CTC upgrades European travel plans to Canada

One-off social-media promotion intercepts consumers at French and German airports

2012-11-21 — /travelprnews.com/ — The planning is over, the bags are packed and you’re striding confidently across the airport concourse to check in…but, what’s that you say? Canada?

The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) has been running a special social-media promotion at major airports in France and Germany to intercept consumers who are all set for a trip to entice them to go to Canada instead. Canada stands were set up in the terminals at Frankfurt and Lyon Saint-Exupéry airports, staffed by a team of eager ambassadors.

Eight couples, who were originally headed to destinations as diverse as South Korea, Turkey, the US and Spain, were delighted and excited to take up CTC’s offer of a 10- or 14-night stay in Canada and simply give up on their original vacation plans.

The travellers had four sumptuous itineraries to choose from in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario/Quebec and Atlantic Canada. CTC also invited the lucky couples to share their stories and photos on the promotion’s French and German websites as well as on social media using the #SurclassementCanada #KanadaUpgrade hashtags.

Expedia partnered with CTC on the ground, completing live bookings at the airports and leveraging its own social-media platforms to spread word of the promotion and the travellers’ adventures.

Each couple was joined by a film crew on a trip to at least one Signature Experiences Collection^®(SEC) member. Once edited, that footage and imagery will be used for subsequent CTC campaigns and shared via CTC’s social-media platforms.

Earlier in the fall, CTC held media events in three different German cities to raise interest and awareness around stories centred on Canadian cuisine and lifestyle. Each event started with an overview of the latest travel Canada facts and figures, before moving onto briefings from Canadian partners. The briefings were made all the more digestible for the 20-plus journalists in attendance at each hotel in Munich, Berlin and Hamburg by a four-course dinner rich in Canadian ingredients.

There was a plethora of Canadian industry partners for the events: Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation, Tourisme Québec, Tourism Newfoundland and Labrador, Tourism Prince Edward Island, Tourism New Brunswick, Tourism Nova Scotia, Tourism Northwest Territories, Tourism Yukon, Tourism Saskatchewan, Travel Alberta, Tourism Toronto and Air Canada.

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