2008 annual report - tourism · pdf file2008 annual report ... tourism board included: new...
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Although 2008 was a challeng-ing year for the tourism industry, Tourism Burlington is pleased with our overall performance. Factors such as high gas prices reducing travel, a high Canadian dollar making trips abroad more attractive and Americans still not travelling outside of the U.S., all contributed to visitation and website visits being down. This downturn was also seen in Ontario and global statistics. Considering these factors we did well to maintain occupancy rates year over year. Throughout 2008 Tourism Burlington developed strategic new programs and initiatives to create awareness and encourage visitors to come to our destination. Here are just a few of our 2008 accomplishments. We completed a Visitor Services Review which rec-ommended implementing a
visitor kiosk program, continuing to provide summer travel counsel-lors at Discovery Landing and at major festivals and developing a local public relations campaign to market visitor services. Former Tourism Minister Peter Fonseca was the key-note speaker at our May AGM. At this event we also an-nounced several green ini-tiatives. Working with the Burlington Hotel Association (BHA), we developed a new marketing campaign - Burlington Hotel Deals We continued to experience significant partner growth over the year with 380 businesses and individuals now being tourism partners. As recommended by the Premier Ranked project a Halton Tourism Advisory Committee was formed and
developed an ambitious work plan. Burlington is well-represented on this commit-tee with Mayor Cam Jackson as Chair, Dave Miller from Sound of Music, Alison Rath from RBG and myself all being
members. The new Stats Canada figures show that tourism is an impor-tant economic driver in Halton with 2.9m visitors in 2007 generating $258m in total tourism receipts, resulting in over 4,000 people being employed in tourism jobs. With Burlington now being recognized as the 4th best place to live in Canada, let’s invite visitors to see what our residents are so proud of...Beautiful Burlington!
Up to the Challenge!
May 2009
2008 Key Accomplishments
Visitor Services Review Board Evaluation Tourism Minister
AGM Keynote DMF Program
Expansion 29% Partner
growth Halton Tourism Advisory
Revenue $408,682
Expenses $399,766
R. Surplus $8,906
Surplus $61,342
Reserve Fund
$66,395
Capital Fund
$49,765
DMF Funds (Rev/Exp)
$ 418,505
Financial Highlights 2008
2008 Annual Report
Message from the Chair Susan Morrissey
The tourism industry continues to be tested with many global influences impacting our business in
2008.
Burlington experienced some of these challenges, but with the hard work of our team and BHA partners occupancy numbers were
comparable to ‘07. With many new events and activities planned, the global issues easing, and some of our attraction partners seeing record attendance numbers we are extremely positive about
2009.
The success of Tourism Burlington is our great staff, volunteers, partnerships, and Board. I congratulate all of you for your hard work and achieve-ments. Without your in-volvement and support, we would not continue to
2007 Halton Tourism Profile
$2.9m visitors
64% visited family & friends
$258m total tourism receipts
4,000 jobs in tourism
Tourism Board included:
Visitor Guides expanded distribu-tion to Niagara area attractions, hotels, events, and 400 Highways centres
2 million more impressions in various advertising publications and websites
New Summer/Fall marketing campaign (see article below)
Website redesign
New Coupon Book—50,000 copies distributed
$78,000 in grants awarded to events and sport groups
Travel Counsellors provided at Discovery Landing from mid-June until Labour Day
New meeting marketing campaign Bring it Home conceived focusing on local market hosting meetings and conferences at home.
2008 was the first full year that we had the DMF funding along with a full comple-ment of staff re-
sources in place. Through an agree-ment with the BHA, Tourism is leverag-ing these funds to increase awareness of Burlington as a destination. Our marketing plan, developed with the Marketing Committee, BHA and the
―After the festivals, the fun,
the vining and the
dining, The Rest is Easy with
Burlington Hotel Deals.”
Tag line, Tourism Marketing
John Duff—Duff Advertising
Destination Marketing Fee
Measuring 2008 Tourism Performance
New Marketing Campaign
PAGE 2 2008 ANNUAL REPORT
Service 2008 Information Centre visits 12,844 - 11% decrease
Discovery Landing visits 7821 - 29% decrease
Website Visits 207,934 - 15% decrease
Website Hits 4,411,868 - 17% decrease
Volunteer Hours 830.5
Souvenir requests groups/individuals 210 groups
Out of Country requests 26,073 participants 60- out of country
Pins distributed 9643 City, 4842 Canada/Burlington
Advocacy–support letters 3
Public Relations - Displays/Presentations/Events
10 Displays, 4 FAM tours, 10 Presentations, 90 Events
Partnership contributions – DMF - coop ads, sponsorships, in kind, grants
$526,500
Working with our partners, we have been tracking performance in a number of areas and due to industry challenges report de-creases in some segments: Our Centre visitation was down compared to 2007 as well as our stats at Discovery Landing. Our website has seen a 15% decrease in visits. We distributed on behalf of the City over 13,000 pins. We represented tourism at 90 community/regional events. With the DMF, our partner contributions have increased from $320,000 to $526,000 Continued bottom of page 3
Working with Duff Advertising a new cam-paign was created in the spring of ‘08 pro-moting Burlington Hotel Deals to south-western Ontario, north-western New York and locally targeted to visiting friends and family. The packages included a special room rate plus $20 gift cards for local at-tractions and shopping areas. Momentum is building for this program and it is offered throughout ‘09. The REST IS EASY!!
