Canada-e-Connect, the Canadian Tourism Commission's Inaugural Technology Conference, Prepares Canada to Become Consumer-Relevant in the Competitive Travel and Tourism World
Canada poised to lead global e-tourism through innovation, collaboration and bold moves.
Vancouver, BC, Canada (PRWEB) November 29, 2007 -- Celebrated speakers from Europe, the United States and across Canada met to share insight with Canada's tourism marketing and communications professionals this month during the Canadian Tourism Commission's first Canada-e-Connect conference. One of the first countries to produce an event bringing together public and private sector enterprises to collaborate in this way, the Canadian Tourism Commission is helping to find common ground to leverage e-tourism's full potential.
The sold-out event positions Canada as a global e-tourism leader. The first Canada-e-Connect e-Tourism Strategy Conference was held in conjunction with the first Canadian e-Tourism Awards and featured presentations by such celebrated speakers as Anthony Williams, author of bestseller Wikinomics and Jeremy Gutsche, CEO of Trend Hunter Magazine. Participating industry analysts and influencers such as assistant secretary-general of the UNWTO, Geoffrey Lipman, praised conference organizers and Canada as a whole for global e-tourism leadership.
More than a conference about e-marketing, this forum provided a rare opportunity to tap into valuable information about how today's consumers behave online when researching and buying travel products and services.
"We are talking about becoming more relevant to consumers," says conference producer and host Jens Thraenhart, executive director of marketing strategy at the Canadian Tourism Commission and founding chair of the Canadian e-Tourism Council. At Canada-e-Connect, the Canadian Tourism Commission launched two new web-based marketing concepts. The first is the Explorer Quotient™, a completely new way to match consumers with the right Canadian tourism experience. The segmentation tool provides better targets for marketing, helps consumers discover what kind of traveller they are, and makes sure they receive travel offers that fit their profile.
The other advance is its new multi-lingual travel-industry wide blogging platform, currently in private testing with the Canadian e-Tourism Council. This global industry first will position the Canadian Tourism Commission as a hub for consumer generated content that can be accessed by partners or syndicated out to major travel websites and portals such as Yahoo, Real Travel and others.
"Canada-e-Connect brought together an exceptional audience of top-level travel industry professionals -- the true Who's Who of the Canadian travel industry," says Hunter Madsen, Yahoo! Canada marketing director. "An intense series of well-run, information-rich seminars combined with lively, business-oriented networking.
"We had exactly the conversations needed to enable pan-industry collaboration that advances the interests of Canadian travel."
Produced by the Canadian Tourism Commission and hosted by the Canadian e-Tourism Council (a forum of more than 50 marketing executives representing travel and tourism organizations from all sectors from all over Canada), the event attracted participation by more than 300 airline, destination, hotel and other tourism professionals. The first "by invitation only" Canadian e-Tourism Council Summit was held prior to Canada-e-Connect, with a focus on how the tourism industry may collaborate to leverage new media channels and emerging technologies.
Participants received access to the executive summary of PhoCusWright's new Canadian Online Travel Overview as well as a copy of the ground-breaking book "Tips from the T-List," a collection of the best travel marketing blogs worldwide. Conference websites: http://www.canadaeconnect.com
http://www.canadaeconnectblog.com
http://www.canadianetourismawards.com.
Media Contacts:
Heather Kirk
Immedia PR
T 604 408 6511
Jens Thraenhart
Chair, Canada-e-Connect Executive Director Marketing Strategy & CRM Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC)
T 604 638 8404
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