From the desk of the CEO

Business as Usual ..........

Now more than ever it is important for the CCCTA to support its stakeholders and just as important for the operators to support their regional office teams foster growth of the tourism industry.

Although there has been concern of late within the tourism industry with the dissolution of TBC and the HST issues, it is business as usual.

While the Chief Executive Officers of the Regional Destination Marketing Organizations along with the Council of Tourism Associations (COTA) have been actively pursing details surrounding the future of tourism marketing and the impact of the HST specifically long term funding agreements and tax mitigation we are still operating under the assumption of business as usual.

The CCCTA will continue to deliver those services critical to the industry.

Always mindful of the CCCTA Mission statement - focused on driving growth for the global benefit of its tourism industry stakeholders -   the staff will focus on providing marketing services coordinating research based targeted cooperative campaigns providing the opportunity for stakeholders to access funding through Tourism BC's "Tourism Partners Program" allowing stakeholders to identify with the CCCTA brand and the Super Natural British Columbia" brand.

The CCCTA as an organization maintains its commitment to Regional Media Relations with its efforts to increase awareness for the region in our key markets via media visits and appearances in all mediums including the web.

Likewise the CCCTA maintains its commitment to Regional Travel Trade, working with Tourism BC and stakeholders to develop and participate in FAM tours, attending those specific travel trade events promoting the region to key travel trade professionals from across the globe. Our travel trade professionals provide assistance to stakeholders including education such as "Export Readiness" and "Itinerary Planning".

The CCCTA also continues to engage communities within the region providing counseling and access where possible to community funding programs as well as stakeholder services such as research and trend analysis.

The CCCTA posts relevant tourism related press releases to its industry website landwithoutlimits.com.

Welcome Carrie Davis - new member of CCCTA team

Carrie Davis is the newest member of the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Assn.  She started her position as Administrative Assistant/Collateral Coordinator with the CCCTA in June 2009.

Carrie was born and raised in Williams Lake.  She has been married to her husband Jason for 4 years and has a three year old son.  In her spare time she enjoys camping, snowmobiling, traveling and spending time with family.

Carrie is proud to say she recently completed the ten month Applied Business Technology program at Thompson Rivers University with a 93%GPA.

Carrie is excited about her new position at the CCCTA and working within the travel industry.  She also looks forward to building new relationships with the stakeholders and others within the community.

From the Media desk

First, we would like to say another big thank you to all the stakeholders that have assisted each other, the media and other tourism partners with the many and diverse projects that have helped make this another successful season of increasing the worlds awareness of the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Region.

During this last summer the region was host to some new and valuable media activities. With some very timely financial and logistical support from Tourism BC; Barbershop Films sent a crew into the Cariboo Chilcotin and Coast Regions shooting very high broadcast quality Hi-Definition TV "B- Roll". For a week the CCCTA assisted in scouting various locations to make their visit to our region as effective and as efficient as possible. The CCC Region now has 115 individual digital video files to help showcase a reasonable cross section of what the region has to offer the world. These new assets are accessible to you on the TBC image bank website.

We were also fortunate to have 5 key Marketing and Media TBC staff spend 5 days touring the CCC from West to East and from South to North covering 2,500 kms and learning from personal experience just the "tip" of the mountain of experiences that they help us market to the world. A couple of dozen travel writers and half a dozen TV crews have also been through covering various activities and operations.

The CCCTA met with 37 Canadian and International travel writers at the 2009 version of GoMedia Marketplace at Whistler.
The attendance was strong and the quality of the media excellent. As you may know the format is very competitive and kind of like speed dating...The media gets to meet with whom ever they want to and the Industry applies to meet with their top Media picks. Our region was selected by 32 top media and we filled the remaining 5 slots with some of our picks. There are a total of almost 4300 meetings in two days!
Total travel media in attendance: 124 (71 Canadian + 53 International) and 154 Industry partners vied to meet for 15 minutes each.
For an interesting Global report on tourism from the CTC click here.

From the Regional Film Office desk

So far the 2009 season has been notably quieter regarding film location requests and shooting days in the CCC region compared to 2009. The CCCTA has continued to raise our profile within the Movie industry steadily adding to the regions film location database with more detailed location files and adding more images and information to both the BC Film Commission and Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Film Region websites.

From the Travel Trade Desk

BC DownUnder

At the end of June - beginning of July, I attended BC Downunder which is held every two years in Australia. Over the course of three days, each region had 25 scheduled appointments with tour operators. Travel Trade Representatives gave presentations to approximately 95 travel agents and another 25 tour operators, then met with a room full of media people. Overall, the meetings went very well, and we wowed them with our regional presentation. I think we will be seeing more "Aussies and Kiwi's" in our region in the near future.

On Canada day, Tourism BC and the Travel Trade Representatives hit the streets to serve up pancakes, with real Canadian maple syrup to the public (in one of the busy courtyards) in downtown Sydney. We saw many smiling faces as the people stopped by the pancake stands on their way to work, a touch of Canada first thing in the morning, what a great way to start a day!

I saw a very interesting looking bird. I had no idea what kind of bird this was, I found out later it was an Australian White Ibis. For some reason this bird reminded me of the movie Finding Nemo! Strange looking little guy isn't he?

