360tourisme creates helpful and innovative promotional tools for its clients, for instance:
- Client: Destination Canada in France
- Objective: Inspire travel professionals to recommend Canada to clients who have already visited by encouraging them to explore new regions through an innovative approach.
- Target travel period: Summer 2018 / Campaign period: September 2017-January 2018
- Challenge: How to make French travelers understand that the second-largest country in the world deserves more than one trip? The idea was to offer a brief guide to help travel agents quickly differentiate Canada’s provinces and territories and thus present itineraries that are unlike their clients’ previous trips.
Our Approach: A complete yet concise Canada brochure
Cyrielle took an innovative approach by creating a short brochure entitled “All of Canada in just under 50 pages.”
The goal was to provide travel professionals with an easy-to-use reference covering all of Canada’s provinces and territories while being concise enough to be consulted quickly.
Actions taken:
- Simple and differentiated structure: The brochure opens with a map of Canada and provides key information on preparing a trip (exchange rates, ETA, taxes, electrical outlets…) as well as details on direct flights to Canada and existing rail networks. Then, each geographic region (Atlantic, East, Central, West, Great North) is presented on a double-page spread, showcasing each province and territory.
- Highlighting unique experiences: Each double-page spread includes a must-see one-week itinerary and other highlights that distinguish the region. Useful information (like time zones, area, population size, provincial capital, or website) is complemented by suggestions including unique accommodations, local dishes to try, festivals to celebrate, and fun anecdotes about the region. The brochure ends with influencer accounts to follow, a game, and an incentive to register for the Canada Specialist Program to further enrich travel agents’ knowledge.
- Impactful visual design: To captivate professionals, each region is illustrated with iconic photos and simplified maps showing suggested itineraries, making it easy to quickly read and access information.
- Physical distribution: A large distribution ensured the brochure was available in all travel agencies across France. The brochure was included with Tour Hebdo magazine’s January/February 2018 issue, with 3,295 copies sent to French travel agents, and 9,500 copies were sent with the Quotidien du Tourisme magazine.
- Digital distribution: A digital version of the brochure was made available to travel agents, allowing them to copy-paste content as needed to better promote Canada to their clients. A banner was placed in Tour Hebdo’s newsletter from January 15-19, 2018, promoting this digital option to tourism professionals.
- Shared via networks: Partners such as tour operators and receptive agencies included the brochure in their own communications, ensuring a broader reach. The brochure was also promoted through Destination Canada’s February 2018 trade newsletter.
Results: Strong engagement from tourism professionals
● +5% increase in bookings for Canada from 2017 to 2018, with French visitors to Canada rising from 582,468 to 611,369.
● Growing interest in lesser-known Canadian regions: Between 2017 and 2018, provinces like Nova Scotia (+197%), New Brunswick (+39%), Manitoba (+24%), British Columbia (+16%), and Yukon (+10%) saw notable increases in interest. Tour operators confirmed that clients were increasingly curious about the Maritime provinces and Western Canada.
- Digital engagement: The interactive version of the brochure redirected users to complementary resources, notably on Canadian provincial and territorial websites
- Unanimously embraced by tourism professionals: Canadian receptive agencies requested sets of brochures to train their teams, calling the brochure their “bible” for Canada. Feedback from travel agents was also overwhelmingly positive, with the brochure helping them guide clients toward new Canadian itineraries.
With this concise and impactful brochure, Cyrielle provided French tourism professionals with an effective tool to position Canada as a multi-trip destination. Thanks to the brochure, travel agents were able to rediscover the wealth of Canada and better guide their clients to unique and authentically Canadian experiences, contributing to increased bookings for lesser-visited destinations.
