Canada-e-Connect’s Opening Keynote address will be delivered by Prof. Dr. Ian Fenwick, one of the most respected business academics in the world. Ian is a former director of the MBA program at the Schulich School of Business. York University in Toronto. He continues to be Professor of Marketing Emeritus and Senior Scholar at that School. He currently lives and works in Thailand, where he is Advisor and Senior Head of Administrative Programs at Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration. Ian has led executive seminars and taught at universities and businesses pretty much around the world. He has served as a consultant for a wide range of companies including Siam Cement Group, Merck (Thailand), A.C. Nielsen (Thailand), German Standard, JETRO, General Motors Canada, Dupont Canada, Exxon and many others.

Dr. Fenwick, co-author of DigiMarketing: The Essential Guide to New Media and Digital Marketing, will address Canada-e-Connect delegates on the dramatic shift from traditional to digital media. DigiMarketing has been labeled “an introduction, encyclopedia, and action plan all at the same time, a hefty but easy-to-read book that helps makes sense of the emerging digital world” in the Globe and Mail. Norman Pearlstine (former Editor-in-Chief of Time, Inc. and Managing Editor, the Wall Street Journal) has hailed it as “the definitive guide to marketing in the digital age”.

Dr. Fenwick and/or his co-author Kent Wertime, President of Ogilvy One Asia Pacific have presented DigiMarketing at various events (and counting) throughout Asia (e.g. Business Week Middle East Asia Leadership Forum Dubai) and more recenty at Microsoft’s World Partner Conference, Houston.

Born in England and also holding Canadian citizenship, Ian has a BA (Hons) First Class (in Economics and Sociology) from Durham University and a Ph.D. from the University of London.

Canada-e-Connect will take place at the InterContinental Hotel on Front St. in downtown Toronto, January 21 to 23, 2009.

Given the current economic environment that is surely to affect travel worldwide, it is imperative to keep up to date with the latest trends in Digital Marketing because digital marketing is the most cost-effective way to promote and sell your tourism offerings whether you are a small Bed & Breakfast, multi-unit hotel chain, airline or a major tourist attraction.

Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to hear from Dr. Fenwick and other interantional e-marketing, e-distribution and social media experts. Register now for Canada-e-Connect 2009!

Visit Canada-e-Connect’s website regularly and keep up-to-date with the fantastic speakers as they are confirmed.

“There is a huge seismic shift in ad dollars going to online and digital marketing.” Terry O’Reilly.

-

AdMan Terry O’Reilly is one of the most interesting, engaging, fun people you can meet in the advertising, communications field anywhere in the world. A recognized authority in advertising (see Marketing Magazine’s 100th Anniversary double Issue November ‘08 - 100 thought leaders look to the future, pg 39), Terry O’Reilly will be inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends at a Gala event a few days after Canada-e-Connect. As you can surmise, Terry O’Reilly is a sought after speaker and we are thrilled that he will be the closing keynote speaker.

-

Terry is a partner in Pirate Radio (Toronto, New York) which keeps him busy enough. But his restless, enthusiasm makes him go beyond his day job to the air and digital waves through his CBC Radio One’s program The Age of Persuasion in which he talks about all things related to advertising, communications, persuasion. Age of Persuasion is also available as a podcast through the CBC website (link above).

-

Terry’s extensive experience in the advertising world, his talent for ideas, and his endless curiosity and enthusiasm (not too mention the myriad of advertising awards he has won) makes him an ideal closer for next January’s Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference in Toronto. Terry will bring his fun, informative, engaging and persuasive presentaton style to the closing session. Don’t miss it!