Visiting the South Cariboo
South Cariboo Visitor Centre invited Miriam and I to accompany them on property visits this summer. We stopped by approximately 70 properties to meet the stakeholders and see the product/products they have to offer. It was great to meet everyone and put a face to the name. The South Cariboo Visitor Centre team was a fantastic host, thank you for inviting us along.

Discover BC
Discover BC is an evening of presenting the new products that have become available over the last year. Discover BC was originally for Asian receptives and tour operators. This year it was open to more than the Asian market. Our product was well received, and from what I understand there was some surprise as to the level of some of the products that are available in our region. The Cariboo Chilcotin Coast has never been thought of as having high-end product that is now changing.

Travel Trade Show's
Now it is time to prepare for the trade show season. NTA and Canada's West Marketplace are coming up in November, as always you Export Ready stakeholders make sure and send any new product information in to us so we can get it out to the tour operators, receptive tour operators and travel agents.

Tourism Packaging and Product Distribution Workshop

The Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association is proud to offer a free workshop to the stakeholders in the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Region.

The workshop will be held at two different locations:

• November 23, 2009 in Williams Lake, CCCTA Boardroom, start 11am
  
• November 25, 2009 in Nimpo Lake/Anahim Lake, start 1pm
  

This workshop has been designed to teach participants the basics of packaging including how to develop products and packages, how to package with other suppliers and how to effectively price for different sales channels. The workshop will also address the basic elements of marketing and sales including:

• Determining market demand
• Trends in travel and distribution
• Market Research
• Benefits of Packaging
• Developing Packages
• Pricing and Evaluation
• Identifying the potential business partner
• Creating balanced agreements
• Developing and operational plan

Participants will practice developing and pricing a package and walk through the steps of distributing this through the many sales channels.

Please confirm if you would like to attend one of the workshops and RSVP to Miriam
(1-800-663-5885 or miriam@landwithoutlimits.com). 

Marketing Update

We still have a few last minute spots available for our 2010 Regional Travel Guide. Don't miss out and make sure your business is represented again this year. We can still squeeze you in...

For all current partnered Marketing Opportunities please click here.

Online Industry Survey

Launched in July this year, our Online Industry Survey is a tool to help stakeholders gain more information about the visitors to our region. Every participant automatically receives the results of the online survey which only takes a few minutes to complete. Click here to view the combined results for the past months.

Community Update

By the end of November all 10 communities in the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Region will have updated community content on the HelloBC.com website. Click on the communities to read the current content on HelloBC.com: Wells, Quesnel, Williams Lake, Clinton, Lillooet, 100 Mile House, Bella Coola, Klemtu, Nimpo Lake, Anahim Lake.

Congratulations to the Village of Clinton for putting in an "Expression of Interest" (one day workshop) and being approved under the Community Foundations Program.

Blogging and Social Media

Social networking is taking the world by storm and changing the way travellers seek information and make travel plans. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn etc. are all new methods of communicating and receiving information, and savvy businesses are taking advantage of them to help reach their customers.  

The CCCTA did an exciting pilot project in partnership with the Tourism Research Innovation Project (TRIP). Seven students from UNBC (University of Northern BC), TRU (Thompson Rivers University) and VIU (Vancouver Island University) travelled the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Region for one week and used social networking to raise awareness of the region on blogs, supported by photos and videos.

Click here to see the student's blogs and learn more about the project.

Update on HelloBC.com

Since April 1st 2009 visitors looking for travel information on LandWithoutLimits.com are being redirected to HelloBC.com - the official Tourism site for British Columbia. The Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association worked in partnership with Tourism BC to make sure regional content was being transferred to the appropriate pages. We are happy to see the increase exposure that our region gets through the provincial website, click here to view the latest stats.

Free listing opportunity on HelloBC.com

Tourism BC has a new 'Special Offers' program for all stakeholders who currently have a listing on HelloBC.com. All you have to do to post your free offer is log on to www.tourismbc.net and enter your User Name and Password. From the My Account Home page, click the "Add New" button at the bottom of the page.  Next choose the product that you want to associate the Special Offer to from the "Create New Product" drop down menu; then enrol in "Special Offer" from the drop down menu under "Select a Program", complete the required information fields and your special offer will appear on HelloBC.com within approximately 48 hours of  ‘checking out' of the system. 

If you have any questions about this program or if you have misplaced your User Name and Password, contact a Tourism BC Product Service Coordinator at productservices@tourismbc.com or by calling 1-800-822-7899.

We hope you take advantage of this new Tourism British Columbia initiative.

Flight Services at Williams Lake Airport

Services at the Williams Lake Regional Airport will remain as they are, at least for now, says NAV CANADA, which has decided to defer further studies on the airport and its flight services station until at least fall of 2010."I think our staff will be really happy about that," Ligertwood says. "It's good for the flying public. It means that level of safety will remain at least until then (fall 2010)." He says while he doesn't know why NAV CANADA made the decision, he says it may be due to political pressure NAV CANADA and the federal government received.
A local coalition, including Cariboo Regional District chair Al Richmond, had been formed to lobby to keep the services.
Read more

go2

- BC's Tourism human resources association - continues to help companies raise their performance and profits through innovative,
industry-driven programs. Click here to learn about recent additions to go2's services.