Niagara has always understood the power of place. It is a region where natural wonder meets hospitality, where world-class attractions sit alongside wine country, culinary discovery, culture, and community. Today, that visitor experience is entering an exciting new chapter, shaped not only by what Niagara offers, but by how people discover it, move through it, and connect with it.
At the centre of that evolution is the Tourism Resource Innovation Program, known as TRIP, led by the Niagara Falls Innovation Hub with the support of the City of Niagara Falls, Tourism Niagara Canada, and the Province of Ontario. Designed to help tourism-focused startups pilot and refine market-ready solutions, TRIP is a bold investment in Niagara’s future as a destination where innovation is not simply welcomed but activated in real time.
Through intensive coaching, mentorship, strategic connections, marketing support, and live pilot opportunities, the program is helping a new generation of companies rethink the visitor journey from end to end. The result is a smarter, more connected tourism ecosystem, one that makes it easier for travellers to explore more deeply and gives operators new ways to reach, serve, and inspire them.
“Tourism is one of Niagara’s most powerful economic engines, and when you combine that strength with bold, scalable technology, you create momentum that reaches far beyond a single season,” says Dan Bordenave, CEO of the Niagara Falls Innovation Hub. “Through TRIP, we are building a future where Niagara becomes a proving ground for visitor innovation, a place where new ideas can take root, grow quickly, and elevate the experience of this region for the world.”
A Program Built for What Comes Next
TRIP was created to position Niagara as a global leader in tourism innovation by giving selected companies the support they need to test and launch new solutions in a destination that welcomes millions of visitors and offers a remarkably diverse tourism landscape.
Participants receive more than 200 hours of specialized coaching and mentorship, access to funding for approved business development activities, inclusion in regional marketing efforts, and the opportunity to activate public-facing pilots during the 2026 season.
But the real significance of TRIP lies in what it represents. This is not innovation for innovation’s sake. It is practical, visitor-facing, region-building work. It asks how Niagara can become easier to navigate, more intuitive to plan, more inclusive to experience, and more rewarding to explore beyond the familiar.
That mindset matters in a destination as layered as Niagara. Visitors may arrive for the Falls, but the future of the region depends on giving them every reason to stay longer, travel wider, and discover the communities, flavours, stories, and experiences that define Niagara in full.
Three Companies, One Shared Vision
The inaugural TRIP cohort reflects that ambition. Each company approaches the visitor journey from a different angle, yet together they reveal a powerful idea: the next era of tourism in Niagara will be shaped by connected experiences, thoughtful design, and technology that serves people in meaningful ways.
trippl: Making Discovery Seamless
trippl is reshaping how travellers plan their time in a destination. Its white-label technology allows tourism organizations to integrate trip planning directly into their own digital platforms, giving visitors the ability to browse attractions, restaurants, accommodations, wineries, and local experiences, then build personalized itineraries with built-in route mapping and travel time calculations.
In Niagara, that vision is already live. Destination Niagara Falls has partnered with trippl to launch an all-in-one planning tool on its website, allowing travellers to organize their experience in one place while staying within a trusted local platform.
The impact is significant. For visitors, it simplifies the planning process. For local operators, it improves visibility. For the region, it creates a more connected path from inspiration to arrival.
“As one of the newest partners to bring trippl technology to our platform, we have been incredibly encouraged by the initial response from both operators and visitors,” says Joyce Morocco, Founder of Destination Niagara Falls. “The ease of use is immediate, but what truly stands out is the intelligence behind it. It is a powerful tool that helps people see more of Niagara, plan with confidence, and engage more deeply with the full region from the moment they begin their journey.”
trippl also reflects something larger happening in Niagara right now: the rise of locally connected solutions with the power to transform how destinations market themselves and how visitors interact with them. It is intuitive on the surface, sophisticated underneath, and well aligned with a destination that wants to keep evolving.
Zoom Zoom: Expanding Access and Connectivity
Mobility is one of the most important and most overlooked parts of the visitor experience. A destination can offer exceptional attractions and unforgettable hospitality, but if travellers struggle to move between arrival points, accommodations, and experiences, the journey becomes fragmented.
