N.S., N.B. vie for Maritime tourists

A tourism battle is brewing in the Maritimes as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia actively target visitors to lure them to the neighbouring province for summer vacations.

A floating billboard was towed through the harbour on Canada Day promoting New Brunswick as a destination to thousands of people walking along the Halifax waterfront. 

"It's a brand new tactic and you're going to see it all summer long in the Halifax harbour," said Helen Jean Newman of New Brunswick Tourism. "But just for you to know, we also partner with Nova Scotia in some of our markets and we gave a call to our colleagues in Nova Scotia to let them know that we were doing this."

New Brunswick is also buying broadcast airtime in Nova Scotia and using social media as a marketing tool.

"Nova Scotia is a very important market to New Brunswick, which is why we are putting so much effort into the Nova Scotia market this year," said Newman. "We want to get Nova Scotian people coming to New Brunswick on a regular basis, whether it's for a week's vacation or getaways all year long."

Half of the visitors to New Brunswick in 2009 were from Nova Scotia.

The Nova Scotia Department of Tourism is just as aggressively promoting the province as a destination to people in New Brunswick. One million dollars has been invested in an Atlantic regional marketing campaign, said John Somers of the Nova Scotia department.

"We're used to doing little things in each other's markets. We do compete for the regional consumer. We don't take it lightly but we also accept the fact that they are going to be trying to sell New Brunswick to Nova Scotians just like we are trying to sell Nova Scotia to New Brunswickers."