The InterContinental Le Grand Paris, a destination unto itself.

I just came back from a vacation in Europe with my wife. 3 nights in Paris and 11 days in Tuscany. My wife had been wishing for this trip for a few years and we were finally able to do it. While I am very happy just travelling in Canada (you see my wife was born here and I wasn't so we see Canada very differently - I haven't had enough of it), I do love Paris and Italy...and so we went. It was a fantastic Holiday and one of the highlights was staying at the InterContinental Le Grand Paris hotel, a historical property across from the Paris Opera.  I have been a guest at many IHG hotels - Holiday Inns, Crowne Plazas, InterContinentals and Indigos.  Way before I started working in digital marketing - before the Internet -  when I was a kid, my family used to stay at Holiday Inns or Crowne Plazas when we vacationed in Mexico. Later on, when I moved to Canada and used to travel to Mexico City on business I always stayed at the Presidente InterContinental.  I like the IHGs because I always know what I'm going to get and, for the most part, they deliver the brand promise.  

Depending on my budget, whenever I go to a new city I look for a Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express or InterContinental (and sometimes a Crowne Plaza or an Indigo).  And since I joined their Priority Club loyalty program years ago, I tend to accumulate many points over time - which are an added bonus (points nights). In Canada I will also consider Delta Hotels (which I have come to know since I came to Canada and they have been clients on my websites for a few years). And so, when we planned our trip to Italy, I wanted to stop in Paris for a few days and I looked for an IHG property. The Paris Le Grand stood out because of it's pedigree and its location. Also, the IHG website does a very good job of introducing the hotel to potential guests. 

The InterContinental Le Grand Paris did not disappoint. The building alone is worth a visit, even if you don't stay there. Have a cafe au lait or dinner at the also historical Café de la Paix. Both the Le Grand and the Café are older than Canada, having been opened to the public in 1862, but age has only enhanced their beauty. We had a fantastic room with a balcony overlooking the Paris Opera House. The bed was fantastic, the decor elegant and the view spectacular. 

I don't have a picture of the Grand Ballroom at the hotel, but it is a remarkable space. Isabelle Bouvier - sales manager - showed it to me. The space is perfect for a Canadian Tourism function.  Unfortunately, I don't have  a picture of the space, but you'll have to take my word for it, it's fantastic.

And then there's the Café de la Paix right at the hotel. Exquisite decor and delicious food.  For lunch or dinner and some good people watching. The Café's guest book is a treasure of notes and doodles by great artists, musicians, designers and the like (from Salvador Dali to Jean Paul Gauthier, to Jerry Lewis to Liza Minelli to Charles Aznavour and more).

The Paris Le Grand, like other InterContinentals caters to the international business crowd (the executive lounge is a very inviting space - on the 5th floor - with plenty of space to have a meeting over coffee or spend some quiet time reviewing documents or reading the paper -  but Le Grand is also perfect for the high end leisure traveler. If you ever want to treat yourself when in Paris, stay a couple of nights at this architectural work of art.

A bientôt,

Jaime

Canadian Tourism is getting hammered. What are you doing about your destination or business?

Because the tourism industry is a very fragmented one and employment is spread over hundreds of thousands of businesses, from large hotels to small burger joints along Ontario's Highway 400, to beds & breakfasts in Cape Breton to soft adventure outfitters in the Yukon and so on, it's an easy industry to ignore. It's not like a big automotive plant closing and laying off 2,000 people at a time which gets the attention of unions, the media and consequently the politicians and society at large. In tourism there are thousands of jobs lost when small kayak rentals operators, small receptive operators, restaurants, and others fold. Many thousands more go unreported as lost jobs because businesses froze hiring this summer and thousands of young people who otherwise would have been employed in the industry were not. The lack of jobs concentration makes it difficult for the media to write stories about the problem. And of course, we could also do better integrating all the voices of tourism across the country (Join the Canadian Tourism Community social networking site).

