‘Engaging the senses’: Souris wildlife group offers hands on tourism experience

A wildlife group is hoping to give visitors a taste, literally, of what Basin Head has to offer.

Beyond the Beach is a new experiential tourism product created by the Souris and Area Branch of the P.E.I. Wildlife Federation.

“The eco-tours that we used to run in the past were mainly just a tour of the beach,” said Frances Braceland, project manager with the organization.

“We used to go into the sand dunes and we used to do the beach scene but it wasn’t engaging all your senses.”

Engage the senses

Over the winter, Braceland attended sessions on experiential tourism put on by Tourism P.E.I. and used that as the basis for re-designing what the group had been offering.

“We’re going to have the picnic where people can eat,” said Braceland.

“We’re going to have the beach scene where people can get hands on and pick up all the creatures, all the fish and the crabs and everything that we find in the lagoon.”

At the session, Tourism P.E.I. encouraged all the operators creating experiences to add some kind of food element.

“We really wanted to add eating seaweed into it because when we were at the workshops, they were talking about what natural P.E.I. flavours you can bring to your authentic experience,” said Braceland.

“Eating seaweed has been a big part of the history here and so we really wanted to share that with the audiences and it’s really something people can do now as well.”