Chemistry Consulting Group is one of the leading business and human resource consulting firms in British Columbia.
Destination Canada is in the process of implementing a new US marketing campaign that will address research findings indicating that many Americans perceive Canada to be remote, epic, beautiful, in the middle of nowhere and lacking urban sophistication. The new campaign will focus on experiential travel across all provinces and hopes to regain and surpass the almost 4 million US travellers that Canada lost (on an annualized basis) between 2002 and 2012.
“Looking at many of the indicators, we are seeing larger year over year growth than we have seen in some time,” says says Frank Bourree, Partner at Chemistry Consulting. “The Nanaimo accommodation properties had an outstanding month, and delegate numbers were up substantially at the Conference Centre. The Nanaimo Airport and BC Ferries also showed strong performance.”
Daytime bookings of hotel rooms are a growing trend with both business and leisure travellers. Daytime room bookings can provide a quiet place to do business (vs. an airport lounge), a safe spot to store luggage or a place to have a rest before departing on a cruise. For hotels, daytime sales of rooms provide an additional revenue stream and according to Dayuse.com, daytime guests spend 30% more than overnight guests on hotel add-ons.
According to Destination BC’s April 2015 Short-Haul Consumer Research report, only 11% of short-haul consumers interviewed are motivated to travel to BC by favourable exchange rates. This result is consistent with Tourism Victoria’s 2014 Visitor Exit Survey, which showed that the exchange rate affected the travel decision of only 11% of respondents.
“While it is important to keep in mind that occupancy and RevPAR data may be impacted by the current reduction in inventory in the City (approximately 500 rooms are still offline due to renovations taking place at several hotel properties in town), April was another amazing month for tourism in Victoria. All other indicators support another strong month of performance,” says Bourree.