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Notwithstanding the above, the industry made the front page of today's Globe and Mail. The natonal paper reports that "Cross-border travel hits lowest levels on record. New passport rules prompt 26% drop in same-day trips from U.S. to Canada in June." But that's just part of the story. According to StatCan's International Travel: Advance Information Bulletin for June 2009, just about every market, primary or otherwise, was down in June and most are down significantly for the period Jan to June. And this after what was perhaps the worst May on record as well. If the year continues going this way, 2009 may see half the numbers of tourists Canada had in 1999! While it is undeniable that the last ten years have seen numerous challenges for the Canadian tourism industry, in my opinion, there are other reasons why the numbers of visitors continue to tank, one being the lack of impactful, creative marketing and advertising. The reasons for this are debatable and one reason must be, of course, a lack of sufficient resources, but another, again in my opinion, is the lack of risk taking to make our marketing and advertising break through the clutter. I believe provincial and national tourism marketing is hindered by a playing it safe mentality so as to not create any controversy (I again think of advertising in America's Super Bowl). If I sound frustrated is because I am. I believe Canada can do much better selling itself to the world (and to ourselves). And when marketers like Rod Harris leave a DMO (or are ousted), it gives me less confidence in the powers that be. By any measure of success in marketing, Rod Harris is indisputably is one of the best tourism marketers in the world (but I think even he was limited by the political considerations that sometimes - like it or not - come into play in Canadian Tourism marketing).

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On a final note, I am happy to report that of all our European markets, the ONLY one that is showing growth in the period from January to June 2009 is SPAIN. Gracias amigos españoles , Olé.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

Cactus Rock New Media Ltd.

The Canadá en Español Network

www.canadaenespanol.ca

http://twitter.com/jaimehorwitz

A social networking site for the Canadian Tourism Community

There's been a lot of talk on and offline about social media and social media marketing in the tourism space for the past two or three years. Most of this talk has focused on social media marketing: how to do it, how to take advantage of it, how to measure its effectiveness, how to participate in the conversation, whether to participate in the conversation or not, how to promote your brand or destination, how to protect your reputation, etc. Most of the talk has been about social media marketing to the consumer/traveler, but not much has been said about business to business social media, at least not within the Canadian tourism industry. While many Canadian tourism professionals have signed up on LinkedIn and many have joined groups on that site or on Facebook, until now there has not been a social networking site solely for the Canadian Tourism Community. Enters www.canadiantourismcommunity.com.

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Cactus Rock New Media Ltd. has launched the CanadianTourismCommunity social networking site as a service to the industry and as an extension of this blog. I must admit that the success of the Spanish tourism industry's site, Turismo 2.0, to which I also belong, made me think as to why we haven't had a similar social networking site in Canada. Being one of the most connected countries in the world with some excellent work being done in the digital tourism space, I have found it ironic that we don't take advantage of the capabilites available to us to network, to share knowledge, to stay in touch with our partners, clients and potential partners and clients, to learn from each other. And so I decided to put the industry to the test and see if we can (take advantage).

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The Canadian Tourism Community site, built on the Ning platform, is a private social networking site. Membership is free but by invitation only. At the moment there are two reasons why private and why by invitation only. First, it is easier to manage and monitor that way. While I'm happy to manage the site, which I hope will help my own networking efforts in the industry, it takes more time to monitor an open site because there are many spammers out there trying to take advantage of open sites. Second, being a private site it may be more comfortable for members of the industry who are concerned about, well, privacy.

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Having a social networking site exclusively for the Canadian tourism industry and its partners is better than forming groups on Facebook or LinkedIn because the primary purpose of the site is to serve the needs of the members of the industry who choose to use it, i.e. the layout and content are not cluttered by non-tourism related stuff (or ads). Each member has a big page with clear font and can write a blog, upload photos, videos or documents. Members can write on each other's comments boxes or sent private messages. Also, the site has chat capabilities for those who wish to communicate in real time, a feature that may come in handy to have conversations with partners overseas.