Zoom Zoom is tackling that challenge head-on through a regional Passenger Mobility Pilot being advanced as part of TRIP. The company is moving forward with an initiative focused on visitor transportation accessibility and regional connectivity throughout Niagara. This includes collaboration surrounding Niagara District Airport growth and passenger mobility activation opportunities connected to Air Canada and Landline passenger movement.
Zoom Zoom will support first-mile and last-mile transportation accessibility, passenger engagement, and regional mobility awareness, helping create a more seamless and inclusive experience for travellers entering and moving through the region.
This matters for many reasons. It improves ease of movement. It supports accessibility. It helps connect more parts of Niagara to more visitors. It also points toward a future in which regional travel is less siloed and more coordinated, allowing tourism growth to reach farther across the peninsula.
In a destination with so many distinct communities and experiences, better mobility has the power to unlock better discovery.
Taste the City: Curating Connection Through Food
Tourism is not only about where people go. It is also about what they taste, who they meet, and how a place reveals itself through its local character. That is the space Taste the City is stepping into, with experiences designed to connect people to Niagara through food, flavour, and curated discovery.
Its approach aligns beautifully with Niagara’s evolving tourism story. Culinary experiences have become one of the most compelling ways visitors engage with a region, especially when they are rooted in authenticity and tied to a strong sense of place.
By creating opportunities for visitors to explore Niagara through local tastes and thoughtfully designed experiences, Taste the City helps transform dining and sipping into a richer form of storytelling.
Within the TRIP cohort, that contribution is especially exciting because it adds texture to the visitor journey. It encourages people to slow down, explore neighbourhoods, support local businesses, and connect with the region in a more intimate way.
In a market where travellers increasingly seek meaningful experiences over generic ones, Taste the City feels well positioned for the moment and for what comes next.
Innovation Needs Builders Behind It
Behind every promising startup is a network of people helping shape the idea, challenge assumptions, and support growth. TRIP was built with that understanding in mind. The program combines entrepreneurial coaching with sector-specific tourism insight, allowing participants to refine not only their products, but also their understanding of how those products fit into Niagara’s evolving visitor economy.
Lisa Vanderlip, one of the program’s primary business coaches, has played an important role in guiding that development through investor readiness, business strategy, and market positioning support. Her perspective reflects what makes this cohort so compelling.
“It has been incredibly exciting to witness the development of these startups and the persistence each founder brings to the table,” says Lisa Vanderlip, Expert in Residence for the TRIP program. “They are not simply building companies. They are creating solutions, refining experiences, and finding new ways to add value to Niagara’s tourism sector. That combination of perseverance, creativity, and purpose is exactly what makes this moment so promising.”
The value of that guidance cannot be overstated. Great tourism innovation does not happen in isolation. It happens through collaboration, iteration, and a shared belief that destinations can always become more welcoming, more dynamic, and more responsive to the people who experience them.
A Bright Future, Built in Niagara
What makes TRIP especially meaningful is that it is not only about the companies in this cohort. It is about what Niagara is signaling to the world. It is saying that tourism can be a site of serious innovation. That visitor experience can be improved through smart design and strategic collaboration. That local ecosystems can nurture bold ideas and bring them to life in ways that generate lasting regional value.
This is a region with the audience, the assets, and the ambition to lead. It has iconic appeal, yes, but it also has the opportunity to become something more: a destination where the future of travel is tested in a place already known around the globe.
The visitor journey is being reinvented here, not in theory, but in practice. And as these innovations move from pilot to public experience, they carry with them a powerful possibility: that the next great chapter in Niagara tourism will not simply attract attention but set a new standard for how destinations can grow, connect, and inspire.
This article was originally published in Destination Niagara magazine, June 2026, Volume 1, Issue 1.
Explore the full issue of Destination Niagara magazine for more stories from across the region, from waterfalls and wine country to hidden corners, culture, and seasonal experiences.
