Seven Days with the Giant Burns up the Web

A mere 6 weeks after its launch, Seven Days with the Giant, Tourism Thunder Bay's major 2008 leisure marketing campaign is showing a significant web presence, logging over 436 000 entries on google.

This demonstrates significant impressions being created with outdoor enthusiasts who are learning more about Thunder Bay in the process.

www.visitthunderbay.com or www.ontariotravel.net/outdoor for more information

Promoting Meetings and Conventions to the Mining Industry

Tourism Thunder Bay and The Community Economic Development Commission will have a presence at the Northwestern Ontario Mining Symposium April 8-9, 2008 at the Valhalla Inn (http://www.valhallainn.com/), promoting Thunder Bay as an ideal meeting location for the mining and exploration companies that will be in attendance from across the region, Province and Country.

With a strong exploration environment, Thunder Bay and the Northwestern Ontario region are experiencing an increase in interest and activity by numerous companies involved in the mineral extraction industry.

Tourism Thunder Bay staff will be on hand to discuss Thunder Bay's advantage as a meeting and conference location with companies that have a reason to do business here and encourage them to hold more of their meetings and conferences in the hub of the sector. We'll be distributing the 2008 Meeting and Convention planner to interested firms and letting them know about the services and venues available in the community to assist them in hosting unique corporate events.

This marks Tourism Thunder Bay's shift towards marketing corporate travel to sectors that have a logical reason to hold events in Thunder Bay, including forestry, mining, government, utilities and knowledge based industries such as education and medical sciences.

For more information, please contact our Meeting and Convention Coordinator, Rose Marie Tarnowski at rtarnowski@thunderbay.ca

For more information on the Symposium, visit http://www.ontarioprospectors.com/

Making Trade Shows Work

The Ministry of Northern Development and Mines will be sponsoring a 1 day workshop to assist businesses and organizations with developing successful trade show management skills.

The workshop is being facilitated by Barry Siskind, an accomplished marketing consultant and President of ITMC.

Monday March 17, 2008
Location: Victoria Inn. 555. W Arthur St. Thunder Bay
Regency "A" room
Time 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

Cost: FREE

Registration Deadline is Friday February 29, 2008.

Go to www.vicinn.com for more information on room rates for this event.

You can register by e-mailing Isabel Gannon at isabel.gannon@ontario.ca or calling (807) 475-1528

Making Trade Shows Work (1 day)

Morning Session: Getting Ready Unravel the mysteries of successful exhibiting and put some pizzazz into your next show.

6 steps to choosing the right show
8 criteria for developing a winning booth
14 proven promotional techniques
4 steps to creating a powerful follow-up program

Afternoon Session: The Secrets of Working the Booth

Good booth skills are developed; it takes time, patience, and a sure-fire method. This workshop will improve the effectiveness of everyone who works in the booth.
The four stages of an effective booth
How to proactively approach visitors
The six steps to ensuring you are spending the right time with the right people.
How to disengage quickly and confidently
The 6 do’s and 7 don’ts of working a booth

Tourism Thunder Bay Launches Seven Days in Toronto

Tourism Thunder Bay joined The Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Donna Cansfield and the CEO of Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation, Robin Garrett, in opening the 12 annual Toronto Outdoors Show on February 22, 2008, unveiling the Seven Days with the Giant promotion in the Toronto Market. It was also an opportunity to celebrate this very unique and successful marketing partnership.

At the Great Ontario Outdoor Adventure Pavillion, calendars, postcards and live music entertained the approximately 5000 Friday attendees and we were able to promote Thunder Bay as a great Outdoor adventure destination in a venue where motivated travellers gather.
Tourism Thunder Bay provided 20 kg of Thunder Oak Gouda, offering samples and information on the variety of attractions, experiences and culinary wonders of our great city and region.

The show is expected to attract up to 30 000 motivated outdoor experience seekers over the three day run and marks our move towards experience based target markets. Adjacent to our booth is Canadian Geographic and Ontario Parks, where the contest is being promoted heavily. Tourism Thunder Bay and Fort William Historical Park partnered on a series of complimentory advertisements in both the 2008 Ontario Parks Guide and the April Canadian Geographic Travel magazines to support the contest and promote Thunder Bay as a unique destinaton, solidifying our Superior By Nature brand and strengthening our position as one of Canada's great outdoor cities.

Northwestern Ontario is well represented at the show this year by a number of other experience providers including Nipigon River Adventures and Sail Superior, Northern Ontario Native Tourism Association and Souris River Canoes of Atikokan.

Tourism Thunder Bay will be at a couple of upcoming consumer shows during the February 22-24th, 2008 weekend.

We will be part of the Great Ontario Outdoor Adventure booth at the Toronto Outdoors Show at the International Center in Toronto. We'll be promoting Seven Days with the Giant at the show and showcasing some of our unique Northern flavours from the Thunder Oak Cheese Farm. The show is also a chance for us to work with our Southern Ontario tourism marketing partners to put Thunder Bay in the minds of our Southern Ontario markets.

We will also be at the Central Canada Outdoor Show in Thunder Bay at the Sportsdome. We will be promoting Seven Days at the show and as part of our Visitng Friends and Family campaign, letting local residents know about all of the great attractions available in and around the city. With 28% of leisure visitors to the city visiting friends and family, local awareness campaigns are an important element of our tourism marketing, reaching local hosts and providing them with information on where to take their visitors while here.

