October 20, 2008
In this issue:

Presenting the FY2010 Marketing Plan
HelloBC Widget Now Available
British Airways Cancellation
2009 BC Tourism Industry Awards - Call for Nominations
Keeping Up with First Nations’ News
Media Report
Upcoming 2010 Legacies Now Events

Presenting the FY2010 Marketing Plan

It's very different ....this is one presentation you will not want to miss! Mark your calendars for the week of November 17 to hear more about our planned tactics for the year April 1, 2009 - March 31, 2010.

This plan has been delivered to Tourism British Columbia for their approval, and will be shared with our marketing partners in November. Here are the dates for the upcoming presentations:

November 19, 2008: Sea to Sky Country - Whistler
November 20, 2008: Mighty Fraser Country – Langley
November 20, 2008: Metro Vancouver – Burnaby
November 21, 2008: Sunshine Coast – Sechelt

More details and times to follow!

Some significant changes include upcoming partnerable campaigns which all feature an e-marketing component. The plan also includes year-round projects in high priority markets. Building on our focus on women as the primary travel influencers, we will also be paying attention to multi-generational family travel and small groups of family or friends travelling together.

As we prepare to "Welcome the World" in 2010, you will also hear about projects specifically related to seizing the opportunities that hosting the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games provide.

We look forward to sharing our plans with you, and listening to your comments.

HelloBC Widget Now Available

Now available on www.vcmbc.com, the HelloBC Share the Excitement widget is open for business! The widget allows regions and communities to publish Tourism BC’s blog entries on their own website, which means that every time a new entry is added to HelloBC, the content on the widget will also be updated.

Tourism BC often gets questions from communities and operators in BC about consumer blogs, mostly geared around if they should start their own. But without significant website traffic, it would be difficult for smaller destinations to create critical mass. By collaborating on generating the right user generated content for all of British Columbia, everyone can benefit by using the widget.

The entries can be filtered by a British Columbia community so that a community only shows entries from a particular part of BC. The Tourism BC Share the Excitement mark also contains BC’s connection with the 2010 games.

The widget is available for download on HelloBC. It's available in 3 sizes and 3 colours. It should be no problem for a webmaster to include it in any website.

British Airways Cancellation

British Airways has announced that the additional six weekly flights they typically add for the April – September period have been cancelled for the months of April and May 2009. This will have an affect on late season ski bookings and early summer touring. The loss of seats equates to 2022 flights per week for the 8 weeks during April and May, a total of 16,176 seats.

The decision to cancel the flights BA86 and BA87 for these two months has been a commercial decision and based on the rising fuels and operational costs associated with operating a 747. British Airways is fully committed to the YVR route, and the daily 747 flight that operates year round is unaffected.

2009 BC Tourism Industry Awards - Call for Nominations

Tourism British Columbia and the Council of Tourism Associations (COTA) are calling for nominations for the 2009 BC Tourism Industry Awards, which will take place on February 12, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver.

Do you know of a tourism business practicing industry excellence? Be sure to nominate them for one of the nine categories:

1. Tourism Industry Leader of the Year , sponsored by Tourism British Columbia
2. Best Tourism Marketing Campaign , sponsored by The Vancouver Sun
3. Environmentally Responsible Tourism , sponsored by British Columbia Magazine
4. Foresight Sustainability Award , sponsored by COTA
5. Tourism Media , sponsored by Delta Hotels
6. SuperHost® Customer Service , sponsored by SuperHost
7. Technology in Tourism , sponsored by Telus
8. Employees First , sponsored by go2 – the resource for people in Tourism
9. Sport Tourism Community Legacy , sponsored by 2010 Legacies Now

Winners will be selected by a panel of judges and will be honoured at the Tenth Annual British Columbia Tourism Industry Awards held during the BC Tourism Industry Conference in Vancouver. This is one of the most important events of the year for BC’s tourism industry. For more information on the BC Tourism Industry Conference, visit www.bctourismindustryconference.ca

Find award nomination forms and criteria on Tourism BC’s corporate website at www.tourismbc.com. Previous nominees may resubmit as appropriate. For more information visit Tourism BC’s website.

Nominations must be received no later than November 28, 2008 and should be mailed to:

Tourism British Columbia
Attn: British Columbia Tourism Awards
12th Floor, 510 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC  V6C 3A8

Keeping Up with First Nations’ News

Aboriginal Tourism BC (ATBC) has recently launched their newsletter, “Pathways”, which focuses on industry news about BC’s growing Aboriginal tourism sector. Published quarterly, it is a great source for news on ATBC’s activities and services. Take the time to meet the board and the staff and learn about the many current and upcoming initiatives. Visit www.AboriginalBC.com/news.

Media Report

After a busy summer and a very busy September, the Media Relations department is finally starting to get back on their feet. Recently, we’ve noticed an increase of requests from travel writers on the following topics:

** New! ** Girlfriend Getaways! We need your ideas for terrific spring & summer packages geared toward women—whether friends, sisters, mothers, daughters or grandmothers—looking to get away together. These packages can be travel packages, or they can be hotel-only deals, just as long as they create an indulgent, fun getaway for women-only travellers.

Also…

• How is your travel business coping with high price of gas? Do you have any special promotions running that make up for rising gas prices? This could be something like free parking, gas cards, etc.
• Christmas, Christmas, Christmas! If your tourism business has a unique Christmas story, please let us know. 
• Just in time for the start of 2009, what’s new with your tourism business? Do you have any special events or packages starting in January 2009? 

If you have story ideas for any of these topics (or any other media-worthy stories) please send your ideas to Laura@vcmbc.com or submit them online here: http://www.vcmbc.com/page.cfm/9712. Please remember, all you need to submit are bullet point ideas or a press release; we will take care of all the writing for you!

As always, if you are interested in hosting travel media, please let us know by contacting Laura@vcmbc.com. Keep those story ideas coming!

Upcoming 2010 Legacies Now Events

RBC 2010 Legacies Now Speaker Series
We have our final speaker for the RBC 2010 Legacies Now Speaker Series coming up in December.  Diane Henry, Olympic Torch Relay Expert will be in Canada December 1-5 to share how events like the 2010 Torch Relays can impact and benefit surrounding businesses and communities.  Diane Henry is one of the most experienced event managers and torch relay experts in the world.  She has worked on 13 torch relays, involving 170 nations, 1,032 days of festivities, 30,000 runners and 50,000 volunteers.

Legacy Lives 2009
Legacy Lives is recognized worldwide as a market leading international conference for the major sporting events sector.  The conference, a partnership between 2010 Legacies Now, UK Sport and the Province of BC, will take place January 26-30, 2009 in downtown Vancouver and host delegates in the major sporting event business from around the world.  The event theme will focus on how major events can be a catalyst for long term economic, community and social growth for businesses, cities, regions and countries.