Rita Gordon knows about growing a seasonal business. She is the co-owner of Gordon's Park, an adventure, eco park located in Northern Ontario, Canada on 100 acres of beautiful Manitoulin Island. She and her husband opened the park nearly 20 years ago and business couldn't be better...even only operating for 3 out of 12 months of the year.

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Transcribed Interview with Rita Gordon of Gordon's Park:

 

Tracy:    Hi, this is Tracy Matthewman, publisher of WomenCanDoAnything.com and I’m here today with Rita Gordon from Gordon’s Park. Hi, Rita.

Rita:     Hi, Tracy. How are you today?

Tracy:    I’m good. Thanks. So Rita has a park in the northern part of Ontario, Canada and it’s in a place called Manitoulin Island and Rita, I just wanted to get you on the call today to share with everybody a bit about your business and some of the challenges that you face and how you have grown this business over the last 20 years. You include so many different services and adventure activities for your customers so maybe you can start off by telling us a little bit about what your company does.

Rita:     Well, our park is basically an eco-resort. We are very much off the grid. We run all kinds of eco-events and activities and we have accommodations such as tipi tenting, camping. We’ve got bed and breakfast. We’ve got little camping cabins and we have a stargazing cabin and then for onsite activities, it’s got a solar heated swimming pool. We have a nature and interpretive center, educational hiking trails, an 18-hole miniature golf. We’ve got birding checklist for the park and cycling routes. We have astronomy nights. We have Walk a Fossil Reef walks. We have star parties, our moonlight hikes and Wolf Howls. We have a drumming weekend this summer as well and of course, our Women’s Outdoor Weekend. And all of that information can be found our website at GordonsPark.com to give you an idea of what we’re all about.

Tracy:    Okay. In that pile of things that you do, I heard a few references to – at the beginning, you had said eco-park and then I noticed there was a solar-heated pool and maybe some other things. Maybe you could expand a little bit on that – you know, today the green revolution is so huge and how you guys are using that to your advantage and keeping in line with that green challenge that we all have today.

Rita:     Well, I think right from day one when we started to develop our park from scratch, you know, in the back of our minds was an appreciation for the surroundings in the area that we were developing. And so we’ve always been green pretty much the whole way in the process that we’ve developed our park so yes, our pool is a solar-heated pool. It’s, you know, not a solar blanket. It’s actually with solar panels. We also have lots of – our activities are eco and very educational and the activities have little impact on the land around – on the environment. We have eco-showers. We practice water conservation. Our guests are asked to compost their veggie matters and to recycle and to recycle.

Our programming is geared towards eco-events and activities and even in the development of our park, we harvested this cedar off of our land with horse [Indiscernible] [0:03:24] during the winter months. We like to try and reuse as much as we can and of course, we promote local growers but by far, our biggest recognition or biggest green project was to have the dark sky site in our park designated as a dark sky preserve under the guidelines of the RASC requirements, the RASC being the Royal Astronomical Society. So we have a tract of land in our part that is designated for people to be able to view the stars and do astronomy and, you know, to really connect with, you know, the land and the sky.

Tracy:    Sounds like you guys are doing a lot to keep that awareness out there and also, practicing what, you know, what you preach in that sense as well. Okay. So, from a business perspective, what are some of the – you know, you’re up in the – well, I guess mid to northern area of Ontario. Correct?

Rita:     Correct.

Tracy:    And, you know, I am in the south of Ontario so we know that the winters here are quite brutal and so, can you – like this seems like a seasonal business. Can you comment a bit on what are some of those challenges and how do you deal with those?

Rita:    I do agree with you. The biggest challenge probably is the somewhat remote location of Manitoulin Island as well as the short summer month seasons in which to be able to earn dollars. The two month season is basically more accurate so in the fact that once the kids are out of school, that is when most families, which, you know, is a large part of our demographics travel. So, you know, that’s one of our challenges definitely. There is not public transportation on Manitoulin which poses another challenge.

Finding qualified, educated staff is also – you know, that would like to be in a remote location. You know, there are schools that are offering environmental education, that are offering ecology and so on and so forth and of course, we like to try and hire educated staff, you know, that are conducive to the park operations.

So those are just some of the obstacles and the challenges that face us. Yes, the biggest by far is the two-month season is relatively short so we work very hard during that two-month season mostly what people do in a year so …

Tracy:    Right.

Rita:     … long hours.

Tracy:    And so it would almost seem that for those other 10 months of the year, you’re also having to generate quite a bit of activity or some sort of marketing to draw so much traffic or, you know, customers to you in those two months so I know that you do use the internet quite a bit to promote your business so maybe you could just share some of your tactics and some of the things that work for you, maybe even some of the things that haven’t worked for you.

Rita:     Yes. The – yes, I guess I really should – really kind of say that it’s actually a three-month season. We have been successful in attracting school trips to our park. You know, from as far away as every – you know, that’s about a two-hour drive and, you know, of course lots of local schools and along the north shore. So, you know, June is a busy month for us as well. It’s also the month that we have our Women’s Outdoor Weekend so that works out well for us. The remainder months of the year is when I am actively working on the facilitation and the programming for each of the individual events that we run throughout the summer. So that means getting commitments from workshop leaders, you know, and organizing and, you know, getting the programming ready so that we can post it on our website and post it at other sites such as WomenCanDoAnything that people can access so that’s a large part of it.

