Case Study
Travel Marketing: California Targets Its “Neighbors to the North”
Tourism
Background
Visit California knew that Canadian consumers were a potential tourism gold mine, and sought to leverage Brand USA’s investment there to increase distribution of California tourism product and boost sales.
Services Provided
Strategy
Craft a proactive education and sales program that introduced Visit California travel industry partners directly to Canada’s leading wholesale packers and retail sellers in both English and French speaking Canada.
Our increased proactive marketing efforts in Canada, including a cross country travel trade sales mission, pushed visitor arrivals up by 9.6%.”
Results
- Educated industry partners through a Market Intelligence panel featuring leaders in Canada outbound travel, including the U.S. Commercial Service Office.
- Educated 221 travel agents at events in three key Canadian cities.
- Secured sponsorship of Association of Canadian Travel Agencies (ACTA) Golf Tournament as a platform to educate agents.
- Met face-to-face with 18 key Canadian tour operators to sell California experiences.
- Facilitated training for 138 staff at retailers across Canada including Air Canada Vacations, Fun Sun Vacations/Thomas Cook, G Adventures and Globus/Cosmos.
- 72.7% of California’s industry partners indicated they were “very satisfied” Canadian marketing efforts.
- Visitor arrivals from Canada grew 9.6%.