Grand Bahama Island

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The Grand Bahama Island Tourism Board, in conjunction with The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, embarked on a branding exercise for Grand Bahama Island (GBI) in late 2006.

They contracted the services of Ypartnership (formerly YPB&R) — and our team here at IDEAS. The goal was to develop a distinctive, compelling brand strategy for GBI.

GBI has experienced a tourism slowdown over the past decade that several hurricanes exacerbated. Its team needed a new brand that could differentiate GBI from the increasingly competitive Caribbean destination marketplace.

The answer? “The Grand Life.”

Stakeholders participated in an IDEAS StoryJam™ creative process to generate the GBI story — crucial to creating and delivering the new brand. Then, using our unique Culture Mapping process, we understood the island’s culture by listening to the lore, traditions and collective experiences of the people who live and work there.

Before launching the brand to the public, we created The Grand Life Enculturation Toolkit. It includes an eLearning component and a live face-to-face classroom experience, which GBI rolled out to all island employees and residents.

Armed with the knowledge of who the GBI people are and how they communicate, we created the toolkit to facilitate learning for two main groups:

Young hospitality employees
Seasoned employees and residents who may be recently disillusioned due to the tourism drop

The Goals and Outcomes

The toolkit’s goals are twofold:

For everyone who lives and works on GBI to live the brand promise
For them to consistently deliver “GRAND Hospitality” as GBI ambassadors

Using the right story and believable characters, our tools carry learners on a journey that engages and motivates them to live the brand.

We design this 21st-century equivalent of “sharing stories around the campfire” for users to deliver both online and in person. As a result, all GBI participants can experience it.

In addition to understanding the new brand and GBI hospitality standards, learners have the opportunity to get to know GBI’s flora, fauna and heritage so they can inform guests of their island’s diverse offerings.

Our toolkit adheres to sound instructional design principles and directly addresses serious issues relevant to people in the hospitality industry. The face-to-face classroom materials that IDEAS created mirror the online solution, using the same storytelling and rich media content.

We included real interviews and stories, too.

Now, Grand Bahamians can better speak with Grand Bahamians about what it means to deliver their guests “The Grand Life.”