Marketing Opportunities
|
 |
 |
December
3, 2009 China Grants Canada Approved Destination Status |
||
| China Grants Canada Approved
Destination Status
BEIJING, CHINA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced that the Government of China has granted Canada Approved Destination Status, a designation that makes it easier for Chinese nationals to visit Canada. The Prime Minister made the announcement in Beijing following his meeting with Wen Jiabao, Premier of China. "Approved Destination Status marks a significant moment in the history of our relations with China, indicating not only our mutual commitment to strengthening our diplomatic and commercial partnerships, but also our people-to-people ties," said Prime Minister Harper. "As Canada prepares to welcome the world to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, this new designation will help more of our Chinese friends discover why Canada is one of the best places in the world in which to invest, innovate, work and compete." Approved Destination Status allows Chinese travel agents to advertise and organize group tours to countries with the designation. This means that obtaining permission to arrange group travel to that country becomes easier. As a result, this should encourage more people from China to travel to Canada, which will have a positive impact on the Canadian economy. In 2008, visits to Canada by Chinese citizens were up 5.3 per cent from the year before, for a total of 159,000. Chinese travellers had the highest average length of stay (28 nights) in Canada and spent more than visitors from any other country ($1,648.51). According to a Conference Board of Canada survey, approved destination status is expected to boost the yearly rate of travel to Canada from China by up to 50 per cent by 2015. |
||
Minister's Council on Tourism Appointed Thirteen representatives from the tourism industry will provide advice to the Province on how to market and expand B.C.’s growing tourism industry as members of the new Minister’s Council on Tourism, Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts Kevin Krueger announced today. “The new council represents a broad cross-section of the tourism industry and reflects the diversity of B.C.’s distinct regions. Nearly half of the council’s members have previously served on the board of directors of Tourism BC, providing continuity and working with the balance of the council to continue building B.C.’s successful tourism sector,” said Krueger. “The council’s expertise and advice will directly impact how B.C. is marketed to the world as a top-notch tourism destination.” The Minister’s Council on Tourism will inform the minister on a wide variety of tourism matters including: product development, competitiveness, infrastructure, labour force, visitor services, and marketing and research. The council’s advice will help guide development of marketing plans and other strategies to reach the Province’s goal of doubling tourism industry revenues by 2015. “Through the minister’s council, tourism businesses will be able to help guide tourism marketing strategies, building upon B.C.’s reputation as a world-class destination at this critical juncture,” said Stuart McLaughlin, who will chair the council. “I look forward to working closely with the minister and with the other council members to help B.C. maximize the tourism opportunities presented by the 2010 Winter Olympics.” Tourism BC is being brought into the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, effective April 1, 2010. As part of the transition, the Minister’s Council on Tourism has been established to provide input and advice on marketing B.C. successfully to potential visitors from around the world. The council includes tourism industry representatives from regions around B.C. and will report directly to the minister. Bringing Tourism BC into the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts will better co-ordinate all the Province’s marketing initiatives and reduce administrative costs, allowing these savings to be reinvested into marketing initiatives. The Ministers Council on Tourism includes: Stuart McLaughlin, president
of Grouse Mountain Resort |
||
Tourism
Surrey Eliminates Membership Fees | ||
|
Olympic Fever? |
||
Nancy Greene Raine kicks off 2010 community breakfast series One of the best known Canadian athletes of all time will be the inaugural
speaker at the 2010 Games Breakfast Series, a series of special breakfast
gatherings for the community and tourism industry. The breakfast
events are being held every Friday morning for 10 weeks before and
during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The series, co-hosted by Vancouver AM Tourism
Association and Spirit of Vancouver®, will take place in the sixth-floor restaurant
of Hbc’s flagship store on West Georgia Street in downtown
Vancouver. Dubbed “Spirit of Vancouver House” and “Vancouver
AM House,” the restaurant will open every Friday morning between
January 15 and March 19, 2010 for a celebration breakfast themed
around the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. “By opening Spirit of Vancouver House / Vancouver AM House to the public, we are giving the business community a way to become and stay engaged in the Games,” says Sue Paish, chair of The Vancouver Board of Trade and co-chair, Spirit of Vancouver. “This is a gathering place for our communities to celebrate the Olympics, and what the legacy of the Games means for this region.” “Having Nancy Greene Raine kick off the 2010 Games Breakfast Series is truly special for the tourism industry, as she supported the original Vancouver/Whistler bid from the beginning,” adds Paul Holden, president of Vancouver AM. “We look forward to her joining with us as the excitement grows towards the start, and during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.” The downtown Hbc is also home to the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Canada Olympic House during the Games, as well as the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Superstore. Tickets for each event are available online at www.vancouveram.org, or www.boardoftrade.com. |
