In last week's Pique Tourism Whistler president and CEO Barrett Fisher described the work her organization has done to date to combat Olympic aversion, to get people to Whistler in the months before and after the 2010 Games. It's a hefty task made all the heavier by the global economic climate. She calls it a "double whammy." But then again, Tourism Whistler has seen its share of challenges in recent years.
This week Fisher explains to Pique's Alison Taylor what Tourism Whistler's game plan is for the coming months and how it hopes to leverage the once in a lifetime opportunity of the 2010 Games for years to come. She hopes to see some of the blood, sweat and tears of the past years pay off in spades down the road.
Pique: Tell us about this year's upcoming advertising campaign.
BF: Our campaign theme for 2009-2010 is really about there's no better time to visit Whistler. And there really isn't. Whether it's pre-Games or during Games time it's going to be some of the most amazing wide-open terrain because we are 100 per cent open for business and during Games time we are 90 per cent open for business...
We have an Australian campaign going on in the Australian market. They typically travel in the January timeframe and so it's really about encouraging Australians to come... Similarly in March, post Games, you've got the Paralympics. All of our tour operators are talking about for those guests who are not able to come in February, what better time than to have them come in March and still get an amazing Olympic/Paralympic experience through the Paralympics with all the spirit of the Games, but it will be a little bit quieter than the February timeframe, and so that's going to be a big push. And as well we have some family programs that we are promoting during the March period, when you look at kids stay, ski and eat for free... We actually launched with the restaurant association just a sample of that in March 2009 so we're planning to build upon that in March of 2010....
We will be doing a combination of advertising programs and promotions and media blitzes and special packages to our regional, Canadian, west coast U.S., Australia and UK markets. And those would be our core target markets that we would have targeted last year as well and the year before that...
In the close-in regional markets it will still be a strong value-add message as far as that we've got very competitive pricing and if you book early you can save up to 39 per cent off if you book by Nov. 15, and that's really across all of our markets, really trying to ensure that people do book early and we've got a price guarantee this year... And that's really about making sure people understand that if you book early rather than waiting until the last minute, we'll actually provide you with the best offer up front.... And that's a strategy that we have agreed to as a board of directors at Tourism Whistler and one that we've encouraged to our membership because there is a belief sometimes in the world that if you wait until the last minute you'll get a better deal.... That's a new strategy and that's part of this economic aversion because what happens in a tough economy is that people will wait and see, 'well maybe I don't really need to book, maybe I'll wait and see if the prices get better.' We've got some very compelling offers out there.
Pique: Is there more money going into marketing this year because of the double-whammy you talked about?
BF: Our funding has not grown unfortunately and in fact, in some cases it has actually diminished. So, what you will see is that we receive a portion of funding from the Resort Municipality of Whistler that comes from the hotel tax and the hotel tax is down. So in fact our funding stream in that category is down. So, if anything, our funding has reduced a little bit in 2009-2010. But that's where again, as an organization and as a board, we believe that we needed to focus and so that's where our 2009 business plan, it backed away from new development efforts because typically new development like into a new segment, new geographic market or a new product segment it takes often three to five years to grow. So if you know that in a tough economy people aren't prepared to take a risk on a new product, really our strategic direction was to focus on our core segments... and on our high awareness markets so Canada, regional B.C. /Washington, west coast U.S., we still do some national U.S. initiatives, and then focus in the high awareness segments of the UK and Australia. So we've really backed away from... any new development efforts in Asia, or South America or other European countries... And the reason for that is, to your point, the marketing dollars only go so far so we need to focus. We can't be in all markets and segments...
It's actually new last year. So this would be year two of a similar strategy.
Pique: What about after the Games?
BF: Post-Games all indications that we're hearing from the Conference Board of Canada and various economists... are showing that there will be some return of the economy in 2010. With that in mind, and with the Games behind us, our strategy for 2010 will be really to harvest the Olympic afterglow. And what we will see is a move away from the tactical advertising and a great launch to a larger brand awareness promotion....
Tactical advertising is a little bit more about price, price, price and so in a tough economy, everyone's looking for the best price. But brand advertising, or what they call image advertising, is really more about selling the dream. It's about reminding all of those television viewers who saw Whistler that this is an amazing resort destination to come visit whether in winter or in summer, and if you liked what you saw during Games time we'd love you to come back and visit the resort in 2010, 2011, 2012 and beyond.
Pique: What would you say to ease concerns about what we're coming into for the next couple of months...
BF: Certainly Tourism Whistler as an organization, working closely with our partners - Whistler Blackcomb, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, the hotel community - are putting our best foot forward to ensure that we are mitigating 2010 Olympic aversion by focusing primarily on high awareness, Canadian, regional and western U.S. markets who we believe will come before the Games time, and simultaneously we are absolutely maximizing the media exposure leading up to and during Games time to ensure we put Whistler on the world stage during Games time in its most positive light and that we get all of our key messages and stories out there about the resort in both winter and summer and all the amazing things we have to offer. Yes, we are in tough times. And tough times mean that we all have to dig deeper and work harder. But if you look at Whistler compared to all of our competitors, they would do anything to be in our shoes.
The world's tourism is suffering due to a challenging economy but we have this most amazing opportunity and, even though we will feel the pain in the short term, we have to ensure we don't squander the opportunity....
I am an eternal optimist and I believe nothing is insurmountable and absolutely the struggles and challenges are put in front of us to make us stronger but we're bright creative people as a collective, as a resort, and we too will not only survive this but we will surpass hopefully our best expectations in the years to come.
