How tourism teams can turn resident feedback into local participation
By Tony Hanyk, Director of Marketing & CX at Driftscape, with insights from tourism consultancy Bannikin
Tourism teams make better decisions when they understand how residents experience their destination.
Residents see where tourism supports local businesses, where visitor activity creates pressure and which community stories receive too little attention. Their input can guide destination planning, infrastructure priorities, local communications and programs that encourage people to explore their own community.
In our webinar, Great Places to Live Make Great Places to Visit: Engaging Residents in Tourism, Driftscape joined tourism consultancy Bannikin to discuss how tourism organizations can gather resident feedback, decide what to do with it and measure what happens next.
Here are the main lessons from the session.
Resident engagement supports better destination management
As destination organizations take on a greater role in tourism management, success is being measured in more ways.
Visitor numbers still matter. Tourism teams must also consider how tourism affects local businesses, public spaces, infrastructure, culture, the environment and residents’ quality of life.
Residents contribute to this work in several roles:
Hosts: They welcome visiting friends and relatives and help shape their experience of the destination.
Customers: They support attractions, events and tourism-related businesses, particularly during slower seasons.
Local experts: They know where congestion occurs, which community assets are overlooked and how tourism affects daily life.
Decision-makers: They influence public support, community priorities and local investment.
Resident input can also reveal practical improvements that serve visitors. Better trail connections, clearer parking information, accessible public spaces and well-maintained gathering places affect everyone who uses the destination.
Choose the engagement method that fits the decision
A resident sentiment survey can reach people across a large geographic area and create a baseline that can be repeated over time. It will not answer every question on its own.
The right method depends on the decision your organization needs to make.
Engagement method | When it works well |
Resident sentiment survey | Identifying broad patterns, comparing resident groups or establishing a benchmark |
One-on-one interview | Gathering detailed insight from community leaders or key stakeholders |
Focus or advisory group | Understanding the experiences of a specific resident group |
Interactive workshop | Working through a defined destination challenge or opportunity |
Open house or pop-up | Making participation more informal and accessible |
Physical or virtual comment board | Collecting ongoing input with a lower participation barrier |
A mix of methods often produces better context.
Bannikin shared an example from a project in northern British Columbia. The consulting team made a difficult flight into the community, only to find that a highway closure prevented residents from reaching the in-person session. An online survey or another remote option would have allowed those residents to participate despite the conditions.
The lesson is practical: build more than one route into the engagement process, especially in rural, remote or seasonal destinations.
Decide how the feedback will be used before asking for it
Before drafting survey questions, define the decision the research will support.
You may be establishing a general resident sentiment baseline. You may be responding to concerns about event parking, trail conditions or seasonal congestion. You may want to understand why residents are not participating in local events or supporting nearby businesses.
The purpose will shape your questions, recruitment plan and analysis.
Before launch, confirm:
the decision or strategy the findings will inform;
the resident groups you need to hear from;
whether the survey will be repeated;
local schedules or seasonal factors that could affect participation;
the demographic information needed for analysis;
the partners that can help distribute the survey;
how the findings will be reported back to residents.
Timing should reflect the community. Seasonal residents may be harder to reach at certain times of year. Holidays, major events, school schedules and periods of seasonal work can also affect response.
Local context matters more than a standard campaign calendar.
Keep the survey focused
Long surveys create more work for respondents and can affect who has the time to participate.
Bannikin has seen destinations launch surveys with roughly 40 questions and receive a respondent pool heavily weighted toward retirees. Older residents are an important audience, but the results may not reflect younger residents, parents or people with less time to complete a lengthy survey.
Aim for a short set of high-value questions. Around 20 questions, including demographic questions, may be a reasonable ceiling for many resident surveys. Completion time is the better test because rankings, matrices and open-text questions require more effort than a simple rating scale.
Use a mix of question types:
Closed questions help identify patterns and compare results.
Open questions give residents room to raise concerns or opportunities the team did not anticipate.
Pilot the survey with a small group before launch. Check whether the questions are clear, neutral and relevant. Confirm how long it takes and whether any important response options are missing.
