear, Get Focused, Get Moving framework, MOT and its partners developed a Plan that outlines the commitments, partnerships, and initiatives needed to be advocates and catalysts for the people and places of Maine, to optimize tourism in the state and balance its benefits—economic, environmental, and social—not only in the next few years but for generations to come.
OUTCOMES
MOT and the State of Maine now have an articulated set of stewardship principles that will guide their initiatives and focus and give the context for a leadership role in destination stewardship in the state and across the northeast.
The Plan is a roadmap for evolving MOT’s role in a more stewardship-oriented context and ensuring they have the organizational capacity to take on their big goals and refocused mission.
The initiatives, action steps, and success measures outline how to balance maximizing impact and optimizing long-term impact, all while addressing the themes that came from all walks of life across the state.
MOT has new and strengthened relationships with other organizations, departments, and stakeholders and a new framework in which to work more collaboratively and find and foster greater synergies.
APPROACH
Recognizing that the quality of life for Maine residents is both key to and as important as a thriving visitor economy, the strategic planning team engaged in robust stakeholder outreach to gather data to ground the Destination Development Plan, bringing many more voices to the table than just those in the travel and tourism industry. This included resident, industry, and visitor surveys, as well as nine in-market listening sessions and other research, which culminated in a Situation Assessment with eight themes that formed the baseline focus of the Plan, and guided the planning team as they gathered in several meetings to create the initiatives that would guide the organization moving forward. The final Destination Development Plan, developed by the planning team over many hours of meetings, not only laid out imperatives, action steps, and measures of success. It also outlined a set of Stewardship Principles to guide the organization and the state of Maine as they safeguard the natural and cultural resources of the state.
While the strategic planning team was hard at work developing the Plan, the team at Miles, the parent company of Coraggio, focused on messaging and branding. This enabled us to ensure all the brand work, communication, story, and marketing strategies were consistent with the direction of the Plan and the pivots the plan called for. The Plan and the brand work worked synergistically, and the gravitational center of both the Plan and Maine’s brand remained strong: stewardship of Maine’s visitor experience and quality of life.
The final Plan was communicated at the governor’s conference. With input from a variety of voices from every region of the state, Maine’s Destination Development Plan is a data-driven guide for building economic vitality for all Mainers in balance with healthy communities and the natural environment through responsible marketing, community advancement, and fostering collaboration among Maine’s tourism partners.