Guelph Tourism Brand: Gather Here
In 2023, with the implementation of the Municipal Accommodation Tax and to support pandemic recovery efforts, Guelph Tourism created a new operational structure and launched a brand re-development process to establish a new era and align with the City’s Economic Development and Tourism Strategy (2022-2026) and the goal of becoming a must-see visitor destination in Ontario.
The updated visitor brand’s main outcome was to capture and celebrate the essence of Guelph’s reputation, ultimately turning this into Guelph Tourism’s call to action and visual identity. Built on a foundation of destination research and visitor surveys, a series of community collaboration workshops and consultations were held with residents, all of whom had their individual and varied reasons for loving the city. With this diversity of passion represented, the brand started moving towards a common tourism refrain: it’s all here. Although true and resonant with the community, Guelph Tourism partners came back around the table to dive a little deeper into why Guelphites love Guelph with insight from storytelling and placemaking experts. This is where we first heard the phrase “Guelph loves to gather together to…”
This notion of gathering to play, to create, and to meet was what led to the new tagline and landmark identity, “Guelph: Gather Here.” This call to action is unique in the tourism sphere. It’s not just a call to visit, but an invitation to come together. It speaks to a spirit of community that resonates with our primary tourism sectors: we gather at local restaurants and breweries, we gather at festivals to celebrate our unique arts and cultural offerings, and we gather to play in sports tournaments or hike a local trail. This spirit is embodied in the new logo as thematic tiles nod to the important pillars of our destination to form a large G, but the logo remains open to interpretation and flexible as we grow and change as a community and expand on our experiences and visitor offerings.
With the launch of the new brand and brand guidelines, Guelph Tourism (made up of the City’s Tourism and Destination Development division and Destination Marketing Guelph), a new website (GatherInGuelph.com) was created with an innovative itinerary development tool , the Guelph Visitor Guide was rebranded to the “Gather Guelph Guide”, and a new Gather In Guelph Events and Meetings pitch package was developed and launched. All these assets were brought together in a workshop for tourism operators to introduce ways to engage with and use the brand and our visitor information in their own marketing materials to further amplify this new spin on a cherished Guelph story.
With these new visitor assets, we can continue to amplify our messaging to our predominant Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) demographic, while expanding our reach into growing markets in the events and business tourism sector. We also have a new brand that can be owned and carried forward by Guelph residents and businesses as brand ambassadors and “tour guides” with their own invitations to gather in Guelph.
