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Vancouver, Coast & Mountains Tourism Region, an agent of Tourism British Columbia, is one of 6 Regional Destination Management Associations in the province. Since 1972 Vancouver, Coast & Mountains has been developing, coordinating and delivering tourism marketing programs on behalf of our stakeholders with the mandate of increasing tourism to the region.

Tourism BC 2010 Olympics Online Activities
William Bakker, Director of eBusiness at Tourism BC has documented Tourism BC online activities before and during the Olympic games period on his personal blog, www.wilhelmus.ca. It’s a very interesting read and brings to light all of the work that the eBusiness team at TBC have been doing to generate traffic to HelloBC.com and convert readers to visitors. In a series of blog entries, William outlined TBC’s online strategies and how they executed against the strategies.

Online Strategies

1. Maximize exposure
2. Drive to our consumer websites
3. Use the website to put BC on the ‘must visit’ list
4. Capture consumer data for future database marketing and increase fans and followers

Online Activities

1. Torch Relay Field Reporter Videos
2. Exposure on 3rd Party Websites
3. Drive to Web Strategy
4. Referral Traffic
5. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing
6. Online Advertising
7. Grow the consumer database
8. Inspiring people new to BC
9. Content is King
10. Social Media

Visit www.wilhelmus.ca for the complete blog entries.

22 Million Watch Sidney Crosby Win Gold For Canada
ctvmedia.ca/olympics

• Record audience peaks as overtime goal sends nation into frenzy
• Canadians consume 1.25 billion hours of Vancouver 2010 coverage
• 2010 Winter Games audiences 138% higher than Salt Lake City 2002
• Nearly half of all internet users in Canada have visited CTVOlympics.ca
  or RDSolympiques.ca

Further analysis by CTV of February 28th’s historic television audience reveals that 22 million people – or two thirds of the Canadian population - were watching when Sidney Crosby scored in overtime and ignited a cheer heard across the nation. The peak audience follows the announcement earlier that the 16.6 million average audience for the game is the most-watched television broadcast in Canadian history. Twenty million viewers were watching the medal ceremony in which Team Canada received the record 14th gold medal of the Games, peaking at 20.5 million viewers when Sidney Crosby was presented with his medal from IOC President Jacques Rogge. The game captured an 85 Share, meaning 85% of Canadians watching television at the time were watching the gold medal match.

Click here for more statistics about CTV viewing levels

Olympic Torch Relay
Kayla Seib accompanied the Tourism BC Field Reporter, Chris Wheeler, as he made his way along the torch relay route through the Vancouver, Coast & Mountains Tourism Region. From Day 98 in Powell River, through to Day 106 where the torch was lit at the opening ceremonies at BC Place. Each day the torch was in BC, there was a two minute video segment produced to highlight the flame’s journey as well as the different communities and some experiences to be had. In total eight video blogs highlighting the Vancouver, Coast & Mountains Tourism Region were produced, and the campaign has seen tremendous success.

Here is the link to all videos produced - http://www.youtube.com/user/2010torch

General Media coverage
• An estimated 190 million viewers watched the Vancouver Winter Olympics on the networks of NBC Universal, making them the second most-watched Winter Olympics ever, surpassing Salt Lake City (187 million in 2002). The number one watched winter Olympics outside a non-American host city
• The Opening ceremony was the highest viewed Olympic event in the USA from a non-American host city.
• According to CTV, the Closing Ceremony audience was the second most-watched television broadcast in Canadian history with an average audience of 14.3 million viewers, that is more than double that of Salt Lake City 2002 (6 million).
• NBC’s demand for live streaming on the West Coast reached an all time high – the request for the States to receive live coverage simultaneously coast to coast was achieved due to popular demand.

Where can you see coverage?
• NBC Today Show - The Best of Today in Vancouver
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35017294/ns/today-today_in_vancouver/?ns=today-today_in_vancouver
Videos Segments – news features, What’s cooking, Exploring Canada and Northern Exposure

• NBC Olympics - Destination BC
http://www.nbcolympics.com/destination-bc/index.html
News, photos, videos, fun facts
Media Coverage final ratings

• CTV Olympic Broadcast Consortium
http://ctvmedia.ca/olympics/

BC Street at the Richmond OZone
Between 7,500 and 11,000 people a day visited BC Street, which was in full swing from the minute it opened on February 12th. BC Street had amazing exposure for the region, it was an opportunity for our communities outside the big Olympic venues to show off their spirit and their uniqueness.

Large displays with unique photos highlighting partnered communities gave the visitors a chance to pose for photos at a golf course in Surrey, ride mountain bike trails in Abbotsford, sip some wine in Langley at a cranberry field, kayak or scuba dive on the Sunshine Coast, find a geo-cache in a desert in Gold Country or catch a sturgeon in Harrison Hot Springs. A big hit for vistors was the world map provided by Metropolis at Metrotown where visitors could mark their home towns with a pin. Many visitors posed with their pin and were happy to receive a unique community pin in exchange.

Visitors also had the chance to send a virtual postcard or video to friends and family. Sample products from the Fraser Valley with wine & beer tastings, cheese, honey, hazelnuts and coffee. Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC had a live fish display showcasing native BC freshwater fish species, as well as a Fishing Simulator where participants can see what it feels like to land the big one! Local artists and performers included Jan Poynter showcasing an original “plein air” paintings of coastal scenes and local Langley band OS5. Visitors enjoyed interpreters from the Fort Langley National Historic Site, the Greater Vancouver Zoo introduced some of their friends, and Frosting Cupcakery stopping by sampling some of their tasty treats! A CPGA Pro offered tips on visitors golf swing and Bill the Bigfoot guy from Harrison was on hand with some cast footprints, photos and stories. A sand sculptor built a sand castle , the Vancouver Attraction Group provided entertainment with Beebop the Vancouver Aquarium mascot posing for pictures and the Burnaby Village Museum’s blacksmith demonstrating the techniques of heating metal in a forge and shaping it with a hammer and anvil.

For photos of the Vancouver, Coast & Mountains space at BC Street please click here.

BC Street hosted one private media event with a minimum of 35 national and international media attending the two hour BC Street media showcase. A fairly conservative estimate on the total global audience who would have seen/heard/read a BC Street story would be around 3/4 billion people off this showcase.

Media Highlights:

* Guangzhou Today Television - This is a program on CCTV, the official television station of China. On top of the 350 million viewers in China daily, Guangzhou Daily has an additional 2.5 million subscribers globally

* Voice of America - stories about BC Street will continue to run as late as next week to VOA's audience of 134 million people in the United States.

* Global Television - the most dominant media outlet in British Columbia, Global did a number of live hits from the event at BC Street on their noon news as well as reporter Linda Aylesworth did an extremely positive story on their highly rated 6:00pm newscast.

* Ria Novosti Russia - This crew filed their BC Street story to 1,171 newspapers, 38 television stations, 523 magazines and 18 radio stations throughout Russia. They are the largest news outlet in the country.

* Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) - This is the crew that files to all 60 of the official Olympic Broadcasters - NBC, BBC, etc.. The camera operator spent 2.5 hours on BC Street, covered all the pavilions and has informed us that the story was filed wit ALL 60 partner broadcasters and they anticipate that all 60 ran the BC Street story at some point Games-time.

In addition to the media event there were various media that visited BC Street including Lonely Planet, Good Life Vancouver, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Vancouver Sun, CBC Radio One, Shaw and Breakfast Television.