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The success of the site will depend on the involvement of the industry as a whole. The site is not for techies or eBusiness people. The site is for everyone involved in the Canadian Tourism Industry, from restarauranteurs, to hoteliers, to human resources specialists, PR people, suppliers, tour operators, receptive tour operators, etc. As of this writing there are 45 members in the www.canadiantourismcommunity.com. Our Spanish counterpart, Turismo 2.0 (online for a few years now) has almost 5,000! Now more than ever, we need to find better, more efficient ways to communicate among ourselves and this is one tool that can facilitate this (who knows, it might even save you money or get you a new partner/client. The best way to understand social media is to participate. If you are in the Canadian tourism industry or work for or with anyone in the Canadian tourism industry, whether in Canada or outside Canada feel free to join. To get an invite write to jaime (at) cactusrock.com

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Regards,

Jaime Horwitz MBA

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect Montreal 2010

Online travel trends from a Travolution blog post

One of my favourite blogs to follow is the Travolution Blog. If you work in the travel industry, this blog is a must read. A couple of months ago it published an interesting piece by Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, research editor for Travolution and chair of the Enter09 conference in Amsterdam. The post's title was "24 things to think about if you are involved in online travel." I won't reproduce the 24 things here (clic on the post's title to read the whole thing). I just want to comment on some of them:

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1) Context is king - due to the relevance to consumer needs - this includes location, party, purpose of visti, timing, etc. Absolutely agree. Context and content go hand in hand, but relevance is everything when marketing your destination, hotel, attraction, etc. Twitter's success notwithstanding, search is still the biggest digital tool and what searchers want the most is truly relevant results to their queries. Right now, for example, might be a good time to ramp up Golf marketing campaigns since golfers are beginning to plan as the weather gets better.

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2) Content needs to be reorganized and presented to serve context. It almost goes without saying, but much harder to implement.

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3) Gadgets that can be plugged into iGoogle, Facebook, Vista and other platforms which can extend the reach of a website. Content travels and as Dr Fenwick pointed out at Canada-e-Connect 2009, content has been liberated from devices. Destination should spend some time and effort developing engaging gadgets, widgets and iPhone/Blackberry apps.

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9) Two conflicting trends - from "Personalisation/CRM/need everything about the customer - to "leave me alone/give me what I want/you don't onw me. Permission is everything and it is a challenge. How do you get potential customer's permission to market to them? One way is to make it fun first perhaps via an iPhone app or perhaps by building a follower base on Twitter or a fan page on Facebook. Or making use of interactive outdoor campaigns using QR codes to engage people. Whatever the media, it will become increasingly important to get people's permission to address them directly given the proliferation of digital addressable media.

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12) Twitter is becoming the next big thing and many predict that it will have a similar success to SMS due to its simplicity, interactivity, speed and relevance. Agree. Twitter seems to be already the next big thing, even though it only has about 7 to 8 million users currently. But don't go all crazy about Twitter just yet. Twitter's strength at the moment (and it attractiveness to companies like Facebook and Google rumoured to be courting Twitter) is in the aggregate. At the individual, DMO or small business level I see Twitter as a complement to all other marketing tools in the mix. I will write an assessment of Twitter in a future post soon.

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13) Impossible to concentrate with so many channles of interactivity interrupting everything - relevance is vital, once again. True. Goes almost without saying. The explosion of channels, tools, apps, etc., requires an effort from consumers to filter out annoying things. This is one of the reasons I am a bit turned-off from Facebook. Many of the apps on Facebook are very intrusive and "force" users to annoy their friends and connections by sending all kinds of invitation to all kinds of quizes, contests, etc., that for some of us are a bit of a waste of time.

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17) Most Destination Management Organization (DMO's) are totally inadequate to meet the challenges of the future. I don't agree with Prof Buhalis on this one. First, I think he does not understand DMO's very well (BTW I believe the initial M is for marketing not management). I will agree that many DMO's are indeed inadequate to meet the challenges of the future. But there are many destination that are doing great things in the digital space and also offline. At Canada-e-Connect we learned about Tourisme Montreal's digital strategy for 2009 and everyone at the conference was very impressed with it. Sweden's Community of Sweden social networking site is a success. VisitLasVegas is another DMO that has been doing very innovative Web 2.0 marketing.

