Indicators Quick Facts Contact Us at: CenTRO ph: 207-581-3102
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Tourism R&DTourism R&D is designed to achieve two goals, 1) to support the development of innovative tourism products (experiences) for delivery in Maine and 2) to support the tourism entrepreneurs in Maine in securing funding to build businesses to deliver them. This two part program involved CenTRO in systematically searching the popular and academic leisure travel literature for leisure activity ideas that are not currently offered in Maine, but which might fit the portfolio of tourism products already offered in the state. The second part of the program involves survey research designed to identify the size and composition of the market for each of these concepts, as well as the compelling expectations about the concept that lead to tourist interest in them. This second phase serves as a screening mechanism to narrow the list of concepts to the most promising for generating commercial businesses. The resulting research reports identifying and profiling the opportunities represented by the surviving concepts will make these concepts attractive by reducing risk for entrepreneurs who might be looking for new product ideas and for the funding agency that might be asked to support a fledgling business based on one of them. The research methods employed were presented to the North Eastern Recreation Symposium in 2006, generating a conference paper that has been published in the conference proceedings. The paper has been posted to CenTRO’s web site. |