Canadian tourism commission gears up to attract tourists

Canada, 27th July: Canada Tourism Commission is investing in new strategies to attract increased number of tourists into the country.

Canada hopes to attract tourists from the US as Tourism Victoria and Tourism B.C. (British Columbia) go in for a major restructuring program.

The CTC(Canada Tourism Commission) is going to increase its marketing budget this year while trying to save its overhead costs.

Thus, the savings through reduction of staff, elimination of direct consumer advertising and shutting down of several international offices are expected to the tune of $16 million a year. And such savings are likely to be geared up towards extra marketing efforts by the CTC.

According to CEO and president of CTC, Michele McKenzie, the commission had a solid resource base provided by Olympic and stimulus investments. Hence, the priority before the commission is to make judicious use of the available budget, added McKenzie.

This means having a centralized office of the CTC at London which will get reports from sales agents while offices of the commission in Australia, France, Mexico, South Korea and Germany will be shut down. Also, employees in the offices located at Arlington (Va.) and Chicago will now operate from home offices as these two offices are also getting closed,

All these efforts are aimed to enhance productivity of the commission while operating within the minimum budget, stated McKenzie.

There will be no direct advertising in the American market; on the other hand, the job of marketing of Canada as a favorite tourism destination will be entrusted to the regional and provincial destination marketing organizations.

Meanwhile, the recent restructuring by Canada’s tourism commission is getting a mixed response from the industry. General manager of Butchart Gardens, Dave Cowen, said feels that US market is quite significant for Canada tourism. Hence, withdrawing marketing efforts from such an important market is not advisable.

This might mean increasing investments to attract greater number of Chinese tourists into Canada, especially after China gave Approved Destination Status to Canada. And it might not just be a coincidence that the first group of Chinese travelers is awaiting an arousing welcome from the CTC on August 17 in Canada (Vancouver).

McKenzie feels that China offers a good scope for Canada tourism as the number of Chinese tourists is likely to grow by nearly 50 percent by the year 2015.