No one can tell the story of Prince George like its residents.
The tourism industry has traditionally relied on static advertising to sell any town or region to prospective travellers, but in the age of social media and speed messaging, the power has shifted to the individual.
Based on the local public's expressed thrill of winning the 2015 Canada Winter Games, and outspoken frustration over Maclean's Magazine's crime rankings, the city clearly has the ability to raise its collective voice, said Tourism Prince George CEO Aidan Kelly. He is basing the main thrust of TPG's 2013 public awareness campaign on this asset - the people themselves.
"It's our job to say nice things about Prince George, but we want the real stories to be told by regular people," he said. "Some of those stories won't be positive, and there is some truth to the criticisms of this city, but that just makes the good ones even more powerful. We are so sure the Prince George experience is a good one, we will line it up with the negative side, and the authentic truth will emerge."
The main way people can contribute to the conversation is via the TPG website, under a heading that will soon appear: Take On Prince George. Its double meaning is itself a call for opinions and a challenge to get engaged with your city.
The website portal will have links to TPG's Facebook and Twitter (#TakeOnPG) feeds as well, so all that's said has the opportunity to travel the world.
There will also be a series of public commenting stations moving around the city at different key locations throughout 2013, and that too will be fed into the virtual conversation.
"We're going to be encouraging people to come to specific events that highlight Prince George, even the simple things," said Kelly. "It could be as simple as a walk in Cottonwood Island Park but if you've got 150 people along, many of them tweeting about it and posting photos and status updates to Facebook, the word spreads and it isn't a sugarcoated corporate profile of Prince George, it is real people doing real things and sharing their feelings about it."
In addition, Kelly and the TPG staff are also compiling a special list - 365 things to do in Prince George - but enhanced over the usual tourist brochure lists of this nature.
"It won't be the vague 'go for a walk in a city park' sort of list. It's not even a specific suggestion like 'go for a walk in the Ancient Forest'. It will have even more value than that, containing a feature activity or some reference to what you can do there, something that gives you a goal," said Kelly. "'Go to the Ancient Forest and get your picture taken with Treebeard' or 'try a PWB Schwarzbock at a Nancy O's comedy show.' And because those are year-round possibilities it could be found anywhere in the list of 365, but other things are specific to a season or a date so we are going to position those in the appropriate place on the list."
Specific Prince George personalities will also be enlisted to lead the conversation in some ways. Kelly challenged everyone to come up with a personal list of Top 10 things to do in the region, in case anyone from TPG comes up to you and asks for input on the spot.
The first words in the new conversation get spoken on Jan. 19 at Exploration Place. The Take On Prince George campaign will be launched at a public celebration of all things P.G.