-

Canada-e-Connect’s edistribution panel will include, Tom Griffin, CEO of TravelScream, Sean Shannon, Managing Director, Expedia Canada Corp, part of Expedia Inc., the largest OTA (online travel agency) in the world which happens to own TripAdvisor, the largest travellers’ reviews website; and Andrew Van Luchene, President & CEO, JackRabbit Systems, a relative newcomer in the eDistribution space. Andrew was a lead inventor at Walker Digital, the think tank that created Priceline.com, where he filed over 150 patent applications. Andrew also helped to launch RetailDNA, Priceline Perfect Yardsale, and Priceline for Gasoline. Moderated by Patricia Brusha, one of the principals at A Couple of Chicks e-Marketing, this panel session promises to bring an update of what has been happening in the eDistribution space. Companies like Expedia are starting to look like media companies selling ad space to complement their travel transactions revenue. New innovators like JackRabbit (I previously mentioned TravelScream) are taking travel deals from their clients and partners and making them travel via widgets, RSS and other technologies. Expedia has also entered this portable aspect of eDistribution - notice the travel offers on this blog (from an RSS of Expedia deals).

-

Where is your hotel, tourism attraction or destination in the eDistribution world? Are your deals travelling in the blogosphere? Is your hotel promotion bookable via a widget and available for distribution on a multitude of web properties and possible mobile platforms?

-

I’m happy to inform readers of this Canadian Tourism Blog that Rob Torres, Managing Director of Travel at Google will be our luncheon speaker at the second Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference. Mr. Torres’ session will take place on Friday, January 23, 2009 (and I can’t wait) and it will be an interview format. Here’s a brief bio of Rob Torres who was also one of the key presenters at PhoCusWright 2008 this past November in Hollywood. -

As managing director of travel, Rob Torres oversees the day to day strategy for Google’s North American travel advertising business. Rob is responsible for the profitable growth of travel advertiser and agency business. In that capacity, he oversees the strategic planning, sales, operations and business development efforts as Google provides internet, as well as radio and print, marketing solutions to its customers. Rob is based in Google’s Seattle office. Prior to joining Google, Rob was vice president of strategic hotel partnerships at Expedia.com. During his career at Expedia, Rob managed a team that had Global responsibility for 30 strategic accounts, generating gross bookings in excess of $2B. Rob is on the board of HSMAI and ATME and serves on TIA’s eMarketing committee. In 2004, Rob was named to HSMAI’s Top 25 list of Most Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality and Travel Sales and Marketing. He is actively involved in Royal Family Kids Camp, an organization that provides summer camp opportunities for children in foster care. Rob is a frequent speaker at industry events. Rob received a bachelor of science degree in public administration from the University of Southern California and holds an MBA from Georgetown University Business.

-

Joe is a member of the international group of Travel industry bloggers, the T-List and is a sought after speaker at tourism events. Joe will make a fascinating and engaging presentation at Canada-e-Connect on Jan 22 at 3:45 pm. He will speak about The Road Ahead On The Smart Web: The focus is shifting fast in online travel, from the completion of a simple transaction to an integrated planning, researching and buying process. Search, user generated content and social media are all important elements but not enough to deliver a superior, integrated experience for today’s savvy and demanding online travelers. There is a need to act now to change the business model to meet the demand for personalization, intelligence and vertical integration of local services on DMO’s sites. Joe Buhler will examine where DMOs are in relation to these innovations in e-travel and look at what new relationships are necessary to compete and take full advantage of this trend.

One of my favourite blogs to follow is the Travolution Blog. If you work in the travel industry, this blog is a must read. A couple of months ago it published an interesting piece by Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, research editor for Travolution and chair of the Enter09 conference in Amsterdam. The post’s title was “24 things to think about if you are involved in online travel.” I won’t reproduce the 24 things here (clic on the post’s title to read the whole thing). I just want to comment on some of them:

-

1) Context is king - due to the relevance to consumer needs - this includes location, party, purpose of visti, timing, etc. Absolutely agree. Context and content go hand in hand, but relevance is everything when marketing your destination, hotel, attraction, etc. Twitter’s success notwithstanding, search is still the biggest digital tool and what searchers want the most is truly relevant results to their queries. Right now, for example, might be a good time to ramp up Golf marketing campaigns since golfers are beginning to plan as the weather gets better.

-

2) Content needs to be reorganized and presented to serve context. It almost goes without saying, but much harder to implement.

