Digital passport
Holiday shopping passport: how a BIA runs one in 6 weeks
A holiday shopping passport (a shop local holiday passport) moves shoppers from one business on the street to the next between late November and Christmas. A business improvement area (BIA) can launch one in six weeks, as long as it starts with the businesses and not with the technology. Here is the timeline, the offers that work, how to hand out the pass, and the numbers to bring to your board in January.
Key takeaways
- Allow six weeks: two to decide and recruit, one to set up and train, three to four weeks of season.
- For a launch on Saturday, November 28, 2026, the first calls to businesses go out on November 9.
- The simplest rule works best: one offer per business, usable once per shopper.
- One QR code per booth or event tells you where passes come from; one scan per visit tells you which business welcomed whom.
- In January, show your board the passes added, offers used per business and how many businesses each holder visited.
What is a holiday shopping passport?
It is a free pass handed to shoppers on a commercial street for the holiday season, unlocking one offer at each participating business. The shopper adds it to their phone and shows it at the till. The business scans it, and the BIA knows how many shoppers each business welcomed thanks to the passport.
The idea is old: the coupon booklet or the street’s stamp card. What changes with a pass in the phone is measurement. Every scan is dated and tied to one business. The BIA no longer wonders whether the booklet was used: it sees how many times it was used at the cheese shop and how many at the shoe repair, and it can talk to each of them about it.
A holiday passport targets one behaviour: getting a shopper into a store they have never visited. The offer is the invitation. The business gains a first visit, the BIA gains an argument for its members.
How long does it take to launch a shop local passport?
Six weeks is enough for the holiday season: two weeks to decide and recruit businesses, one week to set up the pass and train the businesses, then three to four weeks of season. For a launch on Saturday, November 28, 2026, the first calls to businesses go out on Monday, November 9.
| Week | Dates | What the BIA does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | November 9 to 15 | Set the area, the end date and the rule (one offer per business). Draw up the list of businesses to call. |
| 2 | November 16 to 22 | Call and visit businesses. Collect each one’s offer, address and a contact. |
| 3 | November 23 to 29 | Set up the pass, send each business its scan link, run a test with them. Print the posters with the QR code. Launch on Saturday the 28th. |
| 4 | November 30 to December 6 | A booth at the street’s events. First check: which businesses have not scanned anything yet. |
| 5 | December 7 to 13 | Call the businesses with no scans. Nudge holders who have not used their pass. |
| 6 | December 14 to 24 | The last stretch before Christmas. A reminder to holders one week before the end. |
| After | January 2027 | Data export, report to the board, thank-you to the businesses. |
Recruitment takes the most time. The technology takes a few days: once the list of businesses and offers is set, the pass is configured and the scan links go out the same day.
How many businesses does a shop local passport need?
Enough to make the walk worth it. Ten or so businesses within walking distance already make an afternoon of discovery. From about thirty, add categories and a map. Fifteen businesses that actually scan beat forty that forgot about the passport.
The right number depends less on the size of the street than on how committed the businesses are. A business that does not scan the pass gives the shopper a poor experience and leaves a hole in your numbers. Three criteria:
- Variety. A café, a bakery, a bookshop, a gift shop, a restaurant: shoppers build their own route.
- Distance. Businesses should be within walking distance of each other. The pass’s map shows the walking time between them.
- Commitment. Someone at the counter who knows how to scan, every day the business is open.
Two public benchmarks. In 2020, Ottawa Tourism’s #MyOttawa Savings Pass brought together more than 60 businesses: the scale of a city (Ottawa Business Journal, July 27, 2020). In Peterborough, Ontario, the downtown Holiday Shopping Passport had nearly 200 participating shops in 2025, with one stamp for every $10 spent (Kawartha NOW, November 12, 2025).
What offers work in a holiday passport?
A simple, visible offer that costs the business little: a free item with a purchase, 10 to 15% off a first purchase, a tasting or free gift wrapping. It has to fit on one line of the pass and be understood at the counter in three seconds.
| Type of offer | Example | For which business |
|---|---|---|
| Free item with purchase | A free cookie with a coffee | Café, bakery, chocolate shop |
| Discount on a first purchase | 10% off a book | Bookshop, boutique, hardware store |
| Tasting | Three cheeses to try | Cheese shop, fine grocer, craft brewery |
| Free service | Free gift wrapping | Gift shop, florist |
| Access or experience | A cookie decorating workshop | Pastry shop, studio, museum |
Let each business choose its own offer. It will stand behind it better at the counter. The BIA sets only two rules: the offer is real (not a discount already in the window), and it can be used once per shopper.
