Perfectly Paired | The BC Ale Trail + Tourismo

Few platforms better capture the phrase “right idea at the right time” than the BC Ale Trail.

Launched in 2016 just as the craft beer movement was shifting from niche to mainstream, the BC Ale Trail is the brainchild of the BC Craft Brewers Guild. 

Providing newbies and established brew sommeliers alike an engaging, insider’s itinerary for the absolute best BC beer, the BC Craft Brewers Guild’s vision was to deliver region-changing value for breweries, consumers, and communities alike.
That vision was a prescient one — in just a few years, the BC Ale Trail platform hit a staggering 26,000 users. 

From timing to awareness to an established audience, the BC Ale Trail had all the right ingredients assembled to become one of the all-time greats in the beverage sector. 

But despite those early successes, trouble was brewing…

The Problem | Another Round... Anyone?

• The BC Ale Trail platform was struggling to re-engage their massive audience 

• A simplistic app frustrated users and burdened breweries with upkeep and admin

• Audience decay and poor retention was quickly accelerating

As early as 2022, BC Ale Trail saw a problem. Despite establishing a huge audience, re-engaging and retaining audiences proved a big problem. 
Seeking a solution to benefit consumers and breweries alike, the BC Craft Brewers Guild worked with external developers to create a simple BC Ale Trail app. Audiences were awarded points for repeat check-ins that they could redeem for brews, swag, or events — it felt like a no-brainer solution. 

The problem? That “app” was rudimentary to the point of user frustration with limited functionality resulting in massive churn (basically, a glorified spreadsheet). So, not exactly engaging.

Meanwhile, a handful of sneaky brew lovers began gaming the system by“checking in” at multiple breweries by driving by at all hours of the day, and gobbling up points. Incentive to cheat was high; incentive to revisit breweries was unmoved.  

It was bad times for the breweries, too. Since the app wasn’t integrated with the BC Ale Trail platform, breweries were required to manually update key details across two platforms resulting in errors, dated information, and frustration at every level. 
The takeaway? No one was happy. 

With little change in retention and re-engagement, the golden taps of opportunity for the BC Ale Trail were drying up — fast. 

Growth Through Riddles | Engagement Toolkit + Gamification

• Tourismo's engagement toolkit made it simple for the BC Ale Trail team to coordinate and distribute weekly pub quizzes 

• Breweries enjoyed a massive bump in marketing and awareness, attracting first-time and returning brew lovers alike 

• Key Metric: +20% in app engagement 

Despite hiccups (a lot of them), the BC Ale Trail was seeing some traction from the gamification introduced with their initial app. A new app was needed — no question. While that was a critical component, the BC Ale Trail team knew it wouldn't be a silver bullet.

With a new app live, the BC Ale Trail needed to build on the initial engagement and signal they saw from their previous app. To entice visitors back for a second (and third, and fourth) round, they used Tourismo’s engagement toolkit to create and distribute the most tried and true brewery event in existence: the pub quiz. 
But one-off quiz nights weren’t going to move the needle — they needed a solution that every brewery along the way could engage with. 

Using the Tourismo platform, the BC Ale Trail team made it easy for breweries to get involved and drive engagement. 

Here’s how: 

1) The BC Ale Trail team creates weekly pub quizzes directly in the Tourismo platform

2) The BC Ale Trail distributes trivia questions and details to breweries via Tourismo 

3) Breweries embed trivia details on their website, send push notifications, and use provided assets to spread the word on social media

4) Breweries retarget past visitors via push notifications in the BC Ale Trail app.

5) Customers get rewarded points for checking-in during specific times and for every correct answer submitted (and, of course, some really good times).

Simple to organize and distribute, weekly pub quizzes represented a game-changer for the BC Ale Trail platform. Audiences were flowing back to breweries along the trail, millions of points were accrued, and the BC Ale Trail had officially found their second wind. 

Results (July 2024-April 2025):

• 20% increase in engagement (daily check-ins)  

• 8% increased time in app per user 

• 60k total check-ins 

• 10k app downloads with 6k notifications enabled 

• 86% reduction in app crashes

Simple to organize and distribute, weekly pub quizzes represented a game-changer for the BC Ale Trail platform. Audiences were flowing back to breweries along the trail, millions of points were accrued, and the BC Ale Trail had officially found their second wind. 

Making the Case for Another Round | Collaboration + Analytics

• The BC Ale Trail now had a centralized tool to collaborate with and engage breweries 

• With easy to use analytics and automated updates, breweries could see the BC Ale Trail impact 

• Key metrics: 8% increase in time in app   

Beverage sectors similar to the BC Ale Trail get it: not every brewery thinks of themselves as a driving force for tourism from the get-go. But that buy-in from constituents matters — platforms like BC Ale Trail are only as good as the effort and engagement of the breweries along for the ride.

Constituent buy-in was a key component of The BC Ale Trail from the very beginning. Conferences, podcast appearances, brewery visits, and tons else were all core activities that all paid off. But while that’s great for getting breweries onto the platform, the BC Ale Trail team needed a way to maintain that momentum and encourage further engagement. 

That’s where two core elements of Tourismo came in: in-depth analytics and automated updates.

Again, we get it — requesting that brewers turn into data-experts is a BIG ask. Breweries on The BC Ale Trail platform can easily access their reporting and analytics in just a few clicks in Tourismo, but any beverage sector pro will tell you that that engagement will be sporadic at best. 

Enter automated updates. To give constituents a clear view of the benefits of joining the BC Ale Trail, breweries received automated updates showcasing key metrics specifically related to platform activities. 

With minimal setup required from the BC Ale Trail, the result was a “hands-off” engagement tactic that significantly increased constituent buy-in — all while motivating breweries to engage and experiment with Tourismo tools to solidify their status as a destination along the Ale Trail.
In-platform constituent engagement skyrocketed, brewery profile quality increased, and many, many more beers were poured across the board.

Brewing Growth (and Good Times)

The pairing of Tourismo with the BC Ale Trail is a textbook example of how building an incredible audience only gets you so far. 

By deepening their ability to collaborate with breweries at scale and retaining the attention of first and returning brew lovers alike, Tourismo and the BC Craft Brewers Guild tapped into a satisfying solution at every level. 

Elevating a brewery to “destination status” takes a lot of talent and a lot of time. And while neither the BC Ale Trail or Tourismo can help breweries with that talent part, the right tools can radically reduce the time needed to reach that legendary status.