The digital passport program will promote awareness of local products and small businesses, encouraging residents and tourists to “buy local”.
— Anthony Martin
HALIFAX, N.S., CANADA, January 28, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ — Residents and visitors to Canada will soon have a powerful new way to “buy local”, and discover regional attractions and specialty goods, thanks to a mobile passport app platform created by software designers Daruma Tech and recently introduced to the Canadian market by Nova Scotia-based NexcentSBR.
The app will allow users to explore themed trails offering stops at venues offering locally sourced specialties, including restaurants, galleries, and markets. With the app, users will be able to choose trails of interest, find participating establishments near them, learn about their offerings, and map out their own tours. By checking in with the app at each stop, users will be also able to collect points and earn prizes.
Bringing the app to Canada was the brainchild of Nova Scotia native and business development consultant Anthony Martin, who has long professional experience in craft beverages, exporting, and event management. When one of his associates returned from a craft beer festival in Vermont raving about the custom mobile app created for the event by Daruma Tech, Martin saw an opportunity.
“I checked out the app, and I thought it was pretty amazing”, says Martin. “I knew there was nothing currently in Canada like that, and I needed to be a part of this somehow.”
A self-described “opportunity hunter,” Martin and his company NexcentSBR began researching both the app’s creator as well as Canadian organizations that could potentially benefit from the technology. “My business development career has been based on understanding businesses and bringing them solutions to whatever problems they have,” he explained. “I have strategic partnerships with vendors who can provide these solutions, or I seek them out—in a sense, I put the pieces together.”
As an active industry observer in Canada, Martin is familiar with the mission and needs of the country’s many tourism boards and trade associations. He also knew many communities and provinces already had passport programs based on paper maps and passports that users could get stamped at participating locations. “They already had the mindset of using passports to get people to travel around the regions,” added Martin.
He also saw the apps as a cost-effective and impactful way to support Canada’s Buy Local initiatives and promote awareness of local products and small businesses, especially those struggling to recover from COVID-19 slowdowns. “Now that we have this Buy Local initiative, everybody wants to buy their things within a 100-kilometer or 50-mile radius,” he explained. “How do they know what products are available in their own little communities? This is a great way to offer that to them and say, ‘hey, your community has all these businesses—you could go to Amazon and buy it, but it does nothing to develop a robust community. Money stays local when you buy locally.”
Martin also feels Daruma Tech’s proven track record of building popular apps for the hospitality industry—including the award-winning Ohio on Tap app, winner of the Ohio Travel Association’s 2017 RUBY award for excellence—makes them the most cost-effective choice to promote Canada’s local and regional products.
“When it comes down to it, Daruma Tech has the best-in-class app for the promotion of craft products, as well as a lot more horsepower that can be applied to other groups,” he said. “It’s a proven product that offers communities a lot of value and support for a sustainable price. With Daruma Tech, the platform’s already been built and tested and is ready to go—we just have to set up the databases and back-end portals.”
For more information, contact Rick Griswold at 561-990-1625 or Anthony Martin at 416-995-7201.
Rick Griswold
Daruma Tech
+1 561-990-1625
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