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CANADIAN TOURISM COMMISSION
If it wasn't mad cow disease and SARS, it was the war in Iraq and the fast-rising Canadian dollar. For the Canadian Tourism Commission, it seemed like one insurmountable crisis after another.
But the marketing team at the CTC-led by Patrick Gedge, senior vice-president of marketing and sales-took on the challenge of salvaging Canada's $54-billion tourism industry with thoughtful urgency.
"We learned a lot post-9/11 about how to get into markets quickly, so we were as prepared as anyone could be under the circumstances," says Gedge.
For the CTC, its research division is what drives its marketing. With Americans accounting for more than 80% of the almost 20 million international visitors to Canada annually (as measured by overnight stays), Gedge says the CTC keeps a constant pulse on the U.S. travel climate. So when SARS hit, within two and a half weeks focus groups were assembled in key U.S. cities.
"Research showed that Americans wanted to stay close to home not just because of international events, but because the economy was slowing...