Tourism Vancouver Island has been looking for ways to limit the office’s environmental impact. One of the main ways we have achived this is by implementing mixed recycling pick-up. At our previous office location, we had paper recycling in place, but we noticed that there were alot of recyclable materials that were going into the trash because of our lack of recycling facilities.

With a weekly pick-up of items ranging from tin cans, plastic containers, plastic grocery bag and newspapers, we are seeing a dramatic decrease in the amount of material in our trashcans.

Taking action with baby steps, such as recycling and composting, can produce dramatic results in limiting your company’s carbon footprint. Even when you think the end result will be insignificant, or that your company won’t have that big of an impact, think again. No change is too small to go unnoticed by Mother Earth.

Tags: General, Tourism

 I bought a book called Change the World for Ten Bucks, 50 ways to make a difference written by “We Are What We Do” (a nonprofit group). I thought I would share a few of the ideas that can be used in the workplace that can make a big difference.

#1 Take Public Transit: “A bus Carries the same number of people as 50 cars.”

#2 Recycle your Mobile Phone and Computer: “9.3 million mobile phones are replaced in Canada every year.” Go to www.pitch-in.ca to find a collection center nearest you.

#3 Use a mug not a disposable Cup: “Canadians use over 8 billion disposable cups per year.”

#4 Use both sides of EVERY piece of paper: “It’s estimated that 170 million trees are cut down every year for the paper that is used in Canadian offices.”

The best part is there are 46 more ways to change the world in this fantastick book!!

Tags: Change, the, World

Convert Your Vehicle To Electricity

I think by now most people have heard of “Global Warming”. We are somewhat familiar with the term. Unfortunately though it doesn’t have a big impact on our lives, or so we think. People are too preoccupied with their own immediate concerns and day to day problems. Some of us might even be familiar with “receding glaciers” “stranded polar bears” or the name Al Gore, “but it doesn’t really affect me”.

Too bad people don’t think more in terms of being a team player, and not just among us humans, but animals, plants, all of nature. Despite all our huge successes as a species, if we end up destroying our planet, we will ultimately be judged as a species that failed and failed big time! Since we should have known better, we’ll be rated dumber than the dinosaur.

There are some people that do care, and there is plenty of information on the subject. Tips & Techniques on what we can do to help fight GW. One of the easiest if not THE easiest tip I’m aware of that surprisingly is not mentioned enough is Stop Idling Your Car. Think of it folks it doesn’t get much easier than turning a key.

You see people everyday leaving their car with the engine running while they just pick something up from the grocery store, or just go to the bank machine, or just pick up their dry cleaning, or just pick up the pizza they ordered, or just …etc etc.

Everyone seems to think “Oh come on, what’s my one little car going to do when there are billions of them all over the planet”? This is our big mistake right here folks, in that way of thinking. Collectively we created Global Warming, collectively we need to solve it.

We need signs, lots and lots of signs that say “This is an idle free zone” There no reason why every truck loading dock in the world shouldn’t be an idle free zone.

If you want to check out something that is fun, very smart, and endorsed by actors

Tags: Convert Your Car To Electricity

I was invited to participate in a panel discussion about “Social Media and Travel” at TIA TravelCom in Las Vegas last week.

I shared the panel with Jasper Malcomsen, GM of Yahoo Travel, Jim Korvarik, GM of AOL Travel, and Christine Petersen, SVP Marketing Tripavisor. Our panel was moderated by Suzanne Cook, SVP Research TIA. All the prep work was taken under by Cindy Estis Green, who has just recently published a report on Website Best Practices – and the Canadian Tourism Commission was featured in the report.

After a general overview of Social Media in Travel and Tourism by Dr. Suzanne Cook, the discussion went into questions how to deal with negative postings, and how to leverage social media for an organization’s marketing mix. In the end, everybody agreed that social media is just a shift from the traditional word-of-mouth to the web. When a guest complaints about his or her stay in a hotel, the successful front desk staff could try to leverage this opportunity to turn the negative situation into building loyalty. Very similarly to the hotel example, Christine from Tripadvisor encouraged hotels to leverage the situation and engage in a conversation with the guest. (View more pictures of the panel here.)

