ORONO – A group of University of Maine graduate students recently helped put “fresh eyes” on marketing strategies designed to strengthen cooperative promotion in and between sister cities of Bangor and Saint John, New Brunswick.

Nine graduate students spent a week in Canada studying tourism promotion and made presentations before tourism office staffs and guests in Bangor and Saint John. They identified similar goals and suggested that several strategies employed by one region might also benefit the other.

It was welcome input, according to Donna Fichtner, director of the Greater Bangor Convention and Visitors Center, and Margaret Totten, director of Tourism Saint John. They said that the presentations produced some new ways to look at old challenges. Tourism officials from the sister cities met in a joint tourism promotion session June 10 in Bangor.

The students “pointed out a lot of the similarities, which most of us are already familiar with,” Fichtner added. “Toward the end of their presentation, they talked about some of the things we could do better.”

Nine students, candidates for a master’s degree in business administration or accounting, visited several locations in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island May 15-21 as part of Maine Business School’s international business experience course led by Kim McKeage, associate professor of marketing. Another group went to Germany.

McKeage says studying tourist attraction strategies in Bangor and in Canada helped students to see different cultural approaches to similar problems, and provided an opportunity to contribute to some economic solutions for both tourism offices. The trip to Canada also was a

less expensive alternative to a European business project that still allowed students to work in a foreign environment.

Similarities between the two cities include common histories in logging and lumbering industries and European heritage. Both Bangor and Saint John have annual waterfront music festivals, local museums and art galleries.

The students suggested that Bangor consider the “co-promotion” of various events and activities that are not necessarily related, as is done in New Brunswick. A promotional bundle might include a museum, a hiking trail and a musical event, for example, to create a diverse experience for visitors and more compelling reasons to visit, McKeage and Fichtner said.

“This is what we share across the region,” McKeage says. “Awareness, awareness, awareness. If you can just get people to try these areas, they want to go back. I think the Bangor region is much the same way. If you can just get people here, they’ll say, ‘Wow, there’s all sorts of exciting stuff.'”

While in New Brunswick, McKeage said, the UMaine students took special note of the convenience of walking, cycling and wheelchair trails around the scenic cliffs along the Bay of Fundy, and the connection of Saint John’s Harbour Passage to nearby downtown business districts, giving locals an opportunity to get out and exercise. McKeage said New Brunswick uses its natural resources to help promote healthy diet, nutrition and exercise programs.

Tourism is considered Maine’s largest economic force, generating in 2003 $9.4 billion and producing $384 million in sales taxes, 122,000 jobs and a payroll of $2.6 billion, according to the Maine Office of Tourism.

Enhancing tourism links between Maine and New Brunswick is a logical priority for the Maine office, according to Steve Lyons, tourism development specialist. The state’s term for the promotion effort is “Two Nation Vacation.”