Gravenhurst Tourism: What We’re Learning & What’s Next

By james

September 3, 2026

Mid-Project Community Update
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 | 10:00–11:30 a.m.
Sawdust City Brewing Co., Gravenhurst

Earlier this summer, Gravenhurst tourism businesses came together to help shape a different approach to local tourism development, bringing Municipal Accommodation Tax investment, Regional Tourism Organization expertise, visitor research, product development and consumer marketing together in one coordinated project.

Now it’s time for a mid project report.

Join Explorers’ Edge for an open mid-project update on what has happened since our first community session, what we are learning and where the work goes next.

This is still a project in motion. Data continues to be collected, campaigns are being optimized and new visitor experiences are being developed. But some interesting signals are already emerging.

What Are We Learning About Gravenhurst Visitors?

The Visitor Exit Survey has now generated over 50 responses. Early findings indicate that approximately two-thirds of respondents are travelling from elsewhere in Ontario and more than 90% are repeat visitors.

The waterfront, steamships and cruises, Gull Lake, the Wharf, Music on the Barge, community events and connections with family are among the reasons visitors say they choose and enjoy Gravenhurst.

Just as important is what visitors are telling us could be improved, including parking, road construction, downtown retail and restaurant choices, signage and the overall downtown experience.

We’ll share more of what we are seeing and discuss how these insights can help inform both tourism investment and business decisions.

How Big Is Gravenhurst’s Visitor Economy?

Initial 2025 geofencing analysis associated approximately 1.1 million visits with Gravenhurst.

Early TREIM modelling translates that activity into approximately:

$100.8 million in visitor spending
$49.2 million in regional GDP
579 jobs

These remain early modelling estimates and will continue to be refined as additional visitor information becomes available. We’ll also look at accommodation performance. The combined Bracebridge/Gravenhurst hotel market recorded 66.3% occupancy in June, up 7.1 percentage points year-over-year, while RevPAR increased 13.1%.

Is the Marketing Reaching Visitors – and Is It Converting?

Between July 14 and August 10, the Gravenhurst consumer campaign generated approximately:

227,000 impressions
3,835 visits to the booking platform
Approximately $1,261 in media spend

A retargeting audience has also been established and marketing assets have been provided back to participating tourism operators. But impressions and website visits are only part of the story.

At the September session, we’ll dig further into the questions that matter to businesses: What are we seeing in actual package sales and conversion? What is working? What needs adjusting?

Four Gravenhurst Experiences Are Now in Market

Four Gravenhurst experiences are currently being actively promoted through The Great Canadian Wilderness:

Tour Gravenhurst by E-Bike: Bakery to Boardwalk Day Trip– Muskoka Guided E-Bike Tours, The Bakery & Muskoka Discovery Centre
A History Lover’s Dream Getaway – Taboo Muskoka, Bethune House & Muskoka Steamships
Fall Colours on the Water Weekend – Fairfield by Marriott Inn & Suites, Burger Boys on Main & Silver Gull Outdoors
The Ultimate Muskoka Weekend – Muskoka Bay Resort & Muskoka Steamships

We’ll talk openly about how businesses became involved in these packages, how operators were approached, the level of business interest and participation we experienced, and what we have learned about making it easier for more businesses to participate. That discussion will also help shape the next round of experience development evolves with our partners, if we boith agree to continue.

An Update From Well Known

We’ll be joined by Well Known, the agency of record spearheading the consumer-facing portion of the project, for an update on the campaign itself. Well Known will walk through what audiences are responding to, campaign performance to date, creative and media learnings, retargeting, operator marketing assets and how the campaign is being adjusted as we move from the summer period into fall.

The original marketing work was designed to move through strategy and creative development into Google and Meta activation, ongoing optimization and a fall transition informed by campaign performance.

Where Do We Go From Here?

As this original MAT–RTO partnership moves toward its conclusion, the focus is not only on completing the work underway, but also on understanding what we have learned and what future iterations of this type of programming could look like.

There is already interest in putting greater emphasis on winter and early-spring Gravenhurst experiences, including potential opportunities around:

Stargazing
Trails and outdoor recreation
Muskoka Bay experiences
The Gravenhurst Opera House
Gravenhurst Winter Carnival
Birding and spring travel
Other experiences that can encourage visitation outside the traditional summer season

Rather than simply creating more marketing, the conversation will look at where the remaining project effort and investment can have the greatest impact, including whether additional bookable experiences can help extend visitation into different seasons.

As the current partnership concludes, Explorers’ Edge will work with our Gravenhurst partners to review the results, operator feedback and lessons from the project and explore what future iterations of this collaborative model could look like.

The intent is not to assume the next phase will look exactly like this one, but to use what we have learned, what worked, what did not, where businesses engaged and where the strongest opportunities emerged, to help inform what comes next.

Connecting the Pieces

Perhaps the most important learning so far is that none of these activities works particularly well in isolation.

Geofencing gives us scale.
CBRE gives us the accommodation lens.
The Visitor Exit Survey tells us more about the visitor and their experience.
Marketing tells us what generates interest.
Bookable experiences allow us to test conversion.
Business feedback tells us what is practical on the ground.

Together, they begin to provide a much clearer picture of Gravenhurst’s visitor economy, and a stronger basis for deciding what comes next.

The original partnership represents a combined $50,000 investment from Tourism Gravenhurst and Explorers’ Edge, bringing consumer marketing, B2B communications, visitor intelligence, product development and project management together rather than treating them as separate initiatives.

This September 23 session is an opportunity to see the emerging results, ask questions, challenge assumptions and help shape the remaining work.

Gravenhurst tourism businesses, operators and community partners are strongly encouraged to attend.