Tags: Events, Jens

Everybody is talking about China, India, and Vietnam…what is really going on in the fastest growing tourism destination in the world?I have had the pleasure to sit down with Peter de Jong, CEO of PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association) to learn about the challenges and opportunities facing the Asia Pacific region.  In particular, Peter addressed the issue around climate change, and how the markets such as China, India, and Vietnam have to focus on infrastructure issues and sustainability in order to be able to cope with the increasing demand. These are all topics that will be addressed at the innovative “PATA CEO Challenge” around Climate Change, held in Bangkok from April 28-30, 2008.

The Tips from the T-List will be there with a new e-Book version for the event, having added a section on climate change and sustainable tourism, as well as with a real-live webcast in collaboration with Travelmole, to broadcast the opening and closing sessions directly from Bangkok and invite bloggers, members of the media, and travel and tourism professionals to take part in the conversation.  The interactive summit, featuring Dr. Pachauri, Chair of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as keynote speaker, will be co-moderated by my very good friend Anna Pollock.

Tags: Events, Featured, Interviews, Jens

A panel at the Phocuswright Bloggers Summit at ITB in Berlin, including Darren Cronian, Kevin May, Klaus Hildebrandt, Martin Schobert, Vasco Sommer-Nunes, and moderated by Stephen Joyce about the Social Media Trends in Travel & Tourism.  It was interesting to hear that a big discussion was formulating around the use of Twitter?  Well, according to Martin Schobert, Twitter is where the conversation is.  I would comment: What kind of conversation? Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of great discussions going on, but there is also a lot of useless stuff going on.  In a nutshell, as it relates to starting a Twitter strategy for your travel organization or destination, there are a few things to keep in mind:-       If you haven’t already, get your own Twitter account and start following people. Get familiar with the tool and communicating on the platform. Better yet, get a group together at work to do it with you.

-       Take lessons learned from other direct-to-consumer communications such as blogs and email newsletters and transition those to Twitter.

-       Brand profiles must be personal and honest; content must be compelling to successfully interest and attract people.

-       Connect to the audience as often as possible; reply directly to them if they are speaking about your brand.

-       Make sure your Twitter voice is consistent with your brand.

-       Do not exist on Twitter only as another version of corporate promotion. Be a person.

-       Get your CEO or top executive involved. Employees love it. Customers love it. There is no more powerful way to humanize your brand.

-       Above all, be authentic. Don’t try to fake, spin or hide behind your tweets — it won’t work.

Then a poll was launched to actually survey the audience to vote on the various social media trends in travel and tourism. The results were interesting…

On the top was Change in Philosophy, then PR using more channels, and hiring a Social Media guy to increase ROI, and lastly Twitter.

Hiring a Social Media guy is interesting. Social Media is one of these new buzz words that a lot of organizations do not know where to put.  First it was conveniently ignored, and now it is pushed around. The technology department believes that they need to own it, because it has new technologies. E-Commerce believes they need to own it as it as something to do with the website. Distribution believes they need to own it as it involves external websites. Branding believes they need to own it as the consumer is trying to take control of the holy brand. PR thinks they need to own it because it includes the word “Media”. Advertising needs to own it because they received a call from an Advertising Sales Manager from a Social Media website. Research thinks they need to own it as it provides valuable consumer information. And then there is the Legal Department that simply wants to shut it all down and put their head in the sand.

The key is that a Social Media strategy needs a home, which creates a dedicated staff. In the end it is part of content, but depending on the complexity of the strategy, a community manager, an editor, a business development manager to take care of aggregation and syndication partners, as well as technology support. However it is important not to lead with technology, as technology should just be an enabler to stimulate the conversation.

Just as Kevin May, I believe very strongly that the key is to integrate Social Media in the organization and not to build silos.

Finally, I would mention that a lot of companies in the travel and hospitality space are still struggling to pinpoint why they should invest resources into Social Media.  Just because everybody is talking about it, and social networking sites such as Facebook are growing? Well, here are some of the benefits of well-executed Social Media Campaign:

• Higher search engine rankings for their top keywords.
• More rankings of additional keywords or “long tail” keyword phrases.
• More link popularity from sites linking on their own accord.
• More link popularity from social media sites.
• More activity on their blogs, such as more commenting and interaction.
• Direct traffic from incoming links on social media sites (One good StumbleUpon.com submission can net thousands of visitors alone.)
• Significant traffic increases and steady growth in unique visitors month after month.
• An increase in subscribers and sales. Social traffic, properly acquired, is very receptive to your message and products.

