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

Canada-e-Connect 2009 Day 1 in pictures (and video)

Over 200 tourism professionals attended the first day of Canada-e-Connect 2009. Feedback and comments from various attendees has been very positive so far:

More pictures tomorrow.

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Jaime Horwitz

The Mobile Strategy Panel at Canada-e-Connect

On Thursday January 22 at 13:45 Canada-e-Connect will present a panel on Mobile Strategy and eTourism. This will be one of the most interesting panels looking at the mobile space and tourism marketing and distribution as well as what's coming in the not too distant future. While most people know about and/or use text messaging, marketing via mobile devices is relatively new and tourism marketing via mobile is still in diapers. At the PhoCusWright Conference last November there were several innovators in this space. Basically there are two streams I noticed, mobile tourism guides and mobile travel assistants. The former is represented by companies like TravelChannel, Google (with its Google Maps and other innovations), iM@ (winner of Best in Show Innovator of the Year at PhoCusWright); the latter represented by companies like TripIt. Some of the Strategic questions to address are Should your organization have a mobile optimized version of your website? Should you advertise on mobile sites or services? What's the potential for synergies with other communications tools (e.g. QR codes)?

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Mobile marketing is growing, particularly in Asia (don't miss Dr. Fenwick's opening Keynote, but Europe and particularly Canada are lagging in this space. As 3G networks and smart phones (a la Blackberry and iPhone) proliferate and prices continue to decline, mobile strategy will become not only more important, but perhaps essential for the tourism marketer.

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Don't miss the panel with Patrick Payne of QuickMobile(top), Fraser Campbell of wCities (middle), Chris Ackerman of TravelChannel Media (right), and moderated by Dr. Ian Fenwick co-author of DigiMarketing, the Essential to New Media and Digital Marketing.

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See you next week, you can still register online at www.canadaeconnect.com or onsite beginning Wednesday Jan 21st at 6pm at the InterContinental Hotel Toronto Centre on Front St.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

Chair Canada-e-Connect 2009

Worldmate an example of Mobile travel services

WorldMate is a mobile services company that offers WorldMate Live "a travel service that makes it easy for business travelers to plan and manage their trips." The application is available for BlackBerry and Windows mobile enabled phones. Users send in their travel plans, Worldmate Live creates an itinerary, automatically syncs it between a personal web site and mobile device. The service sends flight changes alerts, allows users to book hotels on the go and share their itinerary with friends, co-workers and family. Basic services are free for users but they offer a more robust service for a fee. Jon Michaeli, VP Marketing (photo) told me that Worldmate Live has over 330,000 users mostly in the US but also in Canada (60/65% US, 10% Canada). The service is more suited to the business traveler but leisure travelers may find it useful as well. For the leisure traveler I prefer I'm@ from the Interactive Mobile @dvertising (in a future post), one of PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit's winners.
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Jaime