Canada-e-Connect 2009 advsiory board meets in Toronto

The advisory board for the Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference 2009 is meeting tomorrow in Toronto in order to finalize the conference's program. Details of the conference will be announced shortly. In the meantime let me give you an idea of what's in store. The focus of the conference is eTourism Strategy. eTourism comprises all the digital channels that may be used to promote and sell your tourism offering to a domestic and international audience. These digital channels include the Web, mobile and digital signage. The Web today offers a myriad of strategic marketing opportunities that not all tourism businesses and destinations are taking advantage of. We are in the era of the pervasive Web. A single static website no longer qualifies as online marketing. As many of us know, today's marketing must include a Social Media and Web 2.0 strategy. We should no longer try to "target" travelers, but rather "engage" them. Whether it's blogging or twittering or participating in social networks, today's tourism businesses must engage in the conversation to try and influence (not dictate) travelers decisions.

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Canada-e-Connect 2009 will address digital marketing from a tourism perspective bringing you, the Canadian tourism decision maker, experts in the various topics as well as examples of best practices. The conference is designed for marketing and sales tourism professionals and those who want to learn about the future of tourism marketing Now. Topics will include: Digital Marketing, eDistribution, eMarketing, Mobile communication and marketing, Blogging, Social Media, Consumer Created Content, Digital Signage and Online Reputation. Given the challenging times we are living, it is more important than ever to be efficient and effective with our tourism marketing.

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Mark your calendars and plan to attend Canada-e-Connect, January 21 to the 23d in Toronto.

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regards,

Jaime Horwitz MBA
Chair, Advisory Committee

deMexicoaCanada.ca out of the online gate promoting Winter travel from Mexico to Canada

deMexicoaCanada.ca (http://www.demexicoacanada.ca/), a Canada en Espanol website, was created to promote Mexican tour operators' products from Mexico to Canada. It currently features Abiega Operadora de Viajes' various packages from Mexico to Canada. 23 packages were promoted for the Summer and Fall seasons and it over 15 packages for the December Holiday and Winter seasons have been released. deMexicoaCanada.ca can also be reached via de .com, .com.mx and .travel domain extensions. The site log about 20,000 online vists monthly. This season deMexicoaCanada has also debuted on Facebook to take advantage of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans using the famous social network site.

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deMexico a Canada packages cover a wide breadth of packages for various segments of the Mexican traveling public. There are escorted and FIT packages available to British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. Missing from the mix is the Yukon because unfortunately last year's Northern Lights package has been switched to northern Alberta.

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Cheers,

Jaime

Mexican Inbound to Canada up 11.3% in July up 12.6% YTD. Spain up 14.9% in July 9.4% YTD. The USA inbound continues to plummet!

StatCan just published the numbers for inbound tourism to Canada in its International Travel Advance Information Bulletin. Inbound Tourism en Español continues to grow amidst global economic uncertainty, proof that Hispanics around the world are very interested in visiting Canada. Mexico, the star in this space (mostly due to the fact that it's the only Hispanic market where Canada is spending substantial marketing dollars), was up 11.3% this past July compared to July '07. For the period Jan to July 2008 Mexico is up a decent 12.6%. Spain, a relatively new market where very little marketing is being done (although Canada en Español has been generating Spanish Web traffic for years), and where the economy is not doing great, was up by 14.9% in July and 9.4% from Jan to July. Spanish speaking South America was up 5.4% for the first 7 months of the year compared to 2007.

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Belgium, Denmark, France and Sweden are also performing quite well for Canadian Tourism all showing double digit growth in July 2008 compared to July 2007.

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However, all these gains as great and welcome as they are do not make up at all for the continuitng decline in American visits. The numbers are critical and something must be done. The US market is still the biggest market for Canadian Tourism other than Canada itself. It represents billions of dollars for the Canadian economy, billions that have been dissappearing like sub-prime mortgages. US inbound was down a further 11.2% in July and 13.1% lower for the period Jan to July compared to 2007. TIAC has pointed out that our industry is on the verge of crisis. The fact is that many tourism businesses are in crisis or shutting down because of the downturn in US visitations, a problem that has been growing since 1999. Where are we going to find new American tourists? My answer: the US Hispanic market, a market of 40 million plus people.

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saludos,

Jaime Horwitz MBA
www.canadaenespanol.ca

www.canadamigos.com

Sad news out of Stratford. The Shakespeare Festival is in trouble. Tourism Matters.