So, get ready, and have fun.  If you have questions and need help, visit Chameleon Strategies, or listen to the travel blogging community at Tips from the T-List.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Tags: Events, Featured, Jens, Social Media

The 30^th annual Harrison Festival of the Arts was an artistic and financial success, with organizers wondering what they can do to top this year’s event.  The evening concerts in the Memorial Hall featured one of the strongest line-ups in the Festival’s history, including a sold-out show by Jim Byrnes & the Sojourners, and wonderful shows from Baka Beyond, UHF, The Paperboys and more.  Music on the Beach featured a little something for everyone.  From cutting edge dance music by Delhi 2 Dublin to the old-time music of the Highwater Jug Band, audiences were treated to some of the best that Canada, and the World, has to offer.  Children’s Day was also a big success, with a myriad of activities and entertainment from Juno Award winning entertainer Al Simmons.  It was also a strong year for the Art Market, with product ranging from paintings, pottery and jewelry to henna tattoos and tie-dyed clothing.

Top Ten Moments:

 1.  Festival Executive Director Phyllis Stenson getting a big hug from his Honour Steven Point, Lieutenant Governor of BC and receiving a drum made by her Honour Gwen Point.    

2.  Baka Beyond’s concert, from start to finish.

3.  The incredible vocal harmonies of Jim Byrnes & the Sojourners.

4.  Delhi 2 Dublin getting the whole beach dancing.

5.  The humour and song parodies of Todd Butler.

6.  A fantastic encore from BC super-group UHF (Shari Ulrich, Bill Henderson & Roy Forbes) as they each performed their greatest hits. 

7.  Seeing old friends like Tao Ravao & Vincent Boucher back in Canada and better than ever.

8.  Harrison Festival favorite Faith Nolan leading the Community Choir.

9.  The sing-along at the Paperboys concert.

10.  Swing dancers just showing up and showing off to the music of the Highwater Jug Band.

Tags: Harrison Festival, music

Reved-up rockabilly outfit Cousin Harley played a rowdy, rockin’ show at the Memorial Hall on Valentine’s Day.  In the middle of a sand-storm that brought to mind the movie Dune, the sold-out crowd were dancing and carrying on and the band certainly fed off the atmosphere.    Cousin Harley himself (aka Paul Pigat), played here during the Harrison Festival of the Arts as a guitarist for both Jim Byrnes and Ndidi Onukwulu.

Tags: Concerts, Harrison Festival Society, Memorial Hall

Vancouver Celtic group Blackthorn played a wonderful show at the Harrison Memorial Hall on February 27.  Special guest was Vancouver Police Pipeband member Jim McWilliams on small pipes and big pipes.  The music was a mix of instrumental and vocals, coming from Scotland and Ireland with a few Quebecois tunes and even the classic Canadian folk song “Log Drivers Waltz”.  The band mentioned they often play in a “pub style” atmosphere and to get to play a concert setting like the venerable Memorial Hall, allowed them to play beautiful and quiet tunes.  Which doesn’t mean to say they stayed quiet.  Some rousing Irish songs celebrating the sea, women, whiskey and missing Ireland got the crowd going as did tunes from Robbie Burns.   To finish, the group received a well-deserved standing ovation.

April 4 saw the BOP Ensemble bring the best in Canadian folk and roots music to the Memorial Hall.  BOP featured legendary & Juno Award winning Alberta performer Bill Bourne on guitar and vocals, up and come Alberta bassist, vocalist and hoop dancer Jasmine Ohlhauser and BC’s own Wyckham Porteous on guitar and vocals.  The trio performed songs written by Bill and Wyckham as well as a few covers.

Highlights included Wyckham’s tender versions of Springstein’s “Hungry Heart” and his own “Deeper in the Water”, Bill chanting and scatting to his song “Grace”, with Jasmine performed a wonderful hula hoop dance that added not distracted from the song.

A three song encore gave a chance for each performer to shine.

Tags: Harrison Festival Society, Memorial Hall Concerts