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18) Only agile desinations as presented by bahamas.com Minister of Tourism and Aviation for the Bahamas, Vincent VanderPool-Wallace, will use innovation and eTourism for destination strategic advantage. Agree with the "only agile assertion," but Bahamas is not the only DMO doing good work in this space.

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20) VisitBritain takes 202 bookings per month!!! What is the return on investment on that? VisitScotland nationalised their booking service company whilst Tiscover was fully privatised and purchased by HRS.com. The jury's still out as to whether tourism board websites can successfully offer bookings direct to consumer. Some Canadian DMO's have indicated that their booking numbers are very good (although I've never seen specifics).

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23) Increasingly virtual worlds and immersive technology (developed in gaming and military applications) will be critical in marketing and cultural heritage representation. Not very much is said or written about regarding digital games and immersive technologies vis a vis eTourism, but it is an area with incredible potential. However, in order to be successful in this area, tourism businesses and destinations must be very creative (going beyond placing ads in a virtual world a la Second Life or within a Wii game), perhpas develop original games that promote the destination while providing fun to the users (and perhaps even an additional revenue stream for the DMO).

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24) We need to think differently and strategically as well as use the digital tools to raise our game to the global challenges. Couldn't agree more. But change is hard and it takes time. The purpose of the Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conferences is precisely to foster new thinking, strategic thinking in our industry vis a vis Tourism and eTourism. However, I have noticed that many in the industry resist change and while there is progress in the digital marketing space (e.g. Tourism Montreal, Tourisme Quebec and the CTC are working on very interesting projects in the space) inertia is very strong and we are not moving as fast as other competitors.

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To read the Travolution post clic here: "24 things to think about if you are involved in online travel."

Regards

Jaime Horwitz

Joe Buhler, DMO and eTravel specialist to speak at Canada-e-Connect

I have known Joe Buhler for a few years and I can verify that he's a highly respected professional in the eTourism space. Joe is a Senior Analyst with PhoCusWright, perhaps the leading tourism research and eTourism conference producer in the world. He is also principal of his own consulting firm Buhlerworks, which provides consulting services for Vision, Strategy & Innovation in travel & tourism web marketing, with a focus on destination marketing organizations (DMO) at the national, regional and local level. Joe Buhler has Global experience in destination marketing, tour operations, retail travel and the airline industry and since the early days in the largest e-commerce vertical - online travel. He has held senior executive positions in Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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Joe is a member of the international group of Travel industry bloggers, the T-List and is a sought after speaker at tourism events. Joe will make a fascinating and engaging presentation at Canada-e-Connect on Jan 22 at 3:45 pm. He will speak about The Road Ahead On The Smart Web: The focus is shifting fast in online travel, from the completion of a simple transaction to an integrated planning, researching and buying process. Search, user generated content and social media are all important elements but not enough to deliver a superior, integrated experience for today's savvy and demanding online travelers. There is a need to act now to change the business model to meet the demand for personalization, intelligence and vertical integration of local services on DMO's sites. Joe Buhler will examine where DMOs are in relation to these innovations in e-travel and look at what new relationships are necessary to compete and take full advantage of this trend.
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There is still time to register for Canada-e-Connect

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Jaime Horwitz MBA
Chair Advisory Committee Canada-e-Connect 2009

Terry O'Reilly, one of Canada's top Marketing thought leaders, to close Canada-e-Connect Conference 2009

"There is a huge seismic shift in ad dollars going to online and digital marketing." Terry O'Reilly.

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Canada-e-Connect and the Tourism Industry Association of Canada are extremely pleased to announce that Terry O'Reilly will be the closing speaker at Canada-e-Connect 2009.

