The moose is no longer on the loose.
While the famed Canadian travel icon isn't about to be put out to pasture, the traditional tourism image - along with mountains and Mounties - is taking a back seat as tourism marketers explore uncharted territory.
The approach is being welcomed by tourism officials in Edmonton as they work to better herald the draws of its urban backdrop.
Coming off a bumper year, which saw Edmonton stage the World Masters Games and launch the inaugural West Edmonton Mall Grand Prix of Edmonton, the marketing focus in 2006 will shift slightly as branding tourism becomes a focal point on both the provincial and national levels.
The major move comes from the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), which is relegating time-honoured Canadian travel icons to secondary status.
Instead, the goal is to put Canada in the forefront of tourism marketing by personalizing its advertising campaigns.
"We need to create a sense of intrigue, a desire to come (to Canada)," says Anna Pollock, the CTC's vice-president of strategy, who spoke at Edmonton Tourism's recent annual general meeting. "Canada is well-known and seen as exciting, but it's not top-of-mind as a place to visit."
The CTC is working on a number of fronts to solve that dilemma, and advertising is switching gears to create a brand that is more about the customer.
"We're probably the only country in the world where we're targeting the consumer more than (the) marketing itself," says Pollock.
That's being done by the new "Keep Exploring" brand, which encourages potential travellers to Canada to explore the country via an interactive Keep Exploring website that will allow people to better connect with what Canada has to offer.
The overall campaign, including print ads, launched last month in Europe and will be rolled out into the United States later this year.
Ken Fiske, vice-president for tourism, events and motion pictures at Edmonton Economic Development Corp., says plans are already in place to market Edmonton under the Keep Exploring brand.
"It does open up opportunities," says Fiske. "Now we can start selling an urban product and the beauty of it is the way it's structured. We can get straight to the consumer through their (Keep Exploring) website with the exciting urban product that we have to offer, which includes West Edmonton Mall, our festivals, our arts and culture."
A new CTC team is being hired, says Pollock, referring to the people who will work with provincial and city partners across Canada to show them how to incorporate localized tourism advertising into the national program.
"But if you can imagine, under that Keep Exploring banner it is possible then to bring in a new place, like Keep Exploring Edmonton and still keep within the theme," says Pollock.
Fiske expects that Edmonton Tourism might be able to get the Keep Exploring Edmonton campaign up as early as this summer. He believes it will be fully integrated by 2007.
As of next month, Canada's travel marketing will fall under the www.Canada.travel domain name to make it easier to find on the web.
Meanwhile, Travel Alberta is also looking at the possibility of rebranding its image.
"We're looking at and trying to define what Alberta's brand is now," says Derek Coke-Kerr, managing director of Travel Alberta, who was also at the Edmonton Tourism meeting. "We've marketed, we've made ads, we've used a lot of different images, but we've never truly designed our brand."
It could take up to a year to complete the Travel Alberta rebranding exercise.
"We started work really about a month ago. We had a round of industry consultations ... and we'll wait for a report on the first phase of the exercise, which is the evaluation phase," adds Coke-Kerr. "It might suggest the status quo, it might (suggest) some tweaking or some major changes or a total rebrand.
"Now that the CTC has defined the Canadian travel brand with Keep Exploring, now is the time for Alberta to come in and take a look at its brand and make sure that it's complementary and it's doing all the things that a good professional solid brand should do."
Rebranding aside, Edmonton Tourism expects another strong year, and has a targeted sales goal to book 60,000 room nights valued at $17.7 million.
It's also looking forward to the expansion of the city's convention centre, with the grand opening of Hall D next month.
"It's going to be fabulous," says Fiske. "We're already seeing the effect of Hall D on our meetings market in the bookings we've got in there, and the good news is the bookings are clearly up and it's not the local markets that are booking it."
Edmonton is also looking to boost its share of film production levels by 10 per cent in 2006, coming off a year that saw Brad Pitt in the city for the shooting of The Assassination of Jesse James, along with the filming of two made-for-television movies for American networks.
It's an excellent way to make a tourism destination a star, says Pollock, noting how the Lord of The Rings films have helped New Zealand bolster its tourism sector.
"What we're finding is that there are a number of other ways that countries become exposed to customers that may influence their destination choices outside of conventional media advertising," she says.
And for those fans of moose, mountains and Mounties, there's no need to worry, says the CTC's Pollock.
"We're not eliminating those mountains (and other icons) at all because they are an essential part of Canada," says Pollock. "We're just providing a way of presenting them in a fresh light. There are a number of icons, for example, the CN Tower, Lake Louise and so on. They are all still part of what it means to come to Canada, but we're just trying to find a different way of expressing who we are."
(Laura Severs can be reached at laura@businessedge.ca)
