Director of Marketing

Our client, Malahat SkyWalk is an award-winning eco-experiential attraction on Vancouver Island, built around nature, innovation and culture, with Indigenous cultural storytelling and immersive nature experiences at its centre. It is consistently listed among the top things to do in the Victoria region, and it is deliberately positioned as the modern, on-trend counterpoint to the area’s heritage attractions, contemporary and clever while staying grounded in a real sense of place.

It draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, most of them independent travellers. The SkyWalk is about five years old and sits inside a 170-acre master plan, with further experiences planned over the next several years, so this is an early and expanding chapter rather than a finished one. The board backs a multi-year growth mandate and its confidence in the site is higher than it has ever been.

The Opportunity

This is the senior marketing leadership seat, reporting to the General Manager. The past year laid the brand foundation: the brand was refreshed and the on-site experiences were named and shaped into a genuine destination. The next chapter is about sharpening the channels underneath that brand and turning it into visits.

The mission is concrete. The experience is loved by the people who reach it, 93% say it exceeds expectations, but too few people yet know how much there is to it. Your job is to close that awareness gap and convert it into visitation: lifting in-market awareness and delivering meaningful, compounding growth in independent visitors over the next two years. It is a measurable mandate with a clear number attached, and it is the first thing the person in this seat takes on.

The summer season is programming-led, and this role shapes it. You conceive the themed calendar and the anchor events that give people a reason to come, wine fest, beer fest, an Indigenous festival, and build the partnerships behind them, and you direct the creative that carries the brand. It is a role for a marketer who is as at home with the aesthetic and the guest experience as with the analytics.

Above all, this is a role about creating a sense of wonder, the feeling a guest leaves with. It calls for an entrepreneurial, inventive marketer who gets excited about trying new things, chases down what they do not yet know, forges unexpected partnerships, and turns big ideas into experiences that actually happen on site.

It is also a build seat. The marketing function is small and you shape how it works, which channels earn the spend, and how the organization reads and acts on what its customers want.

What You Would Own

• Marketing strategy and the budget. The full marketing budget, in the vicinity of half a million dollars across media, programming, events, sponsorships and community, spent where it will move awareness and visits.
• The channel mix, end to end. An integrated program across out-of-home, paid media, PR, social, print, radio and streaming, planned and measured as one system rather than a set of separate efforts.
• The measurement spine. Cost per visitor, channel performance and attribution, and a digital agency you direct and hold to account rather than simply receive reports from. This analytical core is the heart of the role.
• Consumer insight. Working out who the customer is by segment, what resonates with each, and which message and channel reaches them, then tuning creative and spend accordingly. That insight also helps shape the site’s longer-term additions.
• The programming and guest experience. You conceive the themed seasonal calendar and its anchor events, wine fest, beer fest, an Indigenous festival, build the partnerships behind them with Indigenous groups, local artists, chambers and others, and market it all. The physical production on the day sits with a dedicated seasonal team.
• The creative and the look. You direct the creative and hold the aesthetic standard across everything the site puts out, keeping it elevated, on-brand and on-trend.
• A small team. Two reports, a brand and marketing manager and an in-house social and content creator, plus the digital agency.

Who Thrives Here

• You are led by the numbers. You are energized by finding what is working, cutting what is not, and moving a visitation number, rather than by campaigns and awards.
• You are integrated, not digital-only. You are as comfortable with out-of-home, PR and radio as with paid social and search, and you think in the whole mix.
• You protect a brand and sharpen it. The brand foundation is laid; you are the kind of marketer who holds a sense of place and makes the channels underneath it work harder, rather than one looking to rebuild a brand from scratch.
• You have an eye. You bring a strong aesthetic sense and can direct creative to a standard, not just commission it.
• You build experiences, not just campaigns. You like conceiving programming and events that give people a reason to visit, and bringing partners in to make them happen.
• You are hands-on and low ego. This is a lean team where everyone does everything and nothing is beneath anyone. The role carries the unglamorous parts of getting good work out the door, and that suits you.
• You are calm and steady. You bring maturity to a small team, add to how it already works rather than reshaping it, and keep a level head when things move quickly.
• You are entrepreneurial and self-starting. You get excited about trying new things, you go and find what you do not know rather than waiting to be told, and you think well beyond conventional marketing.
• You want a place-based mission. You have chosen a small, purpose-led or place-based environment before, or you are deliberately choosing one now.

What You Bring

• Senior marketing leadership with a growth and performance orientation: you have owned a paid acquisition budget and been accountable to a number at the bottom of the funnel, visits, bookings or revenue.
• Integrated, multi-channel experience across both offline and online channels, planned and measured together.
• Real analytical fluency, GA4, the paid platforms and some form of attribution, and a track record of directing an agency rather than deferring to it.
• Consumer insight and segmentation you have acted on, not just commissioned.
• Creative direction experience and a strong aesthetic sense, with the ability to hold a brand’s look and feel across its work.
• A track record of conceiving and building programming, events or partnerships, not only marketing them.
• A bias for trying new things: turning big, non-obvious ideas, new partnerships, formats and experiences, into things that actually shipped.
• A background in destination, attraction or experiential tourism is ideal. A consumer or retail background with a real physical, foot-traffic footprint transfers well.
• Based on Vancouver Island, or ready to relocate. This role is on-site, in the office daily, and is not remote.

The Details

• Compensation. A competitive base aligned to the market for a marketing leader of this scope, plus benefits. The specific range is confirmed with you before any introduction to Malahat SkyWalk.
• Location. On Vancouver Island, in the Greater Victoria region. In the office daily. This role is not remote.
• Reporting. General Manager.