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AdMan Terry O'Reilly is one of the most interesting, engaging, fun people you can meet in the advertising, communications field anywhere in the world. A recognized authority in advertising (see Marketing Magazine's 100th Anniversary double Issue November '08 - 100 thought leaders look to the future, pg 39), Terry O'Reilly will be inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends at a Gala event a few days after Canada-e-Connect. As you can surmise, Terry O'Reilly is a sought after speaker and we are thrilled that he will be the closing keynote speaker.

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Terry is a partner in Pirate Radio (Toronto, New York) which keeps him busy enough. But his restless, enthusiasm makes him go beyond his day job to the air and digital waves through his CBC Radio One's program The Age of Persuasion in which he talks about all things related to advertising, communications, persuasion. Age of Persuasion is also available as a podcast through the CBC website (link above).

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Terry's extensive experience in the advertising world, his talent for ideas, and his endless curiosity and enthusiasm (not too mention the myriad of advertising awards he has won) makes him an ideal closer for next January's Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference in Toronto. Terry will bring his fun, informative, engaging and persuasive presentaton style to the closing session. Don't miss it!

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Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference

InterContinental Hotel Toronto Centre

January 21-23, 2009

Register now at www.canadaeconnect.travel

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regards,

Jaime Horwitz MBA
Chair Advisory Committee Canada-e-Connect 2009

www.canadaeconnect.com

www.tiac.travel

Mexican inbound tourism to Canada continues to grow at a consistent 15% rate

Statistics Canada published its service bulletin International Travel: Advance Information for May 2008 today. While the news about US visits continues to be dismal with a further 10% decline for the month compared to May 2007, Mexico continues to grow at a 15% rate. 21,658 Mexican visitors came to Canada in May 2008 compared to 18,840 for the same period last year. Total numbers from Jan to May: 86,238.

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Spain remained flat for the month, but South America, excluding Brazil grew 7.2% for the month. and is up 8% for the period from Jan to May.

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Given the global credit crunch and the fuel debacle among airlines it is all the more remarkable that the Mexican inbound market continues to grow at this clip. In my opinion, it is confirmation that there continues to be pent-up demand in Mexico for travel to Canada. The success of the Canadamigos Social Network to date (over 5,000 visits per months and reaching 1,700 active members since December '07) and continuing growth in traffic for the Canadá en Español websites (over 200,000 monthly visits) leads me to reassert my belief that with the right marketing mix going forward Mexican inbound tourism to Canada could reach 350,000 visitors by the end of 2010. Furthermore, once Canada begins to market itself in Spain we could see a dramatic increase of Spanish visitors to this country.

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Saludos,

Jaime Horwitz MBA

www.cactusrock.com

Canadian Tourism. Targeting the real decision makers in Mexico: affluent Women

Women in Mexico are still behind their North American counterparts when it comes to progress in the workplace or politics. Although they have achieved remarkable progress in the last twenty years, the fact is that Mexico is still quite a male dominated society. However, when it comes to the household, women in Mexico are queens. They exert enormous influence in the family or couple's decision making and in many instances they are the key decision maker. One area where women pretty much make the decision is in that of travel. Whether they travel with their partner or with the whole family, women are the key decision makers when it comes to travel. Men may dominate the workplace, but at home they aim to please when it comes to travel. If a Mexican woman does not want to go to a destination you can be sure the trip won't happen.

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Swishy is an up and coming publication from one of the largest travel trade publishers in Mexico, Grupo Boletur. It is the first magazine in Mexico exclusively targeting affluent women travellers. According to their data (it would be easy to find other surveys corroborating this. In my case I just have to look no further than my experience living in Mexico and my relatives and friends there):

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•95% of Mexican women are active decision-makers in the planning of a trip;
•1/3 are the main decision-makers
•80% of women consider vacations as a must have

Barely two years old, the magazine is distributed in Mexico, South America and Miami. It is found in key high end spots, including several hotels, around Mexico with a circulation of 35,000 issues plus special inserts in the Mexican Reforma newspaper. It is also found aboard Aeromexico and LanChile flights.

