The Quest for the Remarkable - "Great Balls of Fire," Seth Godin and the TIFF

Sometme ago my eTourism colleague and fellow soccer fan, William Bakker, a remarkable eTourism professional himself, wrote a blog post on his blog Wilhelmus about the "Great Balls of Fire." No, not the great hit song written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer and made famous by Jerry Lee Lewis. William was writing about cheese balls, yes cheese balls. But not just any kind of cheese balls. He was writing about Oregon's restaurant Salvador Molly's spicy habanero cheese balls. Apparently, these cheese balls are so good, so remarkable, that William and his friends drove 5 hours from Vancouver to eat this marvel of hot cuisine. The point of his post was to ask the question:

"What’s the remarkable thing your business or destination has that’s worth driving 5 hours for?"

A corollary to the post is that not all remarkable things (or people) are remarkable to everyone. You might love Eminem and think he's a remarkable artist, while I may disagree and say that Michael Bublé is truly remarkable (I happen to like both artists, but you get the point). The main thing is to achieve critical mass. In the fragmented world we live in where there are countless substitutes for every product and service out there, the key thing is to create something that is remarkable to enough people that it makes it viable at worst and enormously successful at best.

The famous marketing blogger Seth Godin wrote a now famous blog post about "How to be Remarkable." I won't quote the entire post here. You can read it by clicking on the title. And while I don't necessarily agree with all of Seth's statements he makes very good points, especially his mentioning that it is not what's remarkable to you, but what's remarkable to me (ie your customers, fans or guests) and that what's remarkable today may not necessarily be remarkable tomorrow (e.g. iPhone).

The Toronto International Film Festival is one attraction, if we can call it that, that keeps getting more remarkable every year (Caribana might be another example). Of course, that must have something to do with the remarkable films the festival manages to show every year. The star power that the festival attracts does not hurt either. This year, on its the 35th anniversary, the festival celebrated by opening its own building, the Bell Lightbox. The new headquarters of TIFF has brand new cinemas with state of the art technology. Bell Lightbox will not only be the festival's headquarters, but also run many of TIFF's programs all year long, including film related exhibits, starting with a Tim Burton Art show. The Toronto International Film Festival started 35 years ago as the Festival of Festivals. It was started by a few friends who loved film. It was their initial passion and the response of Torontonians that made the festival what it is today. Remarkable.

One of the problems with many tourism destinations and businesses is that they're not remarkable at all. For those that were once remarkable the problem is how to recapture their former glory. And the tourism boards cannot create the remarkable attractions or businesses. Tourism boards are marketing organizations. Their job is to promote the destinations, which very few do in remarkable ways. To grow tourism, industry stakeholders must reach out beyond their silos and foster a culture of excellence inside and outside the industry. Our roads must be remarkable, our public transportation systems must be remarkable, our taxi drivers must be remarkable (good luck with that one), our customs officers at point of entry should be remarkably friendly (one can only dream), etc. In a fiercely competitive global tourism industry, the winners will be those who manage to be remarkable.

Jaime

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

The Ontario Tourism Marketing Summit begins this evening. Now more than ever good effective marketing is critical to our tourism industry's health.

aI'm going to the Ontario Tourism Marketing Summit this week. The event starts tonight with a reception at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre followed by a visit to the 500 m tall CN Tower. The weather promises a clear night so the view from the tower should be spectacular. The view of the tourism industry going forward however is not that clear. Financial markets around the world are reeling from problems caused by irresponsible lending pratices in the United States in the last several years. Banks are failing in Europe and businesses are beginning to really feel the pressure of a frozen credit market. It does not take a degree in Economics or an MBA to realize that the situation will hit the travel industry hard. Marriott international came out a few days ago with a warning going forward that earnings will decline.

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Given the situation, should we give up on tourism marketing efforts? Caution is called for, yes, but not a stop to our marketing. It is in difficult times when marketing becomes that much more important. In high tides all boats are lifted, but in low tides, only those water crafts with the right configuration can navigate a shrinking ocean. There will be many people who will postpone their trips in the next little while (how long it's hard to tell, but at least for the next 12 months). But many more people will continue to travel. Their plans may change to go to less expensive destinations perhaps closer to home, but they will still travel. The challenge for every tourism business will be how to stay afloat by attracting sufficient guests in the coming months. In my opinion, the best way to do this, will be with good, focused, cost-effective Digital Marketing. The key is to find the right niche, the right segment, and better yet to make it easy for that niche of travelers to find you online.

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Affluent consumers, whether in the US, Europe or Mexico, will still travel. The question for us, really, is whether they will come to our Canadian Destination or will choose somewhere else. This is why this Ontario Tourism Summit and the coming TIAC Tourism Leadership Summit in Gatineau and the PhoCusWright Travel Innovaton Conference in Los Angeles are so important this year. And why Canada-e-Connect 2009 (Jan 21-23) in Toronto is a must-attend to begin 2009 with the right tools to navigate the low tide that's coming.

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saludos,
Jaime
www.cactusrock.com

What is Canada's Competitive Advantage?

Did the Globe and Mail enter into the world of Tourism marketing last week with their opinion about positioning Canada in an era of declining tourism demand. For those who may have missed the editorial comment my interpretation follows:

On Canada’s National Park Day, July 19, 2008 the Globe and Mail editorial department was astute in their recognition of the day, and even more astute in providing an opinion about Canada’s Tourism Industry. While extolling the contributions to Canada’s Nature reserves this year, and the importance the public is giving to environmental issues and wilderness protection they commented on where Canada’s tourism industry should be focused. The Globe continues to say

“Canada should work harder to make its extensive pristine wilderness a key differentiator in the intense competition for those very welcome visitors’ dollars.”

Regardless of the internal perception we as Canadians have about the image of Canada, I believe the rest of the world tends to look at Canada as one big wilderness area with a very large land mass of ‘pristine wilderness’ with a few cities carved out of border area of Southern Canada. Certainly Canada (in most cases) is far more pristine than the countries visitors are travelling from. What I believe is important here are the degrees of wilderness experiences which exist throughout the many tourist destinations north of the border and the numerous areas which provide or could provide a significant Ecotourism experience.

While many destinations throughout the world have been marketing Ecotourism as a major demand generator, Canada has been slow off the mark.

The reasons for this are many, as there is a movement against the traditional "Moose, Mounties and Mountains" branding, and we as Canadians have always had close by ecotourism experiences (even it we don't label such as ecotourism). I also believe that many of the marketing decisions being made tend to be in the political realm of supporting cities more than rural destinations.

I think the Globe and Mail have the right understanding if our tourism industry is to grow and expand in the future.

Photo: Georgian Bay looking at the Niagara Escarpment--Biosphere Reserve near Blue Mountain (rtaylor)