| Location | Ontario | |
| Organization | Direction Ontario (formerly Destination Nord de l'Ontario) |
| Description | Following the Bonjour campaign of the Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario in North Bay in 2001, Direction Ontario adopted the concept and initiated its own Bonjour campaign for Northern Ontario. Direction Ontario then developed a tourism guide in French for the entire province. They also developed, tested and computerized a province-wide rating system for French services. See the summary for the pancanadian French-Language Services Classification project for the next step in the initiative.
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| Objectives | | • | Educate businesses about the importance of offering bilingual services | | • | Position Ontario's Francophone communities in the tourism industry
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| Activities | | • | Distribution of promotional tools (pins and stickers) for use in stores | | • | Media campaigns | | • | Creation of a tourism guide in French for the province | | • | Development and testing of a rating system that uses a questionnaire to assess the use of French at various levels: customer reception onsite and on the phone, signage, etc. | | • | Creation of a database allowing business owners to complete a self-evaluation form directly on the Web using the new national form | | • | Studies to measure results from Francophone clients and the tourism industry | | • | Facilitation of translation services between professional translators and tourism companies
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| Partners | | • | Partnerships with 37 regional tourism associations in Ontario covering 85% of the province | | • | 900 companies answered the questionnaire in Ontario
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| Funding | | • | Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation | | • | Purchase of advertising by businesses and organizations | | • | Registration of businesses, currently free of charge, will be subject to a fee as of 2009
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| Results | | • | In a Quebec market study carried out in 2005, more than a third of the survey respondents said they had consulted the French services rating scale. 73% of those respondents felt that Ontario was a good province for a French-speaking tourist to visit, 9% more than among Quebecers who had not consulted the scale | | • | According to a survey of the tourism industry, businesses want to use translation services in order to achieve a good rating
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Ingredients
for success | | • | Graduated approach | | • | Various rating categories, thus encouraging businesses to improve different aspects of their service
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| Challenges | | • | Convincing businesses to participate | | • | Avoiding misleading claims of bilingual services
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| For additional information | http://www.directionontario.ca/servicefrancais.cfm (in French only)
Nicole Guertin
705-335-2207
nicole.guertin@directionontario.ca |
