UK visitors to Canada down
UK visitor numbers to Canada dropped 6% last year, delegates at Canadian Tourism’s spotlight event in London were told.
In a question and answer session with leaders of the UK and Canadian travel industry, Ben Peters of JonView suggested that the current client mentality was to delay spending until as late as possible.
He said there was much higher degree of shopping around and that this economic crisis was totally different from any recently felt.
Paul Ryan of Fairmont Hotels agreed. “Booking pace is way behind what is has been over the past few years, leading to much later bookings. Clients are looking for added value and lower prices,†he said.
Chris Bryan of Canadream added: “There is a lot of long-haul choice for UK travellers and Canada has to work hard to get them.”
He believes value for money marketing, rather than discounting, was the way forward.
Despite the recession, Peters concluded that Canada was well placed to increase visitor numbers from the UK thanks to the Winter Olympic in early 2010.
He also said Canada spotlight 2009 will be bigger than 2008 in terms of the number of exhibitors, appointments and visitors.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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