A message from Lana Denoni, Chair, TIABC

On behalf of the TIABC Board, I wish to advise that Stephen Regan - who has been the President and CEO of TIABC for the past four years - is no longer employed by the Association effective immediately, Monday January 23rd, 2012.

Stephen worked hard to support the TIA BC board since taking on the position in 2007 and helped in the transition from COTA BC to the new TIABC. We thank Stephen for all his past efforts and wish him every success in his future endeavours.

It is a critical time for our industry and, as part of our efforts to reset the organization, we came to the realization that a change is required. A search for a new President and CEO will begin immediately and we will place an interim administrator at the TIABC offices as soon as possible to ensure that current projects are continued until a permanent successful candidate can be selected.

Kitka Neyedli will continue to run the office until we find an administrator to work with her and support her excellent efforts. We thank Kitka for her ongoing contribution.

If you have any questions I can be contacted at ldenoni@shaw.ca

The Tourism Industry Association of British Columbia (TIABC) is calling for more members to become involved in our Policy Development Committees.

We are a large, and therefore important, sector but our size and diversity also mean we have a broad range of issues that need to be addressed. Our Policy Development Committees, which have been operating for just over a year now, have become a critical step in helping us turn member issues into policy statements, which then drives our advocacy work.

Last year, we established an over-arching Policy Development Committee made up of a cross-section of our association membership. This Committee came together to play a key advisory role to the Board. Supporting this Committee we established three sub-committees in the areas of Business Environment, Marketing, and Transportation & Access. These sub-committees are hands-on, working committees responsible for the actual policy development work.

Combined, these committees provide significant 'horse-power' to our policy development process and ensure TIABC speaks as a credible representative of the tourism sector in B.C. This process is a critical precursor to effective advocacy.

To ensure we reflect the interest of the broad tourism sector in B.C. the TIABC Board of Directors reviewed, updated and approved a Terms of Reference for these committees.

The Committees will be primarily active between February and April of each year. If you are interested in becoming involved in one of the committees, please contact:

Dave Butler, TIABC Vice Chair and TIABC Policy Development Committee Chair
dbutler@cmhinc.com
250.426.3599.

Ottawa, January 20, 2012 - A growing number of Chinese travellers are choosing Canada as their destination, making it Canada's fastest growing inbound travel market. New Statistics Canada data reveals that China has surpassed Australia as Canada's fifth largest inbound tourism market, behind the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

"The growth in visits to Canada by Chinese travellers is remarkable and encouraging," said Tourism Industry Association of Canada President and CEO David Goldstein. "It also serves to underscore the need to increase our visa processing capacity in mainland China to help satisfy the growing demand for these vital travel documents."

Signed by the Canadian and Chinese governments in June, 2010, the ADS agreement facilitates outbound tourist group travel from China to Canada and allows Canada to actively market its tourism products in China. Less than two years after the agreement, more than 232,000 Chinese travellers arrived in Canada in the first eleven months of 2011, a 24% increase over the same period in 2010.

The new figures come on the heels of an announcement by U.S. President Barack Obama committing to a national strategy to increase travel and tourism and spur job creation in the United States. In particular, the US government has committed to increasing its visa-processing capacity for Chinese travellers.

"Canada's Federal Tourism Strategy has already introduced a coordinated, whole-of-government approach to developing smart public policy to help increase our international tourism exports," said Goldstein. "With the United States setting its sights on increasing travel to their country as a means of spurring economic growth, the competition for international travellers will unquestionably reach a higher level, and we need to be ready to take on that challenge."

For more information, please contact:

Kevin Desjardins
Vice-President, Strategy and Public Affairs,
Tourism Industry Association of Canada
kdesjardins@tiac.travel
(c) 613-240-7225

Tips from around the Web

The following are links to articles that VCM staff have come across in their journeys around the internet. We think that they're kind of interesting and thought that you might enjoy them as well!

10 Simple Google Calendar Tips and Tricks to Boost Your Productivity - Mashable.com

Is it Time to Finally Ditch Your Paper Business Cards? - Mashable.com

Fish where the Fish Are: Trip Advisor - Think Social Media

Use Trip Advisor to Get the Right Facebook Fans - Think! Social Media

Facebook Ads are Like Gold - Think! Social Media

In this day and age of social media and viral emails, postive word of mouth has never been more important for the tourism industry. Make sure that those people who are responsible for creating memorable travel experiences for your guests are equipped with all of the tools that they need. With Spring fast approaching (fingers crossed!), now is the time to start thinking about customer service training for your front line staff.

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WorldHost believes that great customer service is great business. Therefore, WorldHost Training Services has developed workshops to encourage skill development in a wide variety of areas and for specific markets and sectors.

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To see a list of workshops scheduled near you, please check the WorldHost Workshops Calendar.

Join Vancouver, Coast & Mountains in a targeted campaign to encourage resident Chinese consumers to explore our region so that they can be better tour guides for their visiting friends and family from China. This VCM program includes promotion on laVAN8.com - a customized website in both Traditional and Simplified Chinese that promotes the Vancouver, Coast & Mountains region, mentions on Twitter, Facebook and weibo.com (a Chinese social media site), and exposure in an ad on Chinese websites which link to laVAN8.com. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to reach out to the Chinese community! Click here for more information on this program.

VCM Rate: $1,995 + hst

Deadline: February 21, 2012