FERNWOOD - Experience PEI, owned and operated by Mary and Bill Kendrick of Fernwood has been named a finalist in the Tourism Industry Association of Canada 2011 Canadian Tourism Awards. The company is one of three businesses in the running for the Hilton Worldwide Small or Medium‐sized Business of the Year Award.
"After just six years in operation, it's a tremendous honour to be recognized as one of the tourism industry's top companies," says Mary Kendrick.
Her company offers tourists unique experiential activities designed to provide visitors with the opportunity to spend time with Islanders doing what they do on a daily basis. Working with local experience providers, the company arranges for people to go tonging for oysters, digging clams, lobster fishing, chocolate making, sandsculpting and more than 20 other hands‐on learning adventures.
"We created Experience PEI after listening to our B&B guests at Briarcliffe Inn," says Bill Kendrick. "They would ask us questions about things they saw while touring the Island such as 'what are those people doing in the small boats with the long sticks?'"
The first experience they developed was Tong & Shuck with Future Seafoods in Fernwood. It was recently named one of the Canadian Tourism Commission's Top 50 Signature Experiences.
"We realized," adds Mary, "that what we see as commonplace, visitors see as exotic and different. So we decided to create the opportunity for them to learn about what we do here and how we do it."
Experience PEI has become the leading creator and provider of experiential tourism activities in Atlantic Canada. Their knowledge and expertise is now being sought by other tourism operators and agencies. They have conducted product development workshops in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia helping create experiences unique to those locations as well as working with Parks Canada and Tourism Charlottetown.
The 2011 Canadian Tourism Awards will be presented at a gala dinner at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa on Nov. 24. Experience PEI is up against a reservation system company from Ontario and a tour operator from Montreal.
More details on the TIAC 2011 Canadian Tourism Awards can be found at www.tiac.travel/awards/2011finalists.htm.