-

3) Gadgets that can be plugged into iGoogle, Facebook, Vista and other platforms which can extend the reach of a website. Content travels and as Dr Fenwick pointed out at Canada-e-Connect 2009, content has been liberated from devices. Destination should spend some time and effort developing engaging gadgets, widgets and iPhone/Blackberry apps.

-

9) Two conflicting trends - from “Personalisation/CRM/need everything about the customer - to “leave me alone/give me what I want/you don’t onw me. Permission is everything and it is a challenge. How do you get potential customer’s permission to market to them? One way is to make it fun first perhaps via an iPhone app or perhaps by building a follower base on Twitter or a fan page on Facebook. Or making use of interactive outdoor campaigns using QR codes to engage people. Whatever the media, it will become increasingly important to get people’s permission to address them directly given the proliferation of digital addressable media.

-

12) Twitter is becoming the next big thing and many predict that it will have a similar success to SMS due to its simplicity, interactivity, speed and relevance. Agree. Twitter seems to be already the next big thing, even though it only has about 7 to 8 million users currently. But don’t go all crazy about Twitter just yet. Twitter’s strength at the moment (and it attractiveness to companies like Facebook and Google rumoured to be courting Twitter) is in the aggregate. At the individual, DMO or small business level I see Twitter as a complement to all other marketing tools in the mix. I will write an assessment of Twitter in a future post soon.

-

13) Impossible to concentrate with so many channles of interactivity interrupting everything - relevance is vital, once again. True. Goes almost without saying. The explosion of channels, tools, apps, etc., requires an effort from consumers to filter out annoying things. This is one of the reasons I am a bit turned-off from Facebook. Many of the apps on Facebook are very intrusive and “force” users to annoy their friends and connections by sending all kinds of invitation to all kinds of quizes, contests, etc., that for some of us are a bit of a waste of time.

-

17) Most Destination Management Organization (DMO’s) are totally inadequate to meet the challenges of the future. I don’t agree with Prof Buhalis on this one. First, I think he does not understand DMO’s very well (BTW I believe the initial M is for marketing not management). I will agree that many DMO’s are indeed inadequate to meet the challenges of the future. But there are many destination that are doing great things in the digital space and also offline. At Canada-e-Connect we learned about Tourisme Montreal’s digital strategy for 2009 and everyone at the conference was very impressed with it. Sweden’s Community of Sweden social networking site is a success. VisitLasVegas is another DMO that has been doing very innovative Web 2.0 marketing.

-

18) Only agile desinations as presented by bahamas.com Minister of Tourism and Aviation for the Bahamas, Vincent VanderPool-Wallace, will use innovation and eTourism for destination strategic advantage. Agree with the “only agile assertion,” but Bahamas is not the only DMO doing good work in this space.

-

20) VisitBritain takes 202 bookings per month!!! What is the return on investment on that? VisitScotland nationalised their booking service company whilst Tiscover was fully privatised and purchased by HRS.com. The jury’s still out as to whether tourism board websites can successfully offer bookings direct to consumer. Some Canadian DMO’s have indicated that their booking numbers are very good (although I’ve never seen specifics).

-

23) Increasingly virtual worlds and immersive technology (developed in gaming and military applications) will be critical in marketing and cultural heritage representation. Not very much is said or written about regarding digital games and immersive technologies vis a vis eTourism, but it is an area with incredible potential. However, in order to be successful in this area, tourism businesses and destinations must be very creative (going beyond placing ads in a virtual world a la Second Life or within a Wii game), perhpas develop original games that promote the destination while providing fun to the users (and perhaps even an additional revenue stream for the DMO).

-

24) We need to think differently and strategically as well as use the digital tools to raise our game to the global challenges. Couldn’t agree more. But change is hard and it takes time. The purpose of the Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conferences is precisely to foster new thinking, strategic thinking in our industry vis a vis Tourism and eTourism. However, I have noticed that many in the industry resist change and while there is progress in the digital marketing space (e.g. Tourism Montreal, Tourisme Quebec and the CTC are working on very interesting projects in the space) inertia is very strong and we are not moving as fast as other competitors.