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
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