Only ask for demographic information that will be used. If your team does not plan to compare findings by age, location, residency status or another characteristic, reconsider whether that information needs to be collected.
Treat response targets carefully
A target of 300 to 400 completed surveys may provide a useful community-wide sample in some destinations. It does not automatically make the findings statistically representative.
Confidence levels and margins of error depend on the population, how participants were selected, response patterns and whether important demographic groups are underrepresented.
An open survey promoted through social media can provide useful directional insight, but a high response count does not remove self-selection bias.
Record the limitations of the survey when presenting the findings. If results will support a major policy or investment decision, consider getting advice from a qualified research professional.
Make participation accessible
An online survey distributed through an existing tourism email list will reach only part of the community. Those subscribers may already have more interest in tourism than residents who do not follow the organization.
Work with partners that have established relationships with different resident groups. These may include:
municipal departments;
libraries and community centres;
schools and post-secondary institutions;
newcomer-serving organizations;
cultural and language groups;
BIAs, chambers and merchant associations;
festivals and community markets;
rural and seasonal-resident networks.
Partners can share the survey through their newsletters and social channels or help collect responses in person.
Depending on the community, accessibility measures could include translated versions, paper copies, accessible online forms or tablets at local events. In-person support can also help residents who are less comfortable completing a digital survey independently.
For communities with large newcomer populations, start with organizations that already have trusted relationships. A translated survey can identify broad themes. A facilitated focus group can then provide the cultural and personal context that a questionnaire may miss.
Reduce consultation fatigue
Residents may be asked for feedback by tourism teams, municipal departments, BIAs, economic-development offices and community organizations, sometimes within the same few weeks.
Coordinate before launching another survey. If a municipal department is already gathering feedback on transportation, public space or downtown development, it may be possible to include a small number of tourism-related questions.
Changing the format can also help. A short intercept survey at a community event places less demand on residents than another email asking them to complete a long questionnaire at home.
Whatever the format, tell people why their input is needed and what will happen after they provide it.
Protect the quality of the responses
Incentives such as gift cards or experience packages can increase participation. They can also attract automated or duplicate entries.
Use CAPTCHA, skill-testing questions and response monitoring where appropriate. Review unusual patterns such as repeated contact information, inconsistent names and large numbers of entries submitted within a short period.
When ambassadors collect responses on a shared tablet, configure the survey platform to allow legitimate submissions from the same device or IP address. Record how those responses were collected so the research team can distinguish assisted intercept surveys from independent online responses.
These controls will not remove every questionable entry. They give the team a clearer basis for reviewing the data before analysis.
Treat operational concerns as useful evidence
Tourism teams sometimes worry that resident engagement will become a list of complaints about garbage collection, parking, road maintenance or snow removal.
These concerns can still inform destination management. They affect how residents use their community and may also affect the visitor experience.
A tourism organization may not control the service in question. It can document recurring concerns, identify where visitor activity may be contributing to the issue and share the findings with the department or partner responsible.
In one example discussed during the webinar, residents identified downtown parking as a pressure point. The destination knew that nearby parking lots often had available capacity. This suggested a possible information and wayfinding problem rather than a simple shortage of parking spaces.
The response could include clearer signs, parking maps or communications directing people to underused lots. Resident feedback helped the team examine the problem before recommending a costly infrastructure response.
Report back to residents
Residents who take the time to participate should hear what the organization learned and how the findings will be used.
Plan the report-back process before launching the survey. Options include a public summary, council presentation, community meeting or “What we heard” webpage.
Explain:
what residents said;
which findings will influence tourism planning;
what the organization can act on directly;
which concerns will be shared with other departments or partners;
what cannot be addressed immediately;
when progress will be reported.
This helps residents understand the tourism organization’s role and shows that their time produced something useful. It can also make future engagement easier by giving people a clearer reason to participate again.
Match the response to the finding
Resident feedback may point to a campaign, an infrastructure issue, a communications gap or a need for stronger coordination.
