At this year’s ‘Focus Canada 2013’ event held at the Fairmont Jaipur and announcing the game plan for achieving increased number of travellers from the India market, Maxime Bernier, minister of state for small business and tourism, Canada stated that Indians are among the top ten international visitors to Canada. The destination received a total of 162,900 overnight travellers in 2012, an 8.7 per cent increase over the previous year, who spent nearly US$ 161 million. The Canadian government has also announced plans to open a new consulate in Bengaluru this year which will have 35 people working there. “This will give us more visibility and a chance to facilitate the market better,” he added. Currently having over 4,000 Indian agents who are Canada specialists (and planning to achieve a 10 per cent increase in these numbers this year), the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) has chalked out an aggressive promotional campaign with an increased budget. With an aim to promote its offerings to achieve mutual benefits between the two countries, CTC brought in about 50 tourism representatives from Canada, which included DMCs, hotels, tour operators, tourism boards and entertainment companies. And needless to say, this year’s event once again provided a platform for successful business meetings and collaborations.
The event also saw the presence of Michele McKenzie, president & CEO, CTC; Siobhan Chretien, regional managing director, Americas & Asia, CTC; Stewart G Beck, Canadian High Commissioner to India; Sidney Frank, minister and immigration program manager, High Commission of Canada; Charles McKee, vice president, international, CTC and Sarah Hayward, manager, temporary resident unit, High Commission of Canada.
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Visa issuance and promoting MICE were the main focus elements at the event. With the destination laying major emphasis on its sustainability initiatives, Bernier informed that Canada issued more than 130,000 visas and more than 13,000 study permits to Indian citizens last year. “This represents a 58 per cent increase in visas and 530 per cent increase in student permits since 2004, which reaffirms the fact that Canada continues to be a destination of choice for Indian travellers and students,” he said. He added that the government has been working with the industry to capitalise on this growth, to welcome even more Indian travellers and to create jobs and growth in Canada, while strengthening the relationship with Indian visitors.
The Stephen Harper government has also made significant improvements to the visa application process. Hayward elaborated that the period for which multiple-entry visas are valid has been extended from five years to 10 years, which allows visitors to enter and exit Canada for up to six months at a time over 10 years. Additionally, parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens and permanent residents are now eligible to apply for the new Super Visa, which is valid for up to 10 years and allows parents and grandparents to remain in Canada for up to 24 months at a time. These measures are complemented by the fact that Indian travellers to Canada receive faster visa approvals than travellers from any other country in the world.
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Varied offerings
Currently having about 84 flights to Canada, Bernier was confident that due to demand in the market, there could be chances of Air Canada resuming services to India. Gaurav Mehta, sales manager- India, Air Canada mentioned that new routes were in the pipeline. “There could be certain codeshare agreements mid this year. The major chunk of the load factors has been due to immigration, students and corporates. Nevertheless there has been a 15-16 per cent increase in the leisure segment and this has been increasing year-on-year.” The destination which offers spectacular nature and great city experiences is also looking at tapping the MICE segment. McKenzie informed that they could build demand for travel which is a part of their federal tourism strategy. “India is an important market for us. In the future, we will focus on MICE traffic from India as the country holds a lot of potential in the segment. However the biggest challenge is the lack of awareness and marketing in this competitive market. We are now developing a MICE strategy. For this year, we have been given a budget of one-two million Canadian dollars. And we will not only continue tapping the Tier I cities but also the Tier II cities. We will soon be launching the Signature Experiences of Canada. A cooperative deal with the film industry is also in the process to facilitate film shootings in Canada.”
Vancouver sees the Asia Pacific region as a huge potential MICE market. Stephanie Johnson, director-business development Asia Pacific, Vancouver Convention Centre informed that the centre can accommodate between 500-1000 persons on an average in conference style and in theatre style about 6,000 persons. “Vancouver will be a green destination by 2020. And keeping the sustainability aspect in mind, we have our own beehive and sewage treatment plants in the convention centre. Since eastern Canada is mostly preferred by Indians, we have to start increasing awareness about promoting Vancouver. The largest group that we handled was 1,800 persons. We have handled a smaller conference of 200 persons from India. ” Adding to that, Dayna Miller, director of sales, travel trade, Tourism Vancouver replied that there needs to be a destination feature to create awareness about the MICE practices which we are a leader in. “For the same, our strategy will mainly focus on travel trade and develop products accordingly. Since it is a gateway to the Rocky Mountains, Vancouver is a must visit destination. We see huge potential from the FIT and MICE markets and hope to see an increase in the promotional budgets. Apart from Mumbai and Delhi, we would be looking at other tertiary destinations,” opined Miller.
