Tourism 2010 Resource Centre

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Leveraging Media for a Strong Tourism Legacy

Those excited foreign voices heard throughout Vancouver and Whistler during the 2010 Winter Games may belong to medal hopefuls, but it’s more likely that they actually are coming from a group of visiting journalists who’ve laid fresh eyes on the North Shore Mountains, or just tried their first serving of candied salmon.

Over 10,000 journalists – more than BC has ever hosted at one time – have touched down to cover the Games.

Media teams from the 2010 Tourism Consortium (Tourism BC, Tourism Vancouver, Tourism Whistler, Tourism Richmond and the Canadian Tourism Commission) have been active 24/7 at all main media areas to ensure that the planet’s storytellers include BC’s diverse tourism bounty with every medal count update.

Full-service travel media desks have been strategically located in each of the three Games media centres. This has allowed Consortium staff to engage with press on a daily basis during the Games. As key hubs for members of the working press, the centres offer a prime location for the Consortium to promote British Columbia, its businesses, communities and tourism opportunities to the world.

Serving accredited press, the Main Media Centre, located within the Canada Place complex and the Vancouver Convention Centre, provides a shared location for 2,800 print and photographic press and 7,000 broadcasters who are expected to attract as many as three billion worldwide television viewers. A second, smaller centre for accredited press, including host broadcasters, runs out of the Whistler Conference Centre.

In addition, the British Columbia International Media Centre, located centrally in Robson Square, is serving 1,300 additional unaccredited media. The highly visible, fully loaded tourism desks in each location serve as a one-stop media concierge – offering story ideas, B-roll, tourism information and fact checking – staffed by over 100 Consortium employees and volunteers.

“These centralized press locations provide the opportunity to offer a vast number of journalists tailored and timely travel story ideas and encourage further coverage of the province,” says Mika Ryan, Tourism BC's Manager of 2010 Media Relations.

Each day of the Games, the 2010 Tourism Consortium teams has distributed print and electronic versions of Today’s Story Ideas from the Olympic Games’ Host Destination, a newsletter bursting with story tips and buzz on events taking place throughout the province, including profiles on the hometowns of BC athletes who have a chance to medal. The daily list of story ideas has also gone to the 2010 Tourism Consortium’s complete media database twice during the Games.

But many journalists here for the Games were already well-armed with travel story ideas thanks to the extensive pre-Games media effort by the 2010 Tourism Consortium teams.

During the Beijing 2008 Olympic Summer Games, the teams launched www.destination2010.ca, as a growing source of story ideas, facts and statistics, images, footage and key contacts for BC destinations.

Since its launch, journalists have downloaded more than 700 stories and images. New content, story ideas and media releases will be posted to the site regularly during the 2010 Winter Games.

Approximately 3,000 journalists from key BC tourism markets – including Ontario, the US, Europe and Asia – received the 2010 Tourism Passport, which promotes coverage of the province with free access to attractions, tours and nightclubs, free one-way travel on BC Ferries and steep discounts on transportation, hotels, and restaurant food bills throughout the province until March 21, 2010.

“The Passport program encourages media to explore the province before and after the Games with incentives like complimentary lift tickets at Kootenay resorts, whale watching on Vancouver Island, and open invitations to BC’s lesser-known tourism regions,” says Ryan.

“Tourism partners outside Whistler and Vancouver have already reported many Passport redemptions, which will result in increased off-the-beaten-path coverage during and after the Games.”

In the months leading up to the Games, Consortium media relations specialists were busy distributing B-roll, story ideas, and providing general assistance with tourism stories around BC in an effort to generate more province-wide coverage during and after the Games.

The joint media teams helped rights-holding broadcasters scout filming locations and find story ideas, as well as assist with filming visits. To date, the Consortium has hosted broadcasters from the United States, Germany, Korea, the United Kingdom, China and Canada in locations around the province, including Northern BC, the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast and Vancouver Island.

BC travel stories are surging globally as the Games unfold. BC-wide coverage is pouring in with destination vignettes and athlete profiles during the Games, and Ryan reports that press are already working on major feature ‘legacy stories’ that will showcase the effect of the Games province-wide for months and years to come.