President’ Message
Dear Members,
I hope everyone is enjoying the summer with family and friends.
We had a very successful Hidi Nishi Golf tournament on July 16, with over 200 participants at the Tsawwassen Spring Golf course. I would like to extend a very warm thank you to all the sponsors and volunteers, particularly our committee members who made this event possible.
Our next highlight is on August 22 at the Whirlpool Golf Course in Niagara Falls, another members’ event featuring golfing, an RTO FAM tour, and market panel discussions. This event, as many of you know, was named after our very good friend Harvey Hamazaki. We hope that many members will join this Memorial Tournament.
Summertime and the living is easy. As you enjoy holiday time with family or travel around to events or festivals, try noticing the ratio between female and male on your flight. An interesting data is that Asian travel is gradually changing. In 2018, female outbound travellers are greater than males in Taiwan (5%), Japan (25%), Korea (40%) and Singapore (15%). Why are Asian females travelling more? One of the reasons is that there are growing educational opportunities and the age old preference for educating boys over girls no longer matters (or matters less), and parents now treat their male and female offspring more equally. Another reason is financial independence for women, who can now look for work outside the home and traditional roles. Women also tend to marry at a later age, which allows them to have more free time to manage their life. As women travellers keep growing, so do our opportunities with this market segment from the Asia Pacific.
September is just around the corner, with business travel and trade shows. If you’re going to Asia, don’t forget to bring travel offers and packages targeted specifically to female travellers to your partners and RTOs. And of course be safe, enjoy the moment, and immerse yourself in local culture.
Finally, please mark your calendar for CITAP’s Winter Function on December 3rd. It will be held in Richmond, at the Sheraton Vancouver Airport. Opportunities for sponsorship and exhibitions at the marketplace are available. Book soon! You can look forward to our market panel and seminar, as well as plenty of networking opportunity over happy hour and a delicious gourmet dinner. We looking forward to seeing you there.
Alice Lin, CITAP President
RTO Reports
Market updates are written by Receptive Tour Operator members and in this issue we have updates from the following markets: China, Taiwan, and Australia. Enjoy their anecdotal assessment of each of our primary Asia Pacific markets with a combination of overview, economy, and forecast. Read the full report on our Reports and Presentations page.
DMO Interview: 6 Questions with Jon Mamela
CITAP is pleased to interview Jon Mamela, CMO & EVP at Tourism Toronto
1. You’ve been at Tourism Toronto since January this year (8 months). What have been your key initiatives since you took on this role?
As it seems every year, time has flown by since my start. One key initiative that I’ve been focusing on since joining the organization has been the launch of our destination marketing campaign entitled, “Let Yourself In”. Some great work was done by the team in advance of my arrival in January and I’ve been contributing in a few specific areas including research, creative and go-to-market strategy. This next chapter in the story of Canada’s Downtown is centred on the power of curiosity to bring joy to your life and how travel is one way to pursue what you’re most curious about. When we tested the idea it hit home with our target audience and we feel it’s got a long runway, so to speak, for further activation of creative ideas over the next 18 months. In addition, it’s been well received by our travel trade partners whom we’ll be working closely to extend the message in our joint-marketing campaigns. Speaking of travel trade, another key initiative that myself and the team were focused on was RVC 2019 which was held in Toronto back in May. It proved to be a great success for Toronto, the province of Ontario and for all of Canada. We are very proud of the collaboration amongst the local partners to deliver the event, as well as the engagement of so many local members here in the city who hosted and showcased the city to the buyers on our many fams. We heard that many buyers had not been to Toronto in quite some time so it gave us the opportunity to have them experience all that is new in the city.
2. You’ve occupied marketing and leadership roles at various levels throughout your career. What would you say are the key challenges for the Canadian tourism industry in the coming years? What are some of the best opportunities?
