29th November, 2021
Covid19 has had a long-term impact on the travel industry, but considering that it’s been 18 months or so, the agile and proactive tourism boards have been looking at ways to rebuild their respective future.
Destination Canada, like others, suffered a lot. “Nearly 50% of tourism revenue was lost. Airlines (witnessed) 91% revenue decline and the accommodation sector (saw) 63% decline. Business events were stalled,” shared Sarah E. Finstad, Destination Canada during Ai’s webinar about how to lead tourism recovery.
Sarah mentioned that it was decided to build a new vision for the tourism sector. It was felt that a roadmap and plan needs to be place to ensure the decline in revenue is arrested when something of this magnitude happens again. Also, it was decided to come up with globally competitive travel products and enrich the life of visitors. And importantly, another area of planning was – whom to market and how to market. She referred to the brand strategy and the significance of “high-value travellers”.
Counting on loyalty
“Loyalty programs are an untapped source,” Sarah said.
And explaining why Destination Canada recently announced a limited-time, exclusive campaign, offering to match the tier of Air Canada’s Aeroplan members that are US residents and have a tier with an eligible US airline listed, she said there were 15m visitors from the U. S. in 2019, with U. S. being the largest source market for Canada. “6m of American travellers hold elite airline loyalty status,” shared Sarah. With Canada opting to open its borders recently, the tourism board was looking at targeting Americans, who have been travelling for domestic trips. It was felt that by partnering with Air Canada Aeroplan there was an opportunity to incentivize US frequent travellers to choose Canada for their next trip. This way also build advocacy for Canada and drive traveller lifetime value.
Mark Ross-Smith, StatusMatch.Com asserted that status match is a powerful concept but the research revealed that the overall customer experience with loyalty programs was average. So the campaign focused on not only working on an immersive brand experience and work on a strong visual appeal to traveller, but also fast processing and great customer support. The team took care of the experience by minutely looking at the entire process. For e.g. provided a tracking number, looked into simplifying the entire 13-step process from application to tier upgrade, there were email communication updates etc.
Regarding the response from the campaign, launched in late September, Air Canada’s Randy Langlois said, “There has been a solid response from a wide variety of elite status levels. (It is) early yet to assess true insights into the test, but there is anecdotal evidence of program engagement.”
By Ritesh Gupta
Ai Team
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