The Sunshine Coast is poised for an Olympics-driven tourism boost in the coming years, according to speakers at Sunshine Coast Tourism (SCT)'s annual meeting Thursday evening, June 17.
"If history has taught us anything, I think it's going to be really good," said reporter and anchor Mike Killeen from CTV, Canada's Olympic broadcaster.
Killeen, the keynote speaker at the meeting, said marketing campaigns during Turin, Italy's 2006 Winter Olympic Games have started to pay off, with tourism picking up "vigorously."
"Torino, like Vancouver, had a dip in tourism in the Olympic year, and that's not uncommon - call it Olympic avoidance, or [tourists] want to wait for the Games to actually happen -and then it picks up," Killeen said.
Killeen pointed to the Coast's torch relay as key Olympic exposure for the area.
And according to SCT's marketing chair Darren Robinson, the organization saw the "unprecedented opportunity" of the Olympics coming and deliberately set out to capitalize on it.
Robinson said the organization first assembled an arsenal of key images showing people enjoying Coast scenery and activities.
"We're as strong as our pictures are," he said.
SCT then proceeded to flog the Coast's assets at B.C. Street at Richmond's O Zone, which saw 12,000 visitors pass through each day for the duration of the Olympics.
"This was really the province's way to showcase in a pavilion what every region has to offer," he said. "This is 17 days of international consumer media exposure."
Robinson spoke of other initiatives SCT has launched to draw tourism in the Olympic year and well beyond, pointing, for example, to a media kit plus four high-definition tourism-based videos about the Coast.
And SCT's efforts, he said, have been paying off with increased media coverage in key publications such as BC Magazine and increased exposure, such as a dramatically-increased presence on British Columbia destination website Hello BC over the past year.
Robinson spoke about the organization's meetings and retreats project, which is looking to sell the Coast as a key destination for executive meetings, retreats and weddings.
"We may not be able to compete with urban city centres when it comes to facilities, infrastructure, high tech gadgets and whatnot, but what they can't compete with us with is what we can provide in inspiration, what we can provide in experience," he said. "And those experiences equate to stronger teams and stronger team-building opportunities."
Celia Robbin, vice president of marketing, spoke about some of SCT's upcoming projects, including an "allure brochure."
"We're going to be putting together a real kind of eye candy piece that sits on the coffee table and gets someone excited about, 'I want to go see that sunset and look over the water,'" she said.
A fall campaign will celebrate arts and culture on the Coast, looking to promote the Coast as a destination outside the popular summer months, by highlighting craft fairs and lesser-known festivals such as the Mushroom Festival.
On the tradeshow front, SCT has developed a co-operative funding model, which would allow the organization to partner with local member businesses to cover tradeshow participation costs. If the model works, Robbin said, it would allow the SCT to market the Sunshine Coast at an increased number of forums, while also increasing exposure for partner organizations.
"It worked really well for the Vancouver Outdoor Adventure Show," she said. "We had lots of different activity providers who helped us put on that show."
Beyond that, Robbin stressed that SCT is focusing on social media strategies to raise the area's profile through a Twitter presence, YouTube channel and blog.
"Social media is a way to start engaging the power of everyone's individual social networks, to be able to get the message out," she said.