Sad to learn that The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is letting people "in reaction to an operating deficit for the season" as reported by the Toronto Star today. This is further evidence that the economic slowdown south of the border is continuing to hurt Canadian tourism. American visitations have been declining since 1999 but the US' credit and mortgage debacle coupled with high energy prices in recent months have exacerbatedthe problem. TIAC (Tourism Industry Association of Canada) is very right in pushing for more respect and support for our industry. I was happy to see an ad in today's Globe and Mail: "Our Tourism Industry is Sinking Fast" (page A6) about our industry and why it matters. I commend TIAC for taking the lead with very short notice to make our industry heard during this Federal Election. If you are a member of the Canadian Tourism Industry, get involved, visit the website www.tourismmatters.travel to learn about the issues and about how you can help make our voices heard.

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Jaime

Canadamigos Social Network reaches 2,000 members

The Canadamigos.com Social Network surpassed the 2,000 member mark this week. Canadamigos is getting over 6,000 visits per month and growing. People from just about every Spanish speaking country in the world (including the US) are finding the Canadamigos Social Networking site and joining in the conversation about Canada and the Hispanic world. Canadá en Español is an active participant in the site in order to approve memberships, to monitor the content and to influence the conversation. Canadamigos is Canadá en Español's Tourism 2.0 venture going forward. The idea is to turn virtual travelers into actual visitors to Canada and to turn those visitors into word of mouth (online and offline) champions for Canadian Tourism by engaging in a two way conversation. As the site and the membership grows, the community will become more and more attractive for Canadian Tourism businesses and destinations who decide to get into the conversation in a growing niche market, i.e. Hispanic inbound tourism to Canada. In addition to members from almost every Spanish speaking country Canadamigos has members in BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Canadamigos provides a platform for tourism organizations in Canada who are interested in attracting Hispanic travelers by influencing the conversation.

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Saludos,

Jaime Horwitz MBA

www.canadaenespanol.ca

International Events North in Ontario

Ontario Travel North of Toronto the Week of Sept. 15, 2008. Three substantial events are taking place this week north, north-east and north-west of Toronto.

The 2008 Georgian College Auto Show on September 19, 20, 21, is showcasing technological advances in the automotive industry and their direct impact on the environment. The slogan for this year (Renew, unite, evolve) also has an environmental or “green” focus.

The second major event is the 2008 International Plowing Match in Teeswater , Bruce County Ontario September 16^th to the 20^th... The focus is to highlight the many aspects of agriculture, rural life and down home hospitality. Experience Canada's largest outdoor agricultural exhibition.

The third main event that attracts visitors from around the world is the change of the fall colours and views of the magnificent hardwood forests of Sugar maple, Striped Maple, Yellow birch, Beech, and Black Cherry trees north of Toronto.

More than 25 fall colour routes and road trips are suggested for your travel north in Ontario.

All of the events have family activities, educational information, and are reasonable in price for an affordable family fall outing. The fall colour displays are in most cases free unless you are paying for a park admissions fee.

What did I learn covering the Toronto International Film Festival

I love Film. When I was younger I wanted to be a filmmaker (maybe I still do). I went to film school and worked in TV commercial production for a while. I also worked on television production. There's something about a movie set and about telling stories with film (or video) that really appeals to me. So covering the Toronto International Film Festival (photo with Georgina Reilly star of Bruce McDonald's Pontypool) for my Spanish blog (http://www.blogdecanada.com/) is a real pleasure. I get to see very interesting films and then write about them for an international Hispanic audience. This year I not only wrote on the blog, but I started mini-blogging as well. I used Twitter.com/jaimehorwitz to post mini-reviews right after I saw a film. Twitter is a relatively new Web service that's spreading like wild fire. Marketers are still trying to figure it out, but many are jumping in to use it as an addition to their Web 2.0 arsenal. Although Twitter's numbers are exploding, at the individual twitter the numbers are still low. The trick with twitter is to have as many followers as possible. Followers are subscribers to your Twitter. Your twitter is a webpage on Twitter.com where you can post your mini-posts either online or via a mobile device. It is the mobile device that makes twitter so interesting and compelling. Followers can check out updates online on your Twitter page or better yet they can subscribe to get updates sent to thei rmobile devices vis SMS. For something like the Toronto Film Festival it's perfect since you can SMS your mini-review right away after watching a film and your followers would receive it instantly. This can apply to any festival or sporting event as well. For example, during the Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 you could be watching a Hockey game between Team Canada and Russia and twitter a play by play for your followers. A destination or tourism business can twitter about various topics and include url's to special offers for your followers. There are many marketing possibilities here.
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Who is Twittering? In Canada Travel Alberta has begun twittering - check them out at http://twitter.com/TravelAlberta. Heather Dolan, Manager, U.S. Media Relations CTC US, is also twittering. See her page at http://twitter.com/hadola. Other tourism twitterers I have come across are Arizona Tourism, http://twitter.com/ArizonaTourism, and Philadelphia, http://twitter.com/visitphilly and SpainTube, http://twitter.com/spaintube.

