Sport doesn’t win on “reach.”It wins on belonging.

Thirty years of skiing has taught me something most sponsorship decks still miss:

Every winter for 30+ years, I’ve made the drive up to the Collingwood / Blue Mountain area. I’ve watched the weather swing, the weekends spike, the parking lots overflow, and the Village evolve into a true four-season destination.

And I’ve also watched the visitor profile change, quietly at first, then all at once.

That shift is why one of my favourite sports-marketing projects was working with the

Blue Mountain Village Association and Blue Mountain (now part of Alterra’s broader portfolio) to boost year-round visitation by connecting with emerging ethnic travellers, especially South Asian and Chinese audiences in the GTA.

Because this isn’t a niche story. It’s the new baseline.

The Market Opportunity

In Toronto CMA alone, Mandarin, Cantonese and Punjabi are among the most common non-official languages spoken at home.  And across Canada, South Asian (7.1%) and Chinese (4.7%) communities are the two largest racialized groups.

Meanwhile, tourism is a serious economic engine: $130B in direct visitor spending in 2024 (Destination Canada, and skiing remains one of the country’s most scaled winter activities.

So when people ask me, “Is multicultural marketing really worth it in sports and destinations?”

My answer is: it’s not optional, it’s your growth plan.

The truth about sports marketing in 2026

The sports sponsorship market is growing fast (PwC projects ~$115B by 2025, with continued growth through 2030).  But bigger sponsorship budgets won’t save a weak experience.

Because if the first experience is confusing, intimidating, or culturally “cold,” you don’t just lose a ticket sale.

You lose:

• the family trip

• the group of friends

• the annual tradition

• the “we’re going back next year” behaviour

That’s why I’m biased toward a simple idea:

In sport + tourism, the product isn’t the hill.The product is the entire journey.

And that’s where our 5P approach changed the game.

Story: Blue Mountain + the 5P lens

I have worked across sports marketing with organizations like the Toronto Blue Jays, MLSE, Cricket Canada, and the NHL, so we’ve seen the pattern: when you grow the fan base, you grow the business.

With Blue Mountain Village and the Resort, the question wasn’t “How do we advertise more?”

It was:

How do we make a first-time (or early-stage) skier feel confident enough to say yes, then come back?

We started on the ground, not in a boardroom.

We worked closely with Village businesses to unpack concerns, clarify the opportunity, and translate “new audiences” into very practical actions (service, signage, product bundles, expectations).

Then, for the Resort, we ran in-person intercepts on-site and supported it with online panel research (so we could see both what people said and what people did).

We identified that for winter activities, a high-opportunity segment was newly arrived Mandarin-speaking consumers and the research helped us isolate two critical things:

1. What messaging actually reduces hesitation

2. What operational changes must be in place before you spend a dollar on media

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth:

If the resort experience isn’t ready, marketing just accelerates disappointment.

What we learned

Without getting into confidential details, the patterns in “emerging skier” and “new-to-the-hill” audiences are remarkably consistent:

1) The #1 barrier isn’t interest. It’s friction.

• “What do I buy?”

• “What do I wear?”

• “Where do I go first?”

• “How do rentals + lessons actually work?”

• “Will we feel out of place?”

When the journey is unclear, people default to what’s safe: stay home or choose a “known” leisure option.

2) “Translation” is not the strategy

Language helps, but what matters more is confidence design:

• beginner-friendly packaging

• clear wayfinding

• staff readiness

• group-oriented offers

• culturally relevant cues (food, timing, family norms, celebration behaviours)

3) Retention is built before the first visit

You don’t retain someone with loyalty points.

You retain them with:

• the first lesson experience

• how easy it is to find the right product

• how welcome the family feels

• whether the day ends with “we crushed it” or “never again”

Framework: The 5P playbook for sport + destination growth

If you’re a sports property, a resort, a league, or a sponsor trying to grow beyond your “usual crowd,” here’s the practical checklist:

P1 Probe

• Who is the next growth audience (not the loudest current one)?

• What languages are dominant in your feeder markets?

• What are the top “friction points” in the first-time journey?

P2 Plan

• What needs to change operationally before the campaign runs?

• What partnerships reduce friction (transport, lessons, group leaders, community orgs)?

P3 Position

• What promise matters most to this audience: value, safety, progress, family, community, prestige, ease?

• What proof makes that promise believable?

P4 Promote

• Don’t “blast.” Sequence:

  • awareness → confidence → conversion → first-day support → return trigger

• Choose channels that match how communities actually plan weekends (not just what you’ve always bought)

P5 Perfect

• Track by segment and by journey stage

• Fix the friction fast

• Reinvest where repeat behaviour appears

And here’s why this matters locally:

In The Blue Mountains, tourism supports 1,780+ jobs, 160+ tourism businesses, and $170M+ in annual sales, attracting 3M+ visitors each year.

This isn’t just “marketing.” It’s local economic infrastructure.

Teaser

Next week, I’m going to share what we did next—how we translated the Probe learning into an integrated program designed to attract and retain the newly arrived Mandarin-speaking market (the right way: not just ads, but experience + message + channel working together).

Question for you

Where do you see the biggest “first-time friction” in your fan or visitor journey, before they ever become loyal?