||
Some
Rediscover the Benefits of Business Travel When the economy collapsed last fall, many companies had to make some quick decisions about travel, typically one of the first areas they trim when finances are tight. Should they cut back as most of their competitors were, continue business as usual or spend even more to get a leg up? Most companies — about 85 percent — decreased travel spending, according to the National Business Travel Association, a trade group. But two recent reports, commissioned independently by the business travel association and another trade group, the U.S. Travel Association, found a clear link between business travel and corporate profit. While both groups have an interest in promoting business travel, Henry H. Harteveldt, travel analyst for Forrester Research, agreed that in-person meetings were important in promoting business. “We are social beings,” he said. “There are emotional as well as rational benefits to face-to-face meetings.” Ultimately, he added, “Nothing replaces two business people building a professional relationship in person.” But he said companies should avoid unnecessary expenses and ensure that travel was purposeful. With forethought, Mr. Harteveldt said, “there can be enormous benefits.” But companies must be careful not to overreact. Relying too much on technology or cutting back too sharply, he said “can be just as harmful as wasting money on business travel.” Geoff Freeman, senior vice president for public affairs for the U.S. Travel Association, said that business travel was unfairly characterized as an excessive perk in the wake of the taxpayer-financed bank bailouts last year. “It left the industry terribly exposed,” he said. “There was anger, there was emotion, but there was not enough data.” Adam Sacks, managing director of Oxford Economics, the firm that prepared the U.S. Travel Association report, said the results confirmed the bottom-line value of business travel using government data that covered 14 economic sectors over 13 years, a broad review of related research and surveys of corporate executives and business travelers. To some extent, Mr. Sacks said, the findings confirmed what business people already knew intuitively: curbing travel may save money in the short term, but there are significant long-term benefits from investing in business travel. “Not all cuts are smart cuts,” he said. Last fall and spring, Brian Jacobsen, co-president of Madison Park Greetings, a stationery and gift company in Seattle, said he carefully weighed how best to ride out the tough economic climate, and “made a strategic decision to do more travel.” He made cuts in other areas, and paid almost every bill using credit cards so the company could earn free tickets. “We have actually increased our travel budget this year by 20 percent,” he said. “We saw it as an opportunity to have more of a presence while our competitors have been cutting back.” In September, for example, his company provided the featured gift tote bags for celebrities at a fund-raising luncheon before the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. He also sent the designer of the bags to network there. Her presence was not essential but “led to all sorts of opportunities,” he said. The company was asked to provide gifts for similar philanthropic events preceding the American Music Awards this past weekend and the Golden Globe Awards in January, Mr. Jacobsen said. “It was all the result of one travel trip.” Brian Parish, president of IData, a technology consulting company for higher education based in Alexandria, Va., said he, too, saw the direct impact of in-person encounters. Earlier this year, negotiations for a couple of projects stalled. “They seemed on the fence,” he recalled. “We braced ourselves.” So he quickly flew out to meet the prospective clients. “We got the deal,” in both cases, said Mr. Parish, who estimated the accounts to be worth a total of well over $400.000. “They were two clients we probably wouldn’t have had without making the trip. It showed them we were serious,” he said. Craig A. Banikowski, president of the National Business Travel Association, noted in an e-mail message that two separate studies reached essentially the same conclusion. “When you read either study,” he said, “you come away with the same questions: Is my business investing enough in traveling? Are my competitors going to gain the edge by optimizing their travel? Answering these questions effectively could mean the difference between surviving and thriving as we climb out of the recession.” Brooks C. Holtom, associate professor of management at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, said he was initially skeptical of the two reports. After reading both, Professor Holtom said that “deeper analysis would have benefited organizational decision makers since the return on investment varies substantially by type of travel and industry.” But despite some concerns, “I agree with the broad findings” of the reports, he said, “In fact, relationships with people matter. All else equal, people do business with people they like.” Mitch Mounger, president of Sunrise Identity, a promotional merchandise agency in the Seattle area, said his company had struggled to maintain the right balance. ”We certainly have felt the pain of the economic downturn, and it has impacted our business travel decisions,” Mr. Mounger said. He no longer has a set travel budget, for example, and each trip must be justified. “There are less fishing expeditions,” he said. The company now uses several strategies to make trips affordable and productive, like arranging meetings all in one day to avoid hotel stays, and clustering cities and regions into one trip rather than making several. Sales representatives even call on colleagues’ clients if they happen to be in the area, unheard of before. “We believe in business travel,” Mr. Mounger said. “You just have to be smart about it.” He added, “I don’t have data, but every time we do it, good things happen.” Copyright © The New York Times |
||
Your feedback is most
welcome on any subject – please e-mail kevan@vcmbc.com. |
||