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While still an emerging trend, Twitter is posed to become really big. Consider that we all carry mobile devices everywhere. We can twitter about anything and can also subscribe to those Twitters we may want to follow. While not all tourism organizations may benefit from Twittering many will. It's just a matter of figuring out how Twitter can fit into your communications strategy.

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Speaking of Strategy, Twitter and many other topics will be addressed at the second Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference in Toronto, January 21 - 23, 2009.

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Cheers,

Jaime Horwitz

This Week is all about the Toronto International Film Festival

It's an exciting week for me. I love film and I love blogging. So during the Toronto International Film Festival I watch films and blog my reviews for an international Hispanic audience on my Blog de Canada. -- I am also micro-blogging the films I see on my Twitter. Check out my Twitter page at www.twitter.com/jaimehorwitz and join as a follower. Twitter is growing exponentially. Many people are not clear as to what its usefulness may be for tourism promotion. Well, my mini-film reviews are a way to promote the Toronto International Film Festival but the same tool can be used to promote a local agricultural fair or theatre festival (e.g. Stratford). Some destinations, like Arizona Tourism and Philadelphia are beginning to use Twitter. An Art Gallery could twitter about new exhibits or acquisitions. Check it out and think creatively.
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Cheers

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Jaime

Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy 2009 is coming

I am very excited about Canada-e-Connect 2009. I am grateful to TIAC for allowing me to serve as Chairperson for the Canada-e-Connect organizaing committee. It's a lot of work, but it's right up my alley. Strategy and Digital marketing are business topics that fascinate me. The preliminary program is looking very good and I look forward to a great conference come January 2009. Detailed information is coming soon so stay tuned.
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Cheers,

Jaime
www.twitter.com/jaimehorwitz

Airlines reputation online, passenger safety, future of air travel. Who responds to the public?

The recent aviation accident at the Barajas airport in Madrid where more than 150 travelers lost their lives has generated a heated conversation in the blogosphere. A search of Spanair in Google's Blog Search yields more than 450,000 results in various languages. There is much debate as to whether the airline should have grounded the aircraft and switched planes. According to many reports Spanair denied that they considered switching planes at any point in time. Many of the families of the victims have questioned Spanair's decision to let that airplane fly. Some reports indicate that many passengers wanted to leave the plane when the aircraft was on the tarmac and being checked for some technical glitch. Passengers were not allowed to leave.

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Should airlines allow passengers who demand to leave a taxied aircraft?
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Before this tragedy happened in Spain I met a group of four Spanish travelers (photo) whom I had met on my Canadamigos Social Network. Since we had been communicating online to help them plan their trip through Ontario and Quebec we agreed to meet in Toronto on their first day in Canada. They were supposed to arrive on a Saturday afternoon at around 3:30pm arriving on the new Air Canada Madrid - Toronto flight. To make a long post short, they did not arrive on time because there was a problem with the aircraft. They landed in Montreal and after many tense moments on the plane (which according to passengers smelled like something burning) when they and other passengers demanded that the airline switch planes they were allowed to leave and another flight was scheduled for Toronto. We finally met the next day after their sojourn in Niagara. It was at this time they told me of their adventure. A few days after their return to Madrid they learned of the Spanair tragedy. They wonder what could have happened if Air Canada hadn't switched aircrafts. They never got any detailed information as to what the real issue was with their flight. I did not see anything about this in the media. So who knows what really happened. In anycase the question we came up as travelers is how safe are airlines these days when they are under enormous financial pressures (e.g. Alitalia). Should governments (i.e. taxpayers) take over once more the management of airlines in order to better safeguard the safety of air travelers and to subsidize operations so air travel continues to be accessible to more people? (I know - an unpopular idea perhaps, but is it farfetched? - send a comment).

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Jaime