How do you get the passport into shoppers’ phones?
With QR codes wherever shoppers go: a booth at the street’s events, a sign in every participating window, the BIA newsletter and social media. Give each booth or event its own QR code: you will know which one produced the most passes.
- The booth. A holiday market, a tree lighting, a parade: one person, one poster with a QR code, and the pass is in the phone within a minute.
- The windows. A “Passport accepted here” sign with the same QR code. A shopper who walks into one business discovers the others.
- The newsletter and social media. The sign-up link in the BIA newsletter, on Facebook and Instagram, and on the city’s website if possible.
- The businesses themselves. A word at the till, “Do you have the street’s passport?”, is worth every poster.
Talk to your tourism board or DMO too: a passport in English and French interests the visitors they bring in over the holidays.
How do you report the results to your board?
With four numbers: passes added to phones, offers used per business, businesses visited per holder, and the share of passes used at least once. Add where passes came from (booth or website) and where visitors came from (postal code) to plan the next season.
| Metric | The board’s question |
|---|---|
| Passes added | Was the passport adopted? |
| Offers used, per business | Which businesses benefited, which did not? |
| Businesses visited per holder | Did shoppers discover other businesses? |
| Passes used at least once | Was the passport used, or only downloaded? |
| Passes per booth and per event | Which distribution point should we repeat? |
| Origin by postal code | Do shoppers come from the neighbourhood or from elsewhere? |
Do not promise sales figures to your board: the passport measures visits, not sales. To estimate the effect on sales, ask businesses for the average purchase made with the passport, and multiply by the offers used.
What ARSOM does, and what it does not
ARSOM provides the passport in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, in English and French, the businesses’ scan links, the booth QR codes and the BIA dashboard, with data hosted in Canada. ARSOM does not choose the offers, and it does not run gift cards or a local currency.
The Arsom Pass platform follows every step of this plan: one offer per business, refused at the second scan, a map of businesses with a walking route, one QR code per event, notifications to holders and a data export at the end of the season. Pricing is quoted per project and is lower than Bandwango’s.
What we do not do: choose the offers for the businesses, or replace the BIA’s work on the ground. Recruiting businesses and staffing the booth remain the two levers that make a passport succeed. The passport is not a gift card either: it grants offers, it holds no money.
Frequently asked questions
Is a shop local passport free for shoppers?
Yes, in most programs. Shoppers add the pass to their phone at no cost, and each business funds its own offer. The BIA pays for the platform and the promotion. A paid pass is possible, but it needs more offers to be worth its price.
Do shoppers need to download an app?
Not with a Wallet pass. Shoppers scan a QR code, enter their name and email, then add the pass to Apple Wallet on iPhone or Google Wallet on Android. No app, no password.
Can a shopper use the same offer twice?
No, as long as the business scans the pass. The first scan grants the offer; a second scan at the same business shows “offer already used” with the date and time of the first visit. The shopper keeps the offers of the other businesses.
What happens to the pass after the holidays?
It expires on the end date chosen by the BIA, for example December 31. The pass then changes its look in the phone, and businesses see “pass expired” when they scan it. The BIA can push the end date back if it extends the season.
Which privacy rules apply to shopper data in Canada?
Outside Quebec, PIPEDA applies to most businesses: collect only what you need, say why, and get meaningful consent. In Quebec, Law 25 adds stricter consent rules. Any email you send to promote businesses must also follow CASL. In practice: name and email, optional postal code, a consent box and a privacy policy linked from the form.
Sources
- Ottawa Business Journal (2020). Ottawa Tourism extends pitch to local residents by expanding attraction discount program.
- Kawartha NOW (2025). This year’s Holiday Shopping Passport program includes East City as well as downtown Peterborough.
- Apple. Add to Apple Wallet guidelines.
- Google. Google Wallet: Generic pass, Web.
- Google. Supported countries for Google Wallet (Canada).
- Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. PIPEDA in brief.
- Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec. Principaux changements apportés par la Loi 25 (in French).
- Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. Canada’s anti-spam legislation.