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I have always been aware that content on the Canadá en Español sites should appeal to women as well as men. Going forward, with particular attention to the Canadamigos Social Network, there will be more content that appeals to this segment of the travelling public. For example, last year I covered Toronto's Fashion Week for my Blog de Canada.com and Toronto en Español. This year I plan to cover Montreal's Fashion week. When I was in Berlin last march attending the PhoCusWright Bloggers Summit at ITB, I ran into Magdalena Saldivar, Director of Sales at Swishy and Grupo Boletur. Since then we have in contact to discuss potential collaboration between Swishy and Canada en Español. In the meantime, this month I placed a full page ad on Swishy to promote the entire network of websites (clic on the images to see a large version). The issue features Toronto as an international fashion centre in an 8 page article.

Saludos,

Jaime Horwitz MBA

www.canadaenespanol.ca

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Canadian Tourism in crisis. Critical times require extraordinary measures. My dream Campaign.

This past Monday I received TIAC's Media release entitled Canada's Tourism Sector on the Brink of Crisis. Among other things, the release mentioned that "Governments have traditionally neglected the industry, and have tended to regard tourism as a source of taxation dollars, burdening business with structural costs and compliance measures which impede its price competitiveness. For example: The continuing insistence on charging airport rents, airport security fees, excise tax on aviation fuel, NAVCAN fees, or the abrupt cancellation of the Visitor Rebate Program and its replacement with the onerous and burdensome Foreign Convention and Tour Incentive Program are illustrative of the problem...Canada’s travel deficit has ballooned to 10.3 billion in 2007 and the latest quarterly numbers for 2008 show a continued deterioration."

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Given the ongoing weakness of the American economy and, more importantly, high fuel prices that are affecting air travel demand, it is clear that we're in for a very challenging year for Canadian Tourism. This brings me to suggest a more agressive marketing approach for Canadian Tourism. This is not the time to cut back, on the contrary. This is the time to increase marketing efforts, particularly in the United States. Economic troubles notwithstanding, it is not like America is all of a sudden a poor country. It is still a $14 Trillion economy and with a population of over 300 million people there are surely many millions who will continue to travel and travel in style. But how can we persuade them to come to Canada if most people outside a few major markets in the US do not know anything about this country?

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Here's my pitch. A television and multimedia campaign in the United States beginning in the winter of 2009. My dream campaign is not timid and would cost several million dollars. The key success factor for the campaign is a television spot during SUPER BOWL XLIII (90,000,000 viewers more or less). This, of course would be the most expensive marketing campaign ever attempted by Canada. A 30 second slot during the Super Bowl will cost close to $3,000,000 USD next year and I propose to show the Ad 1 per quarter during the game. That media buy alone would cost about $12,000,000 (assuming of course that the network accepts the ad since Super Bowl slots are highly competitive). I haven't been involved with TV commercial production in a while, but I would guess that my spot idea would cost as much as $4,000,000 to produce (depending on negotiations with talent, a critical element). So far we've spent about $16,000,000. I would also suggest investing an additional $5,000,000 in multimedia marketing (online and print) following the Super Bowl including distribution in all social media in order to take advantage of the long tail of Internet communications. A new website would need to be launched in order to track results and very importantly offer research and booking capabilities. It would require the cooperation of all major DMO's and their constituents in Canada. I am sure that the industry as a whole has enough money to launch this kind of campaign. I am sure that the budgets of all major DMO's in the country (CTC, provinces and cities) combined could afford it.

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What kind of spot would I want to see? Here's a very rough draft of the spot (very rough - after all, I do have to get back to work).

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WHITE TITLES ON BLACK SCREEN.
Music starts – at first not recognizable – as spot continues it becomes clear it’s a rock/hip-hop rendition of O Canada).

TITLE
Where are you going?

INT. RECORDING STUDIO
Medium shot to Close up of Avril Lavigne

AVRIL LAVIGNE (TO CAMERA)
I’m going to Canada.

