Toronto 2015 reveals its visual brand. Viva Panam, United we Play

Toronto 2015 will be twice the size of Vancouver 2010

The budget for Toronto 2015 is $1.5 billion

10,000 athletes. 48 sports. 50 venues.

Toronto 2015 will be huge. It's anticipated that the Games will attract 250,000 visitors to the Golden Horseshoe. However, Ian Troop said at a Hispanic professionals event that as he sees the work and the planning progress, he thinks that the number of visitors could reach 1 million. I agree.

United We Play, Viva PanAm

Jaime

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

Toronto International Film Festival 2010

Films watched so far:

Bad Faith (Sweden) - interesting (not like Hollywood) suspense movie - an illogical script, but a different way of telling stories. Not everything in life makes sense.

Stone (US) - Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton - what else can I say. If you like the art of acting, watch this film for a lesson on how it's done (well, you won't know how it's done, but the actors are brilliant). Milla Jovovich is excellent as the female supporting actress

The Illussionist - Sylvain Chomet's follow up to "the Triplets fo Belleville"- a work of art in many levels. The film is a love letter to a bygone era. Ironically (or not) the film was made in 2D animation, the old fashion way. Every frame is a work of art by an animator. The story revolves around a vaudeville magician who sees his world disappearing (just as 2D animation has)...

"Passione" another love letter - this one to the city of Naples, its music and its people. Stunning photography in stunning locations and incredible music - "Passione" lives up to its name. Directed by actor John Turturro (who incidentally is Italian American, but not from Naples, but from Sicily).

TIFF is a remarkable festival in a remarkable city.

Jaime

TIFF

I have been attending the Toronto International Film Festival on and off for 17 years or so. In fact I'm writing this post from the cinema theatre where I'm waiting to see "Deep Into the Woods," a French film. I love film. In another life I wanted to be a filmmaker - got a university degree in Film and worked in commercial production for a few years. But I digress. I felt like writing this post because while I was in the line up, I remembered Sid Lee's Bertrand Cesvet's book "Conversational Capital" and its 8 engines of Conversational (I think its 8).. No other event or festival in Canada generates more conversational capital than TIFF. The Fest illustrates elements of all or most engines. It really didn't have the "odd sensory oddity" before, but now with its new headquarters, the Bell Lightbox building with its new state of the art cinemas and exhibits, TIFF will cover that engine. TIFF is an example of what great cities can create and grow, but by cities I mean the citizens not the government or the tourism board.

Movie's about to start. More later....

Jaime


-- Post From My iPhone

GoMedia Canada in Toronto - where is the CTC going? Musings on Canadian Tourism

I did not attend all of Go Media Canada's sessions or meetings. After all, the event is focused on international (traditional) media. But that is changing. This year Go Media reached out to important bloggers and influencers like Kim Mance of Go Galavanting and founder of TBEX. And furthermore Go Media also had the open marketplace for local media (to which I was invited). I must clarify that while Canada en Español could be considered "local media," my digital media properties have always been designed to inform and entertain foreign audiences. 90% + of Canada en Español's online visitors live outside of Canada.

I only attended three things at Go Media, the Tourism Toronto reception at the magnificent Royal Conservatory of Music (great job Andrew and Company), the Go Media Open Marketplace for local media, and the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership's Taste of Ontario at the Distillery District (Boiler Room Restaurant) - good party (where I had a great conversation with Mexican media folks). As many other events that TIAC organizes or manager, I must say that my experience was very good. At the open marketplace I did have an opportunity to speak to a few media relations professionals from destinations I have never been too and that I would like to cover in the future. I spoke to Jillian of Travel Manitoba about Churchill and the Hudson's Bay; spoke to Jenny and Anastasia of the new Jasper Tourism organization; had a brief chat with Amber from Tourism Vancouver (not that I need to visit there, I know Van quite well, but it was nice to say hello); and Miles and Ellen of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association. This last destination - Thompson Okanagan is an area that I am sure will be of much interest to my audiences. I think it will be one of the hottest destination in Canada in the very near future (and it's not doing badly at all at the moment).

I also had a very good chat with Elyse Mailhot, Travel Media Relations Manager at the CTC. It was interesting to hear about the change in direction the CTC is taking, moving away from advertising and focusing more on social media, not necessarily as a creator of content and initiator of conversations, but rather as an enabler and facilitator. This direction is partly the result of having to deal with insufficient funding going forward that precludes the organization from investments in advertising. Some people might think that advertising does not work any longer. That's not true. What doesn't work any longer is bad, lazy, complacent cookie-cutter advertising. Advertising today is merging with entertainment, infotainment, gaming and other tools. And most importantly, advertising today must be honest. The days of "there's a sucker born everyday" are gone.

I am a big supporter of a strong CTC, and I hope that the Tourism Association of Canada does a better job of lobbying the government to support a strong, well funded Canadian Tourism Commission - for one thing we should impose a Travel Promotion Fee on international visitors like many other countries do (including the US), with which we can fund the CTC. Having said that, I also propose stronger ties between the private tourism sector and the CTC. One of the issues I have with the CTC is that because of its bureaucratic nature it is sometimes too slow to act and because of its governmental ties it is risk averse when it comes to advertising and communications. As Kim Mance said at Canada-e-Connect 2010 in Montreal last January when I asked her "what should Canada do to raise its profile in the US (and in the world for that matter)?" "Make more noise."

Jaime Horwitz Rodriguez

Past Chair Canada-e-Connect eTourism Stratgy

Cactus Rock New Media Ltd.

The Canadá en Español Network

Better times coming? June saw good growth in inbound tourism to Canada

Statcan's Advance Travel Information Bulletin for June 2010 had good news for Canadian tourism. Visits from the United States were up 5.6% from June of last year, Europe was up 3.7%, Asia was up a stunning 33.5%. Even the beaten up Mexican inbound market did better with a drop of 38,3% compared to June 2009, but far from the disastrous drops of last year when it was down 60% in some months. It appears that Mexicans are getting used to the fact that they need visas to visit Canada and the anger of the sudden imposition of visa restrictions has subsided. Visits from South Americans were also significantly up in June 2010 with a 22.9% increase over 2009. Finally, inbound tourism from Australia and New Zealand also showed great progress with 17.9% and 21.3% growth respectively.

Let's hope that this is the beginning of a trend :-)

Jaime

Past Chair Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference

Commitment - attributed to Goethe's Faust via Anster

Worth keeping in mind:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

"Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting over lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it"

source: The Goethe Society of North America