What residents identify | Potential response |
Limited awareness of tourism’s local value | Share local business stories, economic-impact information and examples of community benefits |
Congestion in specific places or seasons | Promote alternative routes, times and locations |
Poor trail quality or connectivity | Prioritize maintenance, accessibility improvements or municipal advocacy |
Uncertainty about what to show visiting friends and family | Create resident-facing guides, itineraries or self-guided tours |
Low participation in local businesses | Launch a shopping passport, check-in campaign or local rewards program |
Lack of confidence in the engagement process | Publish findings and create ongoing opportunities for resident input |
The response should address the issue residents identified and fit the organization’s authority, resources and partnerships.
Turn insight into measurable participation
Driftscape uses a five-phase community participation cycle to help tourism teams move from resident feedback to an active program.
1. Understand
Gather feedback through surveys, interviews, workshops and community partners. Look for recurring concerns, local traditions and underused community assets.
2. Activate
Choose an activity that responds to what you learned. This could be a self-guided tour, local shopping passport, scavenger hunt, event or communications campaign.
If residents say visitors concentrate in one part of downtown, for example, a rewards program could encourage visits to businesses on nearby streets.
3. Measure
Choose metrics that match the action you want people to take.
Website visits, video views and social reactions can indicate awareness or interest. Check-ins, coupon redemptions, completed routes, contest entries and receipt-backed purchases provide stronger evidence of physical participation or spending.
Each metric answers a different question. A tour view shows that someone opened the experience. A location-gated check-in indicates that the person reached a specific place. Neither should be reported as a business visit or purchase unless the collection method supports that conclusion.
4. Optimize
Review the data while the campaign is active.
If participation drops between two tour stops, check the distance, signage, accessibility and surrounding construction. If merchants receive repeated questions, simplify the instructions or provide a short script for front-line staff.
Small operational changes can improve the current campaign and give the team clearer guidelines for the next one.
5. Repeat
Adapt successful formats for another season or audience.
A Halloween home-decorating tour can become a holiday lights tour. A winter shop-local campaign can return for back-to-school shopping. A burger contest can become a hot chocolate challenge.
Reusing a tested format can reduce planning and setup time. Each version also gives the team another opportunity to review participation data and improve the experience.
Resident participation in practice
Visit Thunder Bay: Building on a local Halloween tradition
Visit Thunder Bay turned a popular community tradition into a digital Haunted Houses Tour featuring decorated homes across the city.
According to Driftscape platform data, the 2024 tour received more than 25,000 views. The tour gave residents a central place to find participating displays and provided a format that Tourism Thunder Bay could update for future seasons.
Launceston Central: Tracking local spending through a digital passport
Launceston Central replaced its paper-based Love Launnie campaign with a digital shopping passport involving approximately 100 local businesses.
The campaign generated more than 1,000 submissions in its first 21 days. By the end of the campaign, participants had reported nearly $400,000 in local spending through the platform.
This was first-party campaign data collected through Driftscape in which guests were able to self report the amount spent and upload photos of their receipts.
The digital format gave Launceston Central more information about submissions, participating businesses and campaign activity than its previous paper-based approach. The team could then use those findings to plan future versions of the program.
Make resident input visible
Resident engagement in tourism is most useful when it influences a real decision.
Ask focused questions. Work with partners that reach beyond your existing audience. Record the limits of the research. Show residents what the organization learned and what will happen next.
That process gives tourism teams better information for destination planning and a clearer foundation for programs that residents will recognize as relevant to their community.
Watch the full webinar, Great Places to Live Make Great Places to Visit: Engaging Residents in Tourism, for more insights from Driftscape and Bannikin.
Want to turn a resident priority into a measurable local campaign?
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About the presenters
Tony Hanyk is Director of Marketing & CX at Driftscape, where he helps tourism organizations connect destination goals with practical visitor and resident engagement strategies.
Caroline Morrow is a Partner at Bannikin
James Arteaga is a Project Manager at Bannikin Bannikin is a tourism consultancy specializing in tourism research, strategy, media relations and travel trade development. Its team works with destinations to gather community input and support tourism planning.
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