They were calling it “the lost decade.” Tourism officials gathered in Toronto last week for the annual Canadian Tourism Marketing Summit. And it wasn’t pretty talk. This country is in desperate need of a new tourism strategy. So far, the Harper government in Ottawa seems oblivious. We thought we were perhaps riding high after the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. But the statistics tell a very sad story. In 2002, Canada ranked eighth in the world in international tourist arrivals, with 19.6 million visitors. That was good for number eight in the world. By 2011, the year after the Vancouver Games, Read more
Canadian tourism
At first I meant it as a bit of a joke. After watching Justine and Chloe (and Maxine) Dufour-Lapointe race in the freestyle skiing event at the Sochi Olympics on Saturday and seeing Justine win gold and Chloe silver, I mentioned on Twitter that the Canadian Tourism Commission should enlist them immediately as ambassadors for travel to Canada. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Lest we think these girls were only noticed north of the border, I can tell you that my Dad lives in California and read about the D-L girls and saw them Read more
It’s about time. I’ve been arguing for years that Canadian tourism folks are sailing the wrong waters by spending too much time and energy on emerging markets and forgetting the giant next door. Now I’ve got more company. In a press release issued yesterday in advance of next week’s Canadian Tourism Marketing Summit, it was revealed that a survey by HLT Advisory found an incredible 79 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with a proposal to focus increasingly scarce marketing resources on U.S. residents. Only four per cent of folks disagreed with something called the “Connecting America” initiative, Read more