There are multiple challenges in our industry in the coming years, some new and some that continue from the past. These challenges include: ensuring that funding for government marketing and sales organizations (NTO, PMOs and DMOS) across the country grows, finding the required talent to fulfill demand with a labour shortage across the sector, alignment of partners in our go-to-market strategy in order to compete against well-funded competitors in international markets- which was a particular focus while I was Destination Canada, and lastly driving a yield strategy for the industry. I know many smart people and forward-looking organizations and associations are working on solutions which speaks positively to our future success as an industry. On the other side of the coin regarding opportunities I see immense potential for Canada to further differentiate ourselves on the strength of Destination Canada’s new tourism brand. It can truly be a game changer. In addition, the rapid pace of change in marketing technologies and platforms truly permits us to creatively reach, engage and compel potential travellers to visit our destinations unlike ever before. Furthermore with this rapid change, the opportunity to measure and attribute results to marketing and sales investment is improving greatly. And throw in the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence and I envision we’ll be marketing and selling much more smartly than we’ve ever done before.
3. Toronto consistently ranks as Canada’s top tourism destination. What are the key elements that are driving this?
As Canada’s most populous city and most visited destination, Toronto welcomes more than 44 million visitors every year – and those visitors come from every corner of the world. In many ways, the diversity of our incoming travellers makes sense. Toronto is a city where 50 percent of people were born outside of Canada. That diversity and sense of inclusion is part of our DNA and it appeals to visitors that want an urban experience where adventure awaits in all of our diverse neighbourhoods. A visit to Toronto promises the opportunity to enjoy the rich tapestry of the world’s cultures all in one city but at the same time enjoy distinctly Canadian experiences. Toronto is where you’ll find the best attractions, the most diverse cuisine and most incredible festivals anywhere in Canada. Logistically, it’s also home to Pearson Airport, which has more flights to and from the U.S. than any other city in the world. Toronto truly is the front door to rest of Canada.
4. Since your MBA days in the mid-90s – how has marketing changed? How important is it for DMOs and PMOs to keep up with the latest trends?
While pursuing my MBA my particular focus of my studies was on this nascent marketing channel called the World Wide Web. Arguably, the long view of the potential change was understood in terms of the impact going to a two-way, versus one-way, conversations with consumers but it’s amazing to see so much innovation taking place and how quickly investment flowed into the channel over the years. What even used to be referred to as a “above the line” (a.ka. traditional tactics such as TV or radio) and “below the line” decisions on your marketing spend is a thing of the past. Today, integrated marketing is critical. By this I mean the thoughtful execution of tactics to move a consumer from one touchpoint to another, be it offline to online or online to offline. And as referenced earlier, the growth in mar-tech and the ability to segment, automate and integrate machine learning and artificial intelligence into decision rules to optimize return on marketing spend is much more common place. And while it’s important to stay on top of the trends, but not to be distracted by the next big shiny ball. Staying true to fundamental principles is critical for DMOs and PMOs. This means deeply understanding the traveller, working hard to uncover insights and fundamental human truths that can lead to breakthrough creative, and building the destination brand through compelling content is key. Without being good at these fundamentals, and a few others, mar-tech on its own isn’t going to drive market share to your destination. As we would say at Destination Canada it’s all about the poetry and the plumbing.
5. What are your favorite travel destinations?
Hmm…where do I start as this list is long when it comes to my favorite travel destinations in the world, let alone Canada? But, I’m going to answer this question with just a few of my favorite places in Canada. At top of my list is the Okanagan Valley – particularly in the summer and in the fall during wine harvest season. The combination of enjoying the wineries, micro-breweries, cideries and restaurants – coupled with outdoor activities on the lake and hiking trails – it simply presents so many new discoveries each time I visit. A visit to my home province in Saskatchewan, particularly during a Roughrider game on Labour Day weekend is a blast. Coupled with time out on the lake to fish is a great combination. Lastly, there are many amazing spots to golf in Canada and I have too many favorite golf destinations to list. But, the upside of my golf game is that since I often find myself looking for my ball off the fairway I get to enjoy so much more of our great outdoors.
6. What are the three top items on your bucket list?
Another tough question since the list is long but near the top of the list are a visit to Canada’s arctic in the summer. With the rapid change in weather patterns there is so much change occurring in the environment that I’d love to spend time seeing it now as it’ll never the same again. Following RVC in 2018 in Halifax, I was inspired by a presentation by the team at Tourism Nova Scotia where I learned so much about the entire province that I was sold on finding time for two weeks to explore all of its shores, golf courses, farms and journeys on the ocean. Lastly, one destination outside of Canada that is on the top of my list is Chile. Friends who have been have enthusiastically endorsed it due to the variety in geography, the culture, the food, the wine and the breadth of experiences in country that is pretty easy to navigate. But first, I’ve got to tackle the places on top of my bucket list in Canada.
