VANCOUVER, B.C. – A call to world travellers to “keep exploring” Canada is being heard, but not answered, finds a new international study.
Canada’s brand now ranks second in the world in a survey of 2,700 visitors, with respondents giving the country’s brand high marks as a place for families and those looking to do business.
The United States ranked eighth on the survey, while Australia took the top spot.
Rina Plapler, who wrote the Country Brand Index Report for global consulting firm FutureBrand, said Monday that Canada is appealing because “it’s a well-run country, people see it as safe, they see it as a strong business destination, they see it as an attractive leisure destination.”
But respondents only ranked Canada ninth as the place they’d most like to return to or visit.
Though the awareness of Canada’s brand keeps getting stronger – it was ranked sixth overall last year – officials say they need to work harder to move Canada up the must-see list.
The most recent statistics for tourism to Canada showed a one per cent drop in visitors in August, well before the crash of world markets that will certainly lead to a further decline in travel.
“People have this idea that they’d like to live in Canada, that they’d like to do business in Canada, that they see Canada as well governed and as a safe country,” said Michelle McKenzie, president of the Canadian Tourism Commission.
“But they just can’t really run a movie in their head about what they’d do if they came to Canada for a vacation.”
They’re about see a blockbuster film.
The 2010 Winter Olympics coming to Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move the image of Canada beyond moose and Mounties.
An estimatedsub> 1.1 million more visitors will come to British Columbia alone from 2008 to 2012 and the number of people who will catch a glimpse of Canada through media exposure is over a billion.
“We’re really very fortunate to have the Olympics at the time that we need it the most,” said Greg Klassen, vice-president of marketing with the commission.
“With a lot of uncertainty that’s going on in the tourism world, in spite of having a very resilient customer and a very resilient strategy to the times that are coming, we have a singular opportunity to amplify and take our message out there to the rest of the world,” he said.
About three years ago, the commission changed Canada’s tourism slogan from “discover our true nature” to “keep exploring.”
It also received $26 million from the federal government to leverage tourism opportunities around the Olympics.
All of the provinces and territories have signed agreements with Vancouver’s Olympic organizers that will give them some exposure during the Games as well as the right to use Olympic marks in promoting themselves before and after the Games.
How far the Olympic glow will reach is uncertain.
A study by the European Tour Operators’ Association said Greece’s growth rate in tourism has lagged as much as 20 per cent behind countries like Turkey since it hosted the Games in 2004.
A year after Salt Lake City hosted the Olympics, the state of Utah saw international visitor arrivals fall to their lowest level in 13 years, despite awareness of the state being at an all-time high.
China, by contrast, is already recording an uptick in tourists to Beijing in the months after the Olympics.
The Country Brand Index is the latest in a series of travel surveys that have ranked Canada near the top of the list.
The travel guide company Lonely Planet included Canada among its top 10 destinations for 2009, alongside places like Kyrgyzstan and Bangladesh.
The 2008 Conde Nast Traveller’s readers’ choice awards highlighted King Pacific Lodge in British Columbia as the fourth-best property in the world, while Vancouver, Victoria and Quebec City were ranked the top five best places in the Americas.
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