Spreading the Downtown Message
The Downtown Kingston Restaurant and Shopping Guides serve as an essential marketing tool, with 30,000 copies of each printed annually. These guides play a crucial role in showcasing the diverse offerings available downtown to visitors. This initiative is a pay-to-play in order to be featured, but even if your establishment isn't directly promoted in the guides, the increased foot traffic generated by their distribution benefits the entire downtown area. Below is a detailed overview of the year-round distribution strategy of the guides that keeps our downtown vibrant and bustling:
Local Accommodations
Distribution: We prioritize a systematic distribution schedule for our brochures to hotels, ensuring maximum visibility and accessibility. Downtown hotels and the Visitor Information Centre receive brochures monthly, or bi-monthly based on demand, to maintain a consistent presence. Regional hotels are supplied with brochures quarterly, with one delivery conveniently coordinated by our valued partners at Kingston Accommodation Partners (KAP) to broaden our reach.
Virtual Concierge: We participate in a digital paid media service called ADS Media, which acts as a "virtual concierge". According to the practices of each individual hotel, QR codes are placed at the Front Desk, on tent cards in rooms, or even on the walls of guest rooms. The QR Code takes viewers to a landing page that features the directories of downtown businesses (on the BIA visitor-facing website). This program is featured in 11 local hotels.
Digital Assets: The BIA supplies digital media assets (photos, graphics and video) to area hotels for their indoor digital displays, or to be used as content for their social media channels. This is an important communication tool for marketing teams of local hotels so that they can provide more information for their in-house guests.
Downtown Businesses: Additionally, participating member businesses also become distribution points, further expanding the reach and impact of the guides throughout the community.
Events: We strategically collaborate with numerous events taking place in Kingston, such as the highly anticipated Kids for Kids Hockey Tournament, which typically host 180+ teams each year. To capitalize on this opportunity, we provide each team with a Restaurant Guide and a Shopping Guide for every player and their family, resulting in the distribution of over 3,640 brochures. To secure this exclusive access, we invest in a sponsorship package and advertise in the tournament's program, ensuring our message reaches the target audience effectively. This is an excellent example of a practice the BIA employs with many similar community events.
Conferences: We use a similar strategy for other events and conferences, leveraging partnerships to maximize exposure. Whether we are approached by event organizers seeking support, or by Tourism Kingston staff who foster such connections, we capitalize on these opportunities to increase our reach and solidify our presence within the community through targeted distribution and sponsorship initiatives.
Third Party Events: Events that happen downtown but are produced by third parties are a big part of this strategy. Kingston Canadian Film Festival, Spring Reverb, Kingston WritersFest, and many other third party events feature the guides as a part of the partnership agreements. If we’re involved as a sponsor, or helping to promote a 3rd party event, you can be sure these brochures are featured.