EXT. STUDIO BACK LOT.
Close up of Willam Shatner

WILLIAM SHATNER (TO CAMERA)
I’m going to Canada

INT. COULD BE AT A STUDIO OR IN A HOME OR RESTAURANT
Close up of Pamela Anderson

PAMELA ANDERSON (TO CAMERA)
I’m going to Canada.

Quick shots of Canadian destinations and Canadian festivals in all seasons. Lots of action, lots of colour. 5 seconds

EXT. MUSKOKA, ONTARIO
Medium shot of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. Cut to: Close up of Ms. Hawn

GOLDIE HAWN (TO CAMERA)
Canada

Camera pulls back to Aerial shot of a luxurious cottage in Muskoka, Ontario. Cut to:

WHITE TITLES ON BLACK SCREEN

TITLE
Where are you going?

EXT. TORONTO. DOWNTOWN ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT
MAN’S BACK. Camera rolls in as man turns around.

MIKE MYERS (TO CAMERA)
Going to Canada, Baby

More Quick shots of Canadian destinations and Canadian festivals in all seasons. Lots of action, lots of colour, cutting back and forth from cities to nature and back.

EXT. MONTREAL OR QUEBEC CITY. DOWNTOWN OLD MONTREAL
CAMERA moves to reveal CELINE DION – pull back to establish Montreal or Quebec City.

CELINE DION (TO CAMERA)
I am going to Canada

EXT. MOVIE LOCATION IN LA.
Close up of Kiefer Sutherland

KIEFER SUTHERLAND (TO CAMERA)
I’m going to Canada


EXT. SOMEHWERE INN TREMBLANT, QUEBEC.
Med. Two shot up of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones

MICHAEL DOUGLAS (TO CAMERA)
Going to Canada

More Quick shots of Canadian destinations and Canadian festivals in all seasons. Lots of action, lots of colour, cutting back and forth from cities to nature and back. Music reaches crescendo. 5 seconds

EXT. VANCOUVER SOMEWHERE.
Shot of a mimic on Robson Street performing to the crowd. Camera gets in close as man turns and we realize id Jim Carey

JIM CAREY (TO CAMERA)
Goin’ to Canada. Somebody stop me!

CUT TO---

FULL SCREEN – CANADA.TRAVEL GRAPHICS.

TITLE
Canada. Keep Exploring

URL: GOINGTOCANADA.COM

THE END

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Cheers and good luck this summer,

Jaime

www.canadaenespanol.ca

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Tourism Toronto names Russell Peters Global Ambassador. Russell who?

If you don't know who Russell Peters is then you are definitely not hip. Mr. Peters is one of the hottests comics in North America today. A native Indo-Canadian Torontonian Russell Peters has taken the comedy world by storm and is one of the most watched comedians on YouTube.

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"In our business we compete literally with the entire world. Russell canhelp us break through the noise and reveal the true personality of Toronto -the diverse, cosmopolitan experiences that make it such a tremendous place tolive, work and visit," said David Whitaker, President and CEO of Tourism Toronto. "Russell has demonstrated that sometimes the best way to bring people together is by laughing."

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"Mr. Peters will appear at major trade shows promoting Toronto to meeting and convention planners and other travel influencers." Tourism Toronto press release.

It will be very interesting to follow this initiative from Tourism Toronto and look back in a couple of years. One thing is for certain, Russell Peters is a very funny comedian whose comedy is based on great observation skills. If you have never seen or heard any of his comedy, here's a sample:

Jaime

PS this reminded me of my dream ad campaign to bring back Americans to Canada - I'll post it soon - cheers

How to get exposure for your tourism business or destination using RSS feeds.