Get to know the CITAP Board of Directors: Jin Lim
Please meet Jin Lim, an RTO board member at CITAP and Director of Sales & Marketing at Tour Click YVR Travel Canada Ltd., a Vancouver based travel agency specialized in the Korean market. We asked Jin a few questions to get to know her better.
1. What are your key responsibilities at TourClick? How long have you been with the company?
I’ve been with Tour Click for about 6 years now and my key responsibilities include managing inbound tours (both packaged and incentives groups), developing diverse sales tactics, improving sales performance and understanding current market trends and needs.
2. Have you always worked in the tourism industry?
I have not always been involved in this industry, but it’s been over 10 years.
3. Your company opened a branch in Seoul in 2017. What prompted this decision? Did this increase your sales significantly?
The most important factor when making the decision, was prosperous FIT market in Korea. With FIT market rapidly growing and expanding, we wanted to take further steps ahead and capture the market and customers’ needs in advance. We noticed that large number of customers tend to arrange their trip by themselves as many of them are capable of understanding English and whatever information they look into can be found online mostly. It was a significant change to the market and such trend drove us to open a Tour Click branch in Seoul, Korea.
4. What factors would you say have most contributed to the increase in Korean visitors to Vancouver and the rest of Canada over the past 10 years?
Out of many factors, I do believe strong advertising played a very important role in increasing the number of visitors to Canada. A lot of advertisement and promotions are distributed to customers through various online platforms and television channels in Korea. Nowadays, popular singers and actors visit Canada to record music videos or drama and this also contributes a lot to the increase in Korean visitors, especially the Millennials. Various FAM trip opportunities could also be one factor. Getting involved in FAM trip gives us important education on what we should know about tour product and how should we sell them. It gives better understandings of whole tour so that we can promote better and sell more. It also helps us to think about its possible drawback so that we can modify or fix, in advance.
5. What are some of the activities you like to do when not working?
When not working, I usually enjoy listening to music, yoga, and travelling.
6. Which are your top 3 travel destinations?
My top 3 travel destinations are Nepal, Bolivia, and Iceland.
2019 CITAP Hidi Nishi Classic
We hope you had a fun and productive day at the 2019 Hidi Nishi Classic! On behalf of the Board of Directors and the event’s committee, we would like to thank you for participating in this year’s CITAP summer event! We would also like to extend a very big thank you to our sponsors! With over 70 golfers and 200 dinner guests, our annual summer event was a huge success!
2019 CITAP Harvey Hamazaki Memorial Tournament
CITAP is pleased to announce the CITAP Eastern Chapter Golf Tournament, starting this year, was renamed “The Harvey Hamazaki Memorial Golf Tournament”. We received full endorsement, blessing, and approval from the Hamazaki Family to commemorate Harvey for his great contribution and passion for our industry and organization. Thank you to all the members who came out for the inaugural Harvey Hamazaki Memorial Golf Tournament on August 22, 2019 at the Whirlpool Golf Course in Niagara Falls, Ontario. It was a full day of market updates, golf, and dinner. Thank you to our sponsors as well as Tourism Niagara Falls for putting together a great FAM prior to the tournament.
Save the Date: 2019 CITAP Upcoming Events
2019 Winter Function: Our biggest event of the year will be held in BC on Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019 at the Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel in Richmond, BC. Please check out our web page for all event information. Registration information will be coming out in the early fall so please keep an eye out for that! We hope to see you all there.
Members’ Corner
In this Members’ corner, you can share your latest news and updates with other members, or learn other members’ latest updates and news! In this issue, over 20 organizations have shared their latest updates with us. Click below to see their updates.
Victoria Caledonian Distillery
Mayfair Hotels- Hampton Inn Vancouver
Gray Line Westcoast Sightseeing
Gray Line Westcoast Sightseeing- new fleet
Destination BC- Vancouver, Coast, & Mountains