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Priding on being the number one incentive destination in major source markets like US, UK, Germany and Japan, Julie Canning, president and CEO, Banff Lake Tourism, opined, “Indian travellers have a different version of adventure. It is important to understand different culture and what they want to do. Partnerships are important. But since the last five years, there has been significant growth through word of mouth. Over the years, what we have gathered is that it is mostly the experienced travellers who visit Canada.” Even Kevin Henderson, assistant general manager, Mountain Park Lodges in Jasper was of the opinion that Indians preferred soft adventure activities. “Over the last five years we have seen Indian travellers growing more than China apart from Europe being our main source market,” he stated.
Receiving an equal share of leisure and MICE travellers, Ontario, a commercial hub, is looking at highlighting Toronto. Harvey Hamazaki, trade consultant, Asia, Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation added, “Experiential tourism and MICE is what we are looking at focusing on. We saw about 80,000 travellers in 2010 and a 15 per cent increase in 2011. Blue Mountain village is the new destination that we are promoting for skiing.” Adding to the same, Josef Ebner, regional vice president and managing director, Delta Chelsea said, “We do good business from this market. We work with all the DMCs in India and get equal ratio of leisure and MICE guests. Our biggest source markets are UK, Germany, Japan, Brazil, China and then India. We also see the MICE segment as a potential area to be tapped and are equipped to provide facilities for conferencing for 400-500 persons.”
Niagara is another area which has seen growing demand for MICE. Anastasia Belashov, manager international tour and travel trade-Asia Pacific, Niagara Falls Tourism Visitor and Convention Bureau informed, “We see mostly incentive groups in Niagara. There are some challenges in terms of air connectivity, visa, and distance, hence the target is on high-end incentive groups though the area is mostly known as a leisure destination.” While Tourism Quebec boasts of experiential tourism – culture, music, shopping and heritage, Roch Paquette, market advisor, Tourisme Quebec stated that the tourism board aims to establish new connections. Since we are not ready to reach out to the market directly we prefer promoting our offerings through DMCs. “I am happy that we also signed our first contract here at the event,” he said. With Ottawa Tourism visiting the event for the last four years, Diane Houston, director of travel trade, Ottawa Tourism said, “We have been closely working with the Ontario Tourism team. With reference to biking trails in the city we are more recreational minded and hence take opportunities to experience certain adventure activities and we encourage the same to travellers visiting Ottawa. We offer white water rafting and over 80 golf courses.”
This year, British Columbia which is gearing up to host a Bollywood extravaganza event, is hopeful of attracting 2,50,000 tourists. Monica Leeck, market development manager, Asia, British Columbia said, “We are expecting a 10-15 per cent increase in tourist numbers this year. With our high seasons being from May-September we are looking at attracting large incentive groups. The Alaska cruises are popular in India and we also have the Disney Cruise Line coming in this year.”
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Way forward
CTC will be unveiling its Signature Experiences Collection (SEC) in India by April 2013. The SEC includes a group of tourism products in Canada that provide authentic, once-in-a-lifetime exotic experiences of the country. Chretien stated that CTC had a soft launch of the product in New Delhi last year. She also mentioned that CTC is looking at building relationships with the local travel trade. From the budget allocated to CTC, they plan to spend 80 per cent on trade advertising, business events, trade FAMs, and travel agent education sessions.
Maxime also stated that after his meeting with Dr K Chiranjeevi, minister of state with independent charge for tourism, Government of India, Canada is in the process of signing an MoU with India on tourism cooperation. Maxime opined that the Indian middle-class represents one of the fastest growing outbound travel markets in the world and that the Canadian government is committed to making the country a preferred destination for Indian travellers. He added, “Today’s record number of visas issued will be tomorrow’s benchmark, and we expect traveller numbers to Canada to continue to increase in the future.”