Few days ago I explained how you can stay informed using RSS feeds. Now I want to write about how you can get more exposure (and ultimately more customers/guests/clients) for your Canadian Tourism business using RSS feeds.
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First you need content to RSS, so start blogging. It does not have to be all time consuming to blog about your business and destination. Say you have a Bed & Breakfast. Launch your blog and anywhere from one to five times a week (as much as you can but at least once a week) post an entry on your blog. You can use platforms like Blogger or Wordpress that are very easy to use. Add pictures or videos if you want. What do you blog about? It does not have to be about your specific offering all the time. Be creative, perhaps a brief story about the goings on in your town or a comment on something you read in the paper related to your business. It does not always need to be a "selling" proposition. I always like to use Terri's Bay of Fundy's blog as a good example. Terri always has little bits of interesting or fun information. Visit her blog for ideas as to what to do with yours. Another blog that you may look at as an example is the Romany Rest B&B blog from PEI. Once you have a blog make sure to have RSS links. Visit Feedburner to learn about adding the RSS links to your blog.
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IMPORTANT: If you cannot maintain the blog with fresh content at least once a week or once every ten days, in my opinion, you should not have a blog. Once people find your blog, if they like it, they will return to it and/or subscribe via an RSS feed. If content is not fresh and current you will lose your potential customer because your blog will reflect on your offline business or attraction in some measure.

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DMO's in Canada are still behind in the area of Blogs and Web 2.0 initiatives. There may be many reasons for this, but it is better not to have blogs if the content is not looked after and the blog is not maintained. For example, Niagara Falls Tourism launched a great redesign of their site a few months ago that includes video and a blog. However as of this writing the last entry on that blog is from August 29, 2007! It would be better to take down the blog until they have someone adding content on a regular basis. Perhaps the DMO's should consider creating a new position, that of resident blogger, who could be in-house or off-site, full-time or part-time /freelance bloggers.

Even though most destination marketing organizations do not have blogs, there are two DMOs Canada that are doing a great job in the area of Web 2.0 such as blogs and podcasts. Hello BC has implemented a blog area where travellers themselves can blog. Tourism BC's Hello BC website makes sure that the blog has content continuously by also having members of their staff contribute to the blog. There may not necessarily be new content every day, but there is enough continuity that one may want to check it out every now and then. It of course allows people to subsribe to an RSS feed making it easier to know when new content has been added. Hello BC's blog is more of a compendium where many people may add an entry as a Traveller's tip as oppose to what you see in most blogs where the point of view is usually from one of a few persons, but it works (similar to posts or comments one might see on TripAdvisor).

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The other DMO making good use of Web 2.0 tools is Tourism Montreal with its Play-Montreal Podcasts blog to which one can subscribe via RSS. The podcasts are audio pieces that complement the written blog entries. A visitor may choose to read or listen or both. It's quite informative. My only comment is that the tone of the blog and the podcasts is a bit to serious (and institutional). But nonetheless, it is a great step by the folks of Tourism Montreal to get closer to potential visitors to that fabulous city.

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The next step in your Bloggin, RSS Feed, Web 2.0 marketing path would be to participate in social networks. But that's a topic for a future post. Stay tuned (subscribe to this blog's RSS feed to stay in touch).

Cheers, Jaime

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Cities 2.0 - My Toronto Holiday Campaign vs. This is New York City

I sometimes visit the official tourism websites for Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, Canada's three biggest urban destinations to see if there's anything new and notable, not necessarily to plan visits since I know the cities quite well by now. I love Tourism Toronto's My Toronto Holiday campaign - it's a great web animation piece that encourages the online visitor to explore different areas of the city- first online and then in person. Hope it generates the results it deserves. The official site needs work, in my opinion, or a total new approach to include some Web 2.0 capabilities and more creative pieces like "MyTorontoHoliday."

But as much as I liked "MyTorontoHoliday" I have to say that I liked the new "This is New York City" video from NYCVISIT.com better. Granted the former is more of a call to action (including contest) campaign while the latter is more of a branding campaign, but both are examples of creative used to sell a destination. The NYC video is a fantastic example of how to inject a sense of FUN into a destination's message. And before you say - "well, but that's New York" - I must say that Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and certainly Niagara Falls can inject more Fun into their marketing (MyTorontoHoliday is a great start). This is where consumer generated content has limitations. Sometimes you do need some great creative supported by strong production values (i.e. Budget) in order to pull off something this good (I'm so jealous). Check it out - This is New York City:

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Jaime

Toronto en Español