Brazil Marketing and Sales Programs

The Canadian Tourism Commission(CTC) works to promote Canada as a four-season destination to consumers and the travel trade in Brazil through joint marketing initiatives, travel-agent training and organized visits for agents and media to experience Canada first-hand.

The focus for 2013 is to convert all efforts into sales.

Consumer Read more > Close >

“It’s time to purchase. Go to Canada now.” These are the main messages CTC-Brazil is sending consumers via social media, advertising and trade consortiums. The mandate is to convert the consumer to buy instead of just dreaming.

CTC-Brazil undertook a promotion during Turismo Week March 9-18 that focused on packages to buy for July 2013. Forty tour operators took part. The intention was to create a clear understanding of Canada’s “must-do-now” Canadian Signature Experiences(CSE)

Travel Trade Read more > Close >

The travel-trade program plays an integral role in CTC-Brazil’s tourism marketing. We work directly with overseas travel companies to develop and sell Canada as a vacation destination, develop targeted promotions with the travel trade and deliver training, educational programs and familiarization tours to in-market travel sellers.

CTC-Brazil engages with the travel trade through key account development, direct investments and the pursuit of common goals.

CTC-Brazil, Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation, Tourism Toronto, Air Canadaand VIA Railhave partnered with the Brazilian Association of Tour Operators to have its annual meeting in Toronto, ON, and bring its group of directors to attend both the meeting and Rendez-vous Canada(RVC).

Besides this initiative, CTC is also calling on tour operators not associated to Braztoa to attend RVC as the market potential will grow due to new airline agreements, such as GOL (a Brazilian airline) selling Delta with WestJet.

Canada Specialists training sessions are still a priority and more than 15 sessions have already taken place since January. The goal is to keep increasing the number of accredited agents but also to keep agents already accredited up to date on Canada product.

Q1 2013 key account initiatives

·       More than 200 agents in São Paulo and Campinas (from Nascimento Turismo, Ancouradouro, Costa Brava and smaller retails agencies) attended Canada training sessions.

·       A year-long investment in soft travel covering consumer and trade activities began in February.

·       Abreutur began a roadshow with Canada in two Brazilian cities.

·       Personal Brazil participated in a south region fair and featured Canada in its booth.

·       TGK returned from a FAM tour to Vancouver, BC, Whitehorse, YT, and Toronto, ON.

·       Canada was featured through a booth and two training sessions in Agaxtur’s 60 years celebration workshop.

·       Monark delivered a Canada-branded pizza box to homes in high-end neighbourhoods.

·       Canada Turismo is creating a high-end booklet with more than 10 pages dedicated to Canada to be delivered to agents.

·       Designer Tours just launched CSE brochures at a high-end event.

 

Canada Specialist Program

CTC launched CSP Level 2 and has aggressively marketed it to the Brazilian trade through key accounts. More than 350 agents are already enrolled in Level 2 with 172 fully qualified. More than 600 agents were also trained in Canadian products by CTC-Brazil in partnership with tour operators and airlines.

Media Read more > Close >

E-marketing and social media

Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest country with a population of more than 190 million people. Canada needs to create awareness among its 20 million international travellers, who are spread out in different regions.

Social media is a great tool to reach this audience. Through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we use social media to engage consumers nationwide on the dream stage of the path to purchase. We help consumers create itineraries via Canadian Signature Experiences(CSE) images and other relevant travel information. To date (March 2013), CTC-Brazil’s Facebook channel has more than 70,000 likes.

Media

CTC-Brazil’s media and PR activities aim to develop key relationships with international media to influence a high level of positive coverage about Canada, increase awareness of Canada as a tourism destination, affect consumer travel decisions and, ultimately, inspire potential visitors to travel to Canada now.

CTC-Brazil has a presence in the national media year-round. Regionally, we focus on the strongest markets. This strategy appears to be working; Canada has jumped from seventh to fourth place on Brazilian travellers’ destination wish lists.

In February, a TV crew went to Whistler, BC, for its ski and snowboarding splendour. The resulting show was broadcast in late March and will be repeated in November. Besides the TV show, posts on its Facebook channel and its sponsors’ channels featured Whistler more than 10 times.

Different media FAM trips involving print, radio and TV are scheduled until the end of June in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia.

A blogger who went to Sun Peaks, BC, on a FAM trip last year has just launched a book with a chronicle about her trip and tips about the destination. The bloggers that spent the end of 2012 in Montréal and Québec City are still posting their tips and advocating for Canada on TV shows.

Media is seen as a third-party endorsement and is an effective way to validate consumer direct marketing efforts and get partners involved in market activites. With this in mind, CTC-Brazil sent two groups of journalists in Q4 2012 to Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia to cover shopping, skiing, snowboarding, urban expriences and winter vacations in Canada.

Two bloggers also spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Canada showcasing to Brazilian travellers the best of this season in Montréal, QC. 

Story packages (b-roll and images of Canada)

Brazilian media receives releases from CTC-Brazil partners monthly.