Following its newly adopted “Acadian Musical Villages” theme, the Evangeline Tourism Association has erected bilingual welcome signs at each entry point to the region, as well as individual community signs at the entry at each of the 14 villages and municipalities of the region. The signs feature the four colors of the Acadian flag, depict 14 small houses, and musical notes.
A second type of sign is also available for all musical artists. These smaller signs feature a keyboard, a fiddle, musical notes, and the Acadian flag. The signs can be placed in a musician’s yard or by the roadside to indicate where a musician lives. Eventually, all the musicians who have these signs will have their musical profile included on a future website.
These two major initiatives were recently announced during the official launch of the 2015 tourism season in the area.
Réjeanne Arsenault, president of the Evangeline Tourism Association, explained the intention of these signs is to create a striking and lasting visual image about the reality of the Evangeline area.
“If you were to pass through our region once the signs are all set up in the musicians’ yards, and you’d also see all the community signs, you couldn’t help but be struck by the distinctiveness of our area,” said Arsenault.
The association is also looking at two other initiatives for the current season. First, it will hire a photographer to take pictures throughout the area to create a collection of photos for future promotional purposes.
Second, the association wants to implement a standardized tourist survey to identify where visitors are from and how they found out about the Evangeline area. The results will help to determine which marketing initiatives are more effective and where promotional budgets should be spent.