And, you know, there’s – the calendar of events is a large reason or a huge reason and helps us to promote and attract people to our park and, you know, we really need to have lots of appeal and target market to the clientele that we cater to so of course, we input all of our guests that stay with us. You know, that are willing to give us their e-mail address. We have them all on our database and yes, internet marketing is a huge part of our marketing but we also, you know, put – input our events on to community calendars. We send out press releases. We do regular newsletters and we’re consistent and constant with our information to our readers and we get lots of people that sign up on our website for our newsletter.

So, yes, by far, I would say that the internet is probably the largest contributor to the success of our business.

Tracy:    So how often do you send your information to your list? Like how consistent is that? Is it throughout the entire year?

Rita:    Yes, it is. I try to mix it up. You know, because people nowadays have vacations at different times of the year or they have moments where, you know, companies will require holiday booking times at different times of the year so yes, we try to keep in the forefront of people’s minds when it does come to deciding what they’re going to do for their summer vacation and when they’re going to take their time. And generally, we’ll – I think it’s – we’ll do it quarterly so we’ll do it again in December once we’ve determined what our programming will be, you know, after the busy summer season so we’ll start that in September. We’ll probably send out our first notification in December. We’ll send it out again in April and then, you know, we dice it up a bit. We speed it up a bit into the summer months.

Tracy:    Okay. So it sounds like even on those off months, you still have to keep that relationship building and stay in the – like you said, stay in the forefront of your customers’ minds. Okay, well, I think that’s a great lesson.

And I would – if you could suggest. What else can you suggest to women out there who are either starting a business or growing a business to help them? What are some of the other things that have really helped you guys to stay on course for so long?

Rita:     Well, I think one of the most difficult things for ourselves has been, you know, the fact that we’re – we are so much sheltered from, you know, the big wide world out there, you know, in our little pocket of Manitoulin Island, which by the way is absolutely beautiful. But, I think the biggest advice that I would have for women would be their – that women need to strive to succeed, to reach for higher recognition. Venture outside their comfort zone, definitely try new things and attend women’s retreats and professional organizations, business and professional women’s club or, you know, the Chambers of Commerce, things like that. You know, that will give them greater exposure and of course that they attend, you know, things like for example our Women’s Outdoor Weekend. They experience personal growth. They are given opportunities to network and connect with other like-minded women.

So, I think that that’s really important being persistent however and striving to succeed because, you know, there are many obstacles in the way and, you know, you need to be able to get that inner backbone to continue to steer the ship.

Tracy:    Yes. You mentioned about, you know, regularly connecting with, you know, networking groups and things like that and I wholeheartedly believe in that. More direct to your specific industry, you’ve received quite a bit of recognition in a number of areas. And so, could you comment on how that, those recognition awards have really helped your business as well like in your specific industries or niches?

Rita:     Yes, for sure. In 2001, we won an Attractions Canada Award, you know, for our outdoor recreation offerings at our park. That was a significant award. They flew us out to Halifax to attend the gala event in order to receive our award. It was, you know, published all across Canada. We were quite proud of that. We also received the designation for the Dark Sky Preserve in our park from the Royal Astronomical Society and that as well is very significant in recognition of, you know, the eco-aspect of tourism and, you know, the fact that we were successful in obtaining that was very beneficial. So yes, we’re very proud of those things.

Tracy:    Yes, so I guess the message is to strive for excellence in a way that not only is personally rewarding and rewarding but also rewarding for your business growth as well and that seems to be what you guys have done quite well.

Rita:    Yes, I think I – I think they need to be persistent, make cold calls, connect with other women but [Indiscernible] [0:13:26] toot your own horn, you know, we’re always afraid to, you know, feel like we’re being too pushy, you know, talking about our business or talking but, you know, you really are your own marketing guru. Nobody else can do it better than yourself and, you know, you need to make sure you have a website. Today’s society definitely demands your presence online. I think those are some of the things that, you know, are obstacles, you know. But definitely being able to toot your own horn and realizing that you are your own marketing guru.

Tracy:    Well, thank you Rita for that. Those were some great lessons and good luck and all the best with your business. And Rita, could you just share your website again in case anyone is interested?

Rita:    Thank you very much. Yes, it’s GordonsPark.com. So, G-O-R-D-O-N-S-P-A-R-K dot C-O-M. And, you know, we’re looking for women to join us for the Women’s Outdoor Weekend so …

Tracy:    And when is that weekend?

Rita:     That weekend will be happening June 26th to the 28th.

Tracy:    Okay. And there’s information on your website about that.

Rita:    Yes, definitely. Just go to the calendar of events page. They’ll be able to bring the full itinerary up.

Tracy:    Great. Okay. Well, Rita, thank you so much for sharing all that insight with us today.

Rita:    Well, thank you very much too, Tracy and best of luck. I hope you have a wonderful summer this summer as well.

Tracy:    Thank you very much.

 

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You can visit Rita's website at www.gordonspark.com.