Happy New Year 2011

Happy New Year

Bonne Annee



-- Post From My iPhone

"Happy Christmas to All and to All a Good Night"

May you have a wonderful Christmas Day (whether you celebrate it or not)

Almost final blog post of the year. Ready for 2011? Start early with Canada-e-Connect and consider the new Canadian Tourism Marketing Summit

The disaster that was 2009 is hopefully a distant memory. While 2010 was not spectacular, we did see some recovery in the Canadian Tourism industry. It is by no means a great state of affairs, but there's cautious optimism that 2011 might be an OK year for Canada. The challenges going forward are many: the weak American economy, the rising loonie (Canadian dollar for those of you who don't know our currency's nickname), the debt crisis in Europe, and the intense competition from a myriad of other destinations.

Do you long for the good all times BYT, BFB, BT (before YouTube, before FaceBook, before Twitter)? The digital revolution has been wreaking havoc in many industries for several years now and it's like a tsunami that keeps on going. Music, advertising, marketing, public relations. Even politics has changed because of the digital revolution. Just a mere 5 years ago you could still compete very effectively with traditional marketing communications (TV, radio, print, static Web) and trade relations (wholesalers, tour operators, airlines, etc). If your destination had big budgets you could make more noise than the others and get decent results. Today, that's not the case.

Destination marketers are having a very hard time keeping up with the consumer and the ongoing changes that the digital world brings about. 5 or 6 years ago the buzz was SEO, optimize your website so that people can find you on search engines - improve your rankings so your website/destination appears on the first page of Google organic results. And just when many destinations were getting right, in came the Social Media storm. Today, a DMO's voice is just one of thousands talking (or not) about a particular destination. Same thing goes for tourism businesses. Even when none of the current digital means of communication existed, admen and adwomen talked about "cutting through the clutter." We had seen a fragmentation of TV audiences with the "500 channel" universe, and that was hard enough. Now the audience is fragmented into millions (even if 500 million of them are on Facebook).

How are you competing in this environment? What is your strategy going forward? In my previous post I encouraged you to attend Canada-e-Connect. I still do, but you may also want to consider attending the new Canadian Tourism Marketing Summit next March. If you need help with tactics and hands on learning, there's Online Revealed also in March. If you plan to attend ITB this year and you are interested in the latest technological developments in tourism, I recommend the PhocusWright @ ITB conference (the theme in 2011 is "Marketplace Chaos: Spotlight on Technology and Innovation). Unfortunately PhocusWright @ ITB takes place at the same time as Online Revealed and the Canadian Tourism Summit, so you will have to choose.

Today more than ever, it is important to keep up with technological and communications developments in the tourism space. The old tourism marketing, advertising and distribution system that lasted for decades has been creatively destroyed in just a few years and changes happen almost on a daily basis. Stay on top or fall behind.

Jaime

www.cactusrock.com

62 days 'till Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference 2011

While there are only 23 days 'till Christmas (Happy Hanukkah, btw, Dec 1 to 9), there are only 62 days until Canada's national etourism strategy conference, Canada-e-Connect, presented by TIAC and PhoCusWright. Register by tomorrow, Friday December 3, to get a shot at a brand new iPad 16G.

This year the CeC has put together another great program. Speakers include Scott Stratten @unmarekting on "Unmarketing" fame, Tara Hunt @missrogue, and Amber MacArthur @ambermac, one of the leading social media experts in Canada and author of Power Friending (my review is coming on this blog soon).

The first Canada-e-Connect conference held in Vancouver was all about "joining the conversation," the second Canada-e-Connect in Toronto in 2009 was about the "Digital Revolution," and how digital technology is the new gauge (see Dr. Ian Fenwick's DigiMarketing), content is personal and content travels and engaging instead of targeting. The third installment of Canada-e-Connect in Montreal was not only about joining the conversation using digital media, but how to go beyond and create conversational capital (see Betrand Cesvet's "Conversational Capital"), conversations that enhance brand equity. What will Canada-e-Connect IV be all about?

We all know how fast technology moves today. At the second Canada-e-Connect in January 2009, while I was interviewing Ted Souder, at the time Head of Travel Central Region at Google Inc., during a luncheon session, I asked if anyone in the audience had a twitter account. Besides me and Ted, only 2 or 3 people tweeted! That was less than 2 years ago! Today we are seeing an explosion in geo-location services and group buying might be the next big thing (Google might be buying Groupon as I write this).

How are you adapting your strategy to take advantage of the ongoing digital revolution? Come to Canada-e-Connect 2011 in Toronto and get ahead of the curve. There will be sessions on geo-location, video as a branding, marketing, communications and sales tool, what's going on in the mobile space, of course social media, branded content and very importantly - measuring it all. And if a session does not cover a particular interest of yours, I am sure you will meet people who can either help you or point you in the right direction. Network with experts in their field.

Canada-e-Connect 2011, February 2 to 4, 2011. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Register early.

Hope to see you at CeC 2011

Jaime Horwitz MBA

Past Chair Canada-e-Connect

member advisory committee

@jaimehorwitz

Todd Lucier on WiFi and Social Media - get with the program people

Todd Lucier is a pioneer in Canadian Tourism - one of the first Canadian tourism professionals who understood the digital revolution and its impact on tourism marketing.

(watch out Rick Mercer)