Tourism Burlington is thrilled to have a new website with a more appealing look and expanded functionality . Some of the new features include:
Feature boxes -highlighting events
Tourism Video
One click to target audiences: Residents, Meeting Planners, Sports Organizers, Group Travel, Media and Partners
Send an e-postcard option
Sign guest book option New content includes:
Travel tips -customs, parking, pet friendly facilities, special needs visitors, weather etc.
Famous Burlingtonians
Frequently Asked Questions
Moving to Burlington
Arts & Culture
Farms & Markets
Culinary Experiences
Gardens & Parks
History & Museums
Spas
Sports & Recreation Partner information has been expanded to include events, training, resources, archived Enews etc. Future web additions will include google map links for our partners, and new content on birding, geocaching, places of worship, gravesite tourism and more. Visit often, bookmark and link to our site!
Total attraction attendance 823,147 (not all provided)
Major Event/festival attendance 441,000.
Group tour attendance 17,594.
Hotel occupancy was 57% (same as 2007) and average daily room rate (ADR) was $116.65
175,000 copies of print materials (total # of public pieces)
226 Welcome to Burlington New Resident Packages
8 media stories/interviews
15 ads in publications
33 photo requests from partners
380 partners (up from 294)
NOTE: Not all partner information provided on a consistent basis.
2008 Tourism Events
New Tourism Burlington Website
Performance Measures cont. pg 2
of Burlington Art Centre and long-time volunteer at the Chamber Business Awards Gala in May. Through DMF funding, we provided visitor information booths at 7 major festivals and events during the summer season, greeting over 4,000 visitors. Last summer we developed a life-size postcard to use for photo opportunities at the booths. Welcome booths were also placed at selected events through-
out the year. We hosted a Celebrate Ontario workshop in December where over 20 industry partners received tips on how to complete applications with the goal of obtaining grant funding for their events in 2009.
In 2008, Tourism hosted or partici-pated in numerous events. At the Tourism Ambassa-dor Training, 47
front-line hotel,, attraction and ser-vice industry staff and volunteers were trained as Burlington ambassadors. We presented the Tourism Builder Award to Louise Cooke former Chair
www.tourismburlington.com
PAGE 3 2008 ANNUAL REPORT
Louise Cook
Lifesize postcard Events
Tourism Burlington Team
Pam Belgrade Executive Director [email protected]
Simone Babineau Marketing Coordinator - [email protected]
-Leisure, Media, Events
Linda Olimer Marketing Coordinator - [email protected]
Sport, Meetings, Group Travel
Sally Fitz-Gibbon Administration & Visitors [email protected]
Services Coordinator
Linda Cvetanovic Administrative Assistant [email protected]
414 Locust St. Burlington Ontario L7S 1T7
CONTACT US
bid later in 2009. We are researching a number of areas in order to expand our product offerings. This includes working with Hamilton on a possible Scenic Beach Drive, researching Birding in Burling-ton, with a number of local partners and determining if our city should develop a Busker program. Once again we plan on celebrating National Tourism Week June 1-7 by increasing public awareness about our local attractions and driving traffic to our website. We will be updating our tourism DVD with more winter/fall shots and our Virtual Tour so stay tuned for more information on partner opportunities. We will continue to offer Event Funding, and hosting Time Out Sport networking sessions. Hotel Deals pro-motion continues with local and
For 2009 we have many exciting mar-keting and partner activities planned. In February, we hosted a Go Green Workshop where 24 partners learned how to develop green policies and be more sustainable. The Halton Tourism Advisory Commit-tee hosted the first annual Halton Tourism Summit in March with over 70 people attending and presented their ambitious work plan. Tourism has developed a page on Facebook - Discover Burlington Ontario and also are keeping people updated via Twitter—BurlingtonTour. Become a fan or follow us!! We have been working closely with the City on the Pan Am Games bid now that Sherwood Forest Park has been identified as a site for soccer (football). A decision will be made on whether Canada is successful with the
Ontario exposure. We are also pleased to be working with partners to host a number of major conferences and tournaments this year which are featured on our website and in our annual report presentation. We will continue to provide updates on these activities via our Tourism ENews.
Marketing & Partner
Initiatives in 2009
Phone: 905 634-5594 Fax: 905 634-7220 Email: [email protected]
Congratulations
to 2008 Tourism Builder
Award Recipients
CEO Mark Runciman & Past Chair Terry Yates
from the
Royal Botanical Gardens
Visitor Survey Summer ‘08
Some interesting information has been gathered June-August from the survey boxes located at hotels attractions, etc. Here are some of the highlights:
71% female
48% married
42% from Halton/Hamilton
5.3% from GTA
15% North & Central Ontario
28% were on day trip
43% were visiting friends/family
11% were on business or vacation
14 % was their 1st visit
81% travelled by car
35% stayed in hotel
19% spent over $500
14% spent $250-500 Top activities during visit:
64% enjoying arts/culture
60% visiting Waterfront
57% dining
50% visiting RBG NOTE: Fall-Spr. Stats also avail-