February Industry News

Seven Days with the Giant

The Seven Days with the Giant campign is the major spring domestic leisure marketing campaign for the City of Thunder Bay. The campaign is a partnership between the City, Fednor, Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, Ontario Parks, Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership, Nikon and local industry partners.

The campaign is designed to capitalize on the iconic value of the Sleeping Giant, strengthen the Superior By Nature brand for the city and position Thunder Bay as one of Canada's Great Outdoor cities. This awareness campaign will raise the profile in the community and provide excellent data on where the response comes from through the online contest prize package that gives a part of four a seven day Thunder Bay adventure worth $12 500.

2008 Calenders and postcards promoting the contest are available to distribute at your businesses to support the campaign.

Web Statistics

During the 2007 Calender year, visitors to http://www.visitthunderbay.com/ exceeded 330 000, up over 100% over 2006. For January 2008, web visitors are up 35% over January 2006. The on line visitor guide was downloaded over 31 000 times!

2007 Visitation Trends

• Total visitation (registered visitors at the Terry Fox Center) was up 7.8% over 2006


• Domestic visitors registaring at the Terry Fox Visitor Center were up nearly 14% over 2006


• U.S. visitor registrations were down 10.9% over 2006


• Overseas visitor registrations remained steady


• Currently 66% of our visitors are Canadaian, 23% are U.S. and 3% are from overseas, primarily Germany and Britain.
  

Upcoming Events

• Heritage Day - Fort William Historical Park - February 17th, 2008.


• Sibley Ski Tour - March 1, 2008.


• The Great Race http://www.greatrace.com/ is a New York to Paris round the world classic car race that will be stopping over in Thunder Bay June5-7. Residents are invited to welcome the race teams and visiting classic car associations from Canada and the U.S. midwest are expected to also arrive in the city.


• 2008 Bluesfest is scheduled for July 4-6 at Marina Park.


• 2008 Great Rendezvous at Fort William Historical Park July 10-13

2008 Visitor Experience Magazine

The 2008 Visitor Experience magazine is a new format 80 page fullfillment piece that replaces two separate guides produced in past years. The magazine features editorial content, tourism listings, maps and partner advertisements and is designed to have a shelf life of up to one year

The guides will be available by February 28th. Partners who wish to have them at their establishments for distribution can contact Tourism Thunder Bay at visit@thunderbay.ca

www.Visitthunderbay.com Opportunities

Our website is our #1 travel information source and thanks to the popularity of it, it has risen to the top of the google search engines in 2007. To ensure it remains easy for consumers to find, the number of businesses linking to and from it is vital.

We invite tourism businesses to add the visitthunderbay links on their websites to create recipricol links that boost web traffic. There is no charge and we provide links on our site as well. If you have any questions, please email me a ppepe@thunderbay.ca

Visitthunderbay.com is now on Facebook

Tourism Thunder Bay has launched a travel information group page on the popular networking site Facebook. Every day our visitor services staff list upcoming events and specials to the growing number of members who join. Weekly email messages updating group members on upcoming specials are also sent out. There are also a number of experience based forums on the site, allowing visitors to ask questions and have them answered by our staff or other members

If your tourism business has an event, lodging special, or package, please feel free to join the group and list your specials right on the discussion forums or wall postings. Otherwise, we encourage you to e-mail your specials or consumer oriented news to visit@thunderbay.ca

Current Active Travel Media

• Lake Superior Magazine-Sleeping Giant Park
  
• Canadian Geographic Travel-Sleeping Giant Park


• Coastal Living-Winter sauna experiences


• AAA Living Minnesota-Sleeping Giant Park


• Up Magazine (Westjet) -a pet traveller friendly city


• CAA magazine-Sibley Ski Tour


• GoRiding TV-produced a segment on motorcycle riding last fall to air in Southern Ontario markets


• In adiditon, Tourism Thunder Bay was featured in over 187 separate media industry articles in 2007 and to date in 2008, we have conducted over 45 separate interviews on topics ranging from cruise ships to visitor statistics, Seven days with the Giant and more.

Cruise Ship Developments

Tourism Thunder Bay has secured 11 port visits in 2009 by the M/V Clelia II, a 100 passenger cruise vessel operated by Travel Dynamics of New York City. This marks a new direction towards marketing itineraries aimed at smaller, expedition type cruise lines.

Conference Attraction

Tourism Thunder Bay continues to strengthen its marketing programs to attract more meeting and convention business to the community. We are always bidding on events and passing along leads. We will be undertaking direct marketing campaigns in 2008 targeting the mining and government sectors as well as attending key domestic meeting and convention planners trade shows. We will provide updates and information on an upcoming conference industry session in Thunder Bay to assist us in developing our next corporate marketing programs.

Sport Tourism

The City of Thunder Bay Tourism, and Recreation Divisions are currently developing a new Sport tourism attraction strategy. More news to follow as we will be planning a session shortly with local sport industry representatives to assist us in building new marketing programs to attract more sport events to the community.

Welcome to Tourism Thunder Bay's Online Industry News

ThunderBayTourismPartners is the official blog site for area tourism industry operators to get updates on Tourism Thunder Bay initiatives, statistics and upcoming industry events. It is also a place to hear ideas from the industry and engage in constructive discussion around growing the local tourism economy.