About Us
Visitors Spend. Communities Grow.
Tourism is more than getting people to visit. It’s about building stronger communities.
Visitors spend. Businesses grow. Jobs are created. Investment follows. Communities gain new experiences, services, and reasons to feel proud of the places they call home.
That is the visitor economy.
The Visitor Economy helps destinations, communities, tourism organizations and businesses identify opportunities, develop stronger visitor experiences and turn tourism potential into meaningful economic and community impact.
The question is not simply:
How do we attract more visitors?
The bigger question is:
How can visitors help build a stronger community?
What We Believe
Every Destination Has an Opportunity
Sometimes the opportunity is already visible. It may be a successful attraction, a growing festival, a compelling cultural story or an experience visitors already love.
Other times, the opportunity is hidden in plain sight.
It may be an underused asset, an overlooked story, an experience that has not been fully developed or a partnership that has not yet been explored.
The Visitor Economy exists to help recognize those opportunities and turn them into practical action.
Great Tourism Must Benefit More Than the Visitor
Tourism should create memorable experiences for visitors, but its impact should go further.
Strong visitor economies can:
Support local businesses
Create jobs and investment
Strengthen community identity
Encourage regional collaboration
Support cultural and Indigenous tourism development
Improve amenities and experiences for residents
Create new reasons for people to visit, stay longer and return
The strongest tourism opportunities create value for both the visitor and the people who call the destination home.
What We Do
Strategy. Development. Marketing. Storytelling. Action.
The Visitor Economy brings together disciplines that are often treated separately.
A strong tourism idea needs more than marketing. It needs a clear opportunity, a compelling visitor experience, the capacity to deliver it, the right partnerships and a story that gives people a reason to care.
We help clients:
Identify tourism opportunities
Develop destinations and visitor experiences
Build practical tourism strategies
Position and market places, businesses and experiences
Communicate their value through meaningful storytelling
Turn recommendations into priorities and action
Our work is independent, practical and shaped around the destination, organization and opportunity, not a predetermined solution.
We Don’t Just Study Destinations. We Experience Them.
The best ideas rarely come from looking at a destination only through reports, websites or statistics.
Whenever possible, we come to you.
We walk the community, visit the attraction, experience the product, meet the people behind it and consider the entire journey through the eyes of a visitor.
We look at:
What gives someone a reason to visit
What they experience when they arrive
What encourages them to stay longer
Where they can spend
What they will remember and share
What could bring them back
How the community and its businesses benefit
That firsthand understanding helps us provide recommendations grounded in the reality of the place, not simply tourism theory.
Meet René Rondeau
Founder and Principal Strategist
The Visitor Economy is led by René Rondeau, a tourism, destination development, communications and media professional based in Edmonton, Alberta.
René brings more than 20 years of leadership and professional experience across tourism, strategic communications, stakeholder engagement, destination development, broadcasting and media production.
His career began in television news and broadcasting, where he worked as an assignment editor, reporter, videographer, producer and sports anchor. He later founded and operated a media production company before moving into tourism leadership and destination development.
As Executive Director of Tourism Red Deer, René led the organization through the global pandemic, strengthened relationships across the region and helped reposition tourism as an important contributor to local economic recovery and growth.
Most recently with Travel Alberta, René worked in destination and commercial development with tourism businesses, municipalities, Indigenous communities, destination organizations, economic development partners and regional stakeholders across Alberta.
That career has given him a valuable perspective on the complete visitor economy from the businesses and people delivering the experience to the communities, organizations and governments working to develop the destination.
Experience That Creates Results
René’s experience includes:
Tripling organizational membership while leading Tourism Red Deer
Securing more than $800,000 through grants and government funding
Helping enable approximately $700,000 in direct local tourism investment during the pandemic
Supporting tourism operators and communities through destination and commercial development
Building relationships with municipalities, Indigenous tourism partners, economic development organizations and tourism businesses
Developing stories and content across television, video, digital media and strategic communications
Leading organizations, projects and partnerships through change and uncertainty
René combines the curiosity and storytelling instincts of a journalist with the practical perspective of a tourism and destination development leader.
Who We Work With
The Visitor Economy works with:
Tourism businesses and operators
Destination organizations
Municipalities and communities
Indigenous tourism organizations and communities
Economic-development organizations
Attractions and cultural organizations
Festivals and events
Regional tourism partnerships
Organizations requiring tourism, communications or strategic advisory capacity
Whether you are beginning with an idea, trying to strengthen an existing experience or determining where your greatest opportunity may exist, we help find the practical path forward.
Building Stronger Communities Through Tourism
Great destinations are not simply discovered.
They are developed through vision, collaboration, strategy, storytelling and action.
The Visitor Economy brings those elements together to help create experiences that visitors remember, businesses benefit from and communities are proud to share.
Inspire. Develop. Share.
Let’s Start a Conversation
Do you have a tourism opportunity, challenge or idea worth exploring?
You do not need to have the entire solution figured out. That is where the conversation begins.