How gamification helped entice BC Ale Trail Visitors back for a second round. 

Perfectly Paired | The BC Ale Trail + Tourismo

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

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 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? 

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


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 

Growth Through Riddles | Engagement Toolkit + Gamification

Despite hiccups (a lot of them), the BC Ale Trail 

 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 

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. 

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).

20% increase in engagement (daily check-ins)  

10k app downloads with 6k notifications enabled 

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. 

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   

Making the Case for Another Round | Collaboration + Analytics

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.


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.  

Perfectly Paired | The BC Ale Trail & Tourismo 

How Savour Alberta South unlocked southern' Alberta's development potential. 

Connecting the Spots | How Savour Alberta Unlocked their Development Potential

Vast, beautiful, and diverse, the Southern Alberta region easily fits the bill of “future international tourist destination.” 

But flight-worthy destinations don’t happen overnight. Travel Alberta (along with the key communities across the region including Tourism Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Taber, and Pincher Creek) knew that individual points across Southern Alberta were increasingly bustling with visitors — but those spend-ready tourists weren’t given the opportunity to dig deeper into what the region truly had on offer. 

Communities across the region knew full-well that Southern Alberta had the potential to become Canada’s next great destination. But getting to that destination posed some daunting logistical challenges...


Despite growing high-season traffic, Southern Alberta communities were seeing close to zero shoulder season traffic

Visitors were spending in select communities, but not exploring the wider region

The region lacked a coordinated campaign and narrative to elevate individual destinations into guided experiences worth visiting year-round

The Problem | Assembling the South AB Squad 

From Lethbridge to Medicine Hat, points on the Southern Alberta map were experiencing a significant spike in tourism traffic. Yet despite the diverse range of experiences and tastes on offer, audiences weren’t sticking around. 

The desire for a clear region destination brand was there. But with destinations disconnected from one another and consumers given no guide or itinerary of where to go or what to do, Southern Alberta’s development opportunity wasn't being fulfilled.

Bridging the Gap | The Savour Alberta South Campaign

To elevate Southern Alberta to a regional destination, a cohesive marketing campaign was needed to create connections, raise awareness, and drive new levels of traffic. 

In case you’ve never been, Southern Alberta is a culinary cornucopia. From complex locally brewed craft beers to the single best cob of corn you’re likely to taste, the breadth of available flavours and experiences is mind-expanding. To top it off, Southern Alberta's big-sky river valleys and jagged alpine peaks provide the perfect set and setting to pair with the hundreds of farm operators, restaurants, and breweries nestled throughout the region.

From DMO's to developers, everyone was in agreement — elevating Southern Alberta into an agri-tourism destination was a no-brainer.

Working with Tourismo, Tourism Medicine Hat (working on behalf of DMOs across the region) crafted the Savour Alberta experience in just a few meetings. Region-encapsulating and ready for development, the campaign experience would guide tourists from well-established culinary hotspots to off-the-beaten-track hidden gems — point-to-point adventures ready to captivate audiences for days, even weeks. 
Buy-in from key constituents and communities was immediate. The concept was sound and enthusiastically welcomed. Now, the tricky logistical work was about to begin… 


Tourismo's collaborative platform gave Tourism Medicine Hat a single place to organize listings and plan the Savour Alberta campaign 

Savour Alberta used Tourismo's AI-assisted listing tool to instantly add 150+ listings that collaborators could claim and edit

With listings onboarded in just a few days, Savour Alberta planned and distributed campaign details directly from the platform 

Tying the Region Together | Listings & Region Building 

Everyone was keen on the Savour Alberta campaign, but Savour Alberta needed a single place to organize collaborators before building out the guided experiences required to make that campaign a reality. 

Tourismo’s collaborative platform gave Savour Alberta that one place. With listings, collaborators could quickly add their website and key details to the platform. From there, Savour Alberta could easily upload those listings in real-time to their website. Plus, profile “scores” instilled a healthy sense of competition among constituents to up their “listing game” — the more details and content, the higher the score. 

With their listing live, collaborators were then able to craft and publish content directly in Tourismo that would automatically be uploaded to the Savour Alberta website and platform when exploring itinerary options. 

Meanwhile, Tourism Medicine Hat could easily create “sub-regions” within Savour Alberta for tourists on tighter timelines in just a few clicks. 

Flexible and consolidated communication was suddenly a reality. The broader Southern Alberta region, almost overnight, was connected —  Savour Alberta could now easily plan, communicate and distribute campaign details and events through Tourismo’s integrated email builder to give constituents and the region the marketing coverage it always deserved. 

Savour Alberta kept visitors engaged and exploring with easy to build guided itineraries

In just a few hours, Savour Alberta built multiple itineraries that nudged visitors towards "must-see" places to capture more revenue in the Southern Alberta region   

With constituents on-board, it was time to build the corridor. 

The Savour Alberta project depended on guided itineraries to keep consumers engaged and in-region. That required building out multiple itineraries to appeal to a wide range of consumer tastes and interests from farm fresh plates to craft brews. 

Thing is, that’s never been a simple task. Rewind just a few years back, and building guided itineraries represented a massive investment. It wasn’t unusual for platforms to spend upwards of $50,000 just to develop a single guided itinerary. Yikes.

Savour Alberta knew they needed to offer a variety of trails and experiences that took consumers across the region in a way that was engaging and important to them. On top of that, unlocking the year-round potential of the region was huge — so itineraries needed to be season-specific to drive that demand and unlock full development potential. 

All that meant that those itineraries needed to get created in a matter of days, not months.
The good news? Working with Tourismo meant itineraries could move from idea to reality in just a few 

1. Savour Alberta creates a new itinerary associated with a region

2. Savour Alberta creates one or multiple "Legs" to categorize stops along the way  

3. Savour Alberta adds "stops" within each itinerary leg 

4. Savour Alberta published five interactive and engaging itineraries to their website in just a few days 

5. Once published, Savour Alberta, DMO's and collaborators can then track itinerary performance and make updates as needed. 

From the eight stop Highway 3 Ale Trail to the mega sixty-two stop Farm to Fork guide, Savour Alberta now possessed a powerful web experience to drive traffic across the region and throughout the year. 


Bridging Gaps Between Development + Marketing 

Developers recognized the opportunity across Southern Alberta, but key pieces were missing. Solving the “shoulder season challenge” requires a lot of moving parts — buy-in, connectivity, a shared vision. And without the right tooling and platform, getting those pieces onto the board can be a lengthy if not impossible process. 

In a matter of weeks, Southern Alberta and Tourismo created a collaborative campaign and platform-empowered experience that connected an entire region for curious customers ready to explore and experience something new. Potential revenue is now staying (and growing) in the Southern Alberta region, unlocking those next, crucial stages of destination development. 

With revenue flowing and consumers flocking to a once previously overlooked gem of a region, Tourismo acted as the bridge between right now-realities and future potential. 

Savour Alberta is just getting started, and there’s a ton to come — one guided, seasonal, and delicious itinerary at a time.

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Perfectly Paired | The BC Ale Trail & Tourismo

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