March/April 2010
|
 |
Travel Alberta Update
Alberta tourism wins gold at Olympics by Bruce Okabe, Chief Executive Officer of Travel Alberta Travel Alberta leveraged a very personalized and distinct platform for our industry to conduct business, build relationships and to tell Alberta’s tourism story during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games that won gold for tourism in Edmonton and Alberta. During the 17-day event, Travel Alberta hosted a total of more than 1,000 international tour operators, travel suppliers and partners as well as media on the Alberta Train between Vancouver and Whistler and also at Alberta House in the heart of the action in downtown Vancouver. Travel Alberta media relations activities leading up to, during and following the Olympics will generate media coverage worth $70 million, time and space we could never afford to purchase outright. More than 100 local, regional, national and international media outlets were hosted on the Alberta Train during the Olympics, including: NBC, BBC, New York Times, CNN, CBC, Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, ARD (German Rights Holding broadcaster) and Foxtel/Channel 9 (Australian Rights Holding broadcaster) as well as TV broadcasters from Japan, China and Brazil. They were each supplied stories, visual images and industry contacts loaded on an Apple iPod Touch, a unique and permanent resource for journalists to research and produce travel stories about Edmonton and Alberta. We could never have contemplated such an innovative press kit without the active participation of industry partners including Edmonton Tourism, West Edmonton Mall and Jasper Tourism. “WOW – such a smart promotional device, and I am happy to receive it!” said Seamus O'Regan, Co-Host, CTV's Canada AM. Other preliminary media reviews have been just as positive. A sampling of newspaper headlines reflected a common theme:
Travel Alberta’s platform during the games also provided a conduit for industry to strengthen relationships amongst themselves and to identify further opportunities to partner moving forward when bidding on meeting, conventions, incentive and tour business. Tourism participants included: Edmonton Tourism, Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, Edmonton Airport, Tourism Jasper, Air Canada, WestJet, Mexicana Airlines, Anderson Vacations, Rocky Mountaineer and Brewster. Even the “Great One” himself joined us at Alberta House! While it will take months ,and even years in many cases, to track and evaluate results of Travel Alberta’s Olympics marketing initiatives, there is little question that it has proven to be an unqualified success. A comprehensive post-games strategy is in place to follow up with all guests on either future business and or media exposure for Edmonton and the rest of Alberta and we look forward to sharing the results of our efforts.
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
