The Cabot Trail recently recieved another accolade by being ranked as one of Canada’s top ten destinations by Destination Canada - the Nordic Countries.  The Cabot Trail was ranked fourth in top ten with Rockies taking number one sport.

Destination Canada is located in Oslo, Norway and was established in 2002. The goals of the organization is to development and maintain awareness of canada in the nordic countries as a four season destination for business, lesiure, and student travel . 

Interesting enough Destination Canada did not ranked the Cycling the Cabot Trail as one of the top seven cycling routes in Canada. Outside Magazine in United States ranked Cycling the Cabot Trail as one of the top 20 outdoor adventures in Canada and Bicycling Magazine did a superb article on the Cabot Trail last year on the merits of this top cycling route in Canada.

The Cabot Trail was nominated and voted on by the public as one of Canada’s top seven wonders in the CBC Wonders of Canada Project.

I first learned of online press releases from an E-Marketing workshop with a Couple of Chicks - Patricia Brusha and Alicia Whalen, and later with Todd Lucier. Ironic, both were Nova Scotia Masterclass series workshops, one in 2007 and the other in 2008.  I want to tell you two stories.

First story is from the Todd Lucier at the 2008 Nova Scotia Masterclass Series workshop in Port Hawkesbury. He did a goggle search on Sydney, Nova Scotia, Golf Courses. On page one of the search, 10 items came up - 5 google maps where golf courses were located, 1 press release, 1 blog and 1 photos- flickr, and only two golf courses web sites came up. What a difference web 2.0 has made.

Second story - Recently I was involved with the Ride the Lobster, the World’s longest Unicycle Race, June 16-20 in Nova Scotia .  It took me 4 days to get my press release in the newspaper but one day using an online press release site called prlog.com. In the first day, I was on page two of google search and second day on page 1.

My friend, Phil Caines, of Tourism Tide, recently posted on his blog - “The Top 27 Free Press Releases Sites“. He recommends www.pr.com while I am favorite of www.prlog.com.  On-line press releases do make a difference and I use them all the time. Do you ?  

 

I have been writing alot about experiences lately in the travel industry and the importance of providing visitors with several during their vacation.  Well this past week, I had the opportunity to be a part of unique experience :  Ride the Lobster, the world’s longest unicycle race - 800 kms from one end of Nova Scotia to the other - Yarmouth to Baddeck.  

I helped co-ordinate with my partners Stage 5 of the race - Cape Breton Island and also helped out with three demonstrations and the finish in Baddeck. It was a hectic week but everyone was looking forward to their arrival on June 20.  The Condor demo team was awesome and wow the audience with some of their great moves. All four were world champions in their discpline. Then came the riders in the race passing by us with some going as fast as 45 kms.  They are amazing athletes who pedal unicycles with 36′ wheels, some with gears and some with brakes. The riders finished in Baddeck between 5:30 pm. - 9:30 pm.  They were fed at Greenwood United Church and later enjoyed a celidh at Gaelic College, St. Anns where they resided for the evening.

My highlight of the whole event was the awards ceremony. Usually ceremonies can be long and boring but not this one.  You could feel the emotion in the room right from the start. I don’t recall ever seeing so many standing ovations for riders and race officials. The camarderie of the riders was amazing and over the last 5 days many got a chance to know each other. The stories of sportmanship and others helping teams with equipment were exceptional.  Ride the Lobster certainly touched many people and an experience many will not forget.

I had the opportunity to interview Edward Wedler, Chair of the Ride the Lobster Racing Society after the awards ceremony. 

Recently, I had the the opportunity and pleasure to interview Sam Wakeling, a unicyclist and a member of team Smile at Ride the Lobster race, the world’s longest unicycle race, June 16-20 in Nova Scotia. Sam is the world recorder holder for most kms in 24 hrs with 450kms. Sam is a graduate or soon to be in Computer  Science at Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales.  You pronounce it “abba-WRIST-with”.

He is an exceptional young man, well spoken, educated and very at ease during interviews. He has his own blog, and is a great photographer - his photos can be seen on Flickr .  Sam had high praise for the Ride the Lobster event,  the people of Nova Scotia and the province. His team finished in 5th place.

 The title of the podcast below is “A Special  Place for Special people”. 

                                                                                                                                                                      Ride the Lobster - the world’s longest unicycle race, 800 kms from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to Baddeck, Nova Scotia, June 16-20,  will  feature more technology than any other event held in Nova Scotia. 

You will see new and social media at its best and traditional media trying to make an impact. Blogs, podcasts, videos, GPS, google maps, text messaging, facebook, are all going to be busy during the race and afterwards.  Festivals & events 2.0 is the wave of the future.

Picture to the left is Sam Wakeling, Wales, the world record holder for most kms by unicyclist in 24 hrs - 450 kms.  He is on Team Smile, one of 35 teams entered in this international race featuring 13 countries.

All the latest technology using new media and social media will be used to promote and provide updates & reports each day of the race.  Britech Information Systems will be providing the technology to provide live results using GPS technology and google maps. This technology will be able to track how each team is doing throughout the race.  

 

 

One of the most unique tools to be developed to plan your vacation was just released recently - TravelMuse- Inspiration Finder.  This tool is based on your budget, interests and travel time and then provides you with a number of packages based on the infromation. I tried it out and the concept is quite interesting. The beta version seems to work good except most of the info in the database is US. I am sure this will improve as more information is added and countries.

TravelMuse also has a trip planner which you install a Travel Muse bookmarker and collect information from your research and bring to one central place.  The trip planner and inspiration finder work together and integrate all your data.  You can share informnation with your family and friends.

Recently, I read on my CTC Daily Tourism News, an article  - “Online Spending Outpaces Traditional Avenues on June 4th. I started smiling looking at the title and keep on smiling when reading it.  This is not a big surprise to me at all and have been investing less in print media for the last two -three years  Why ??? .. same reason the article states - the inability of radio, TV, newspapers and magazines to prove return on investment.   Dave Wilkening, Travel Mole, reports that the Borrell Associates study “The Big Shift” indicates online promotions will triple to $22 Billion in 2012 from $8 Billion in 2007.

My friends at A Couple of Chicks E-Marketing, Patricia Brusha and Alicia Whalen, taught me sometime ago that the web is most measureable medium out there today.  With tools such as e-marketing newsletters, web analytics, SEO, keywords, adwords and pay-per-click, the results of online marketing campaigns are very measurable. My experience to-date show this with on-line campaigns not so with newspaper &  magazine ads, and brochures .

Most marketers will state there is definitely a need for integrating traditional marketing with online marketing. Many marketing campaigns have different goals and markets to reach and require tactics of both. Rarely do they like to talk about percentages of each in a campaign.  Social media has made an impact and also added another dimension to marketing.   

Dr. Patrick Dixon video - ”Online Communities Change the World - marketing and consumer”,  briefly talks about online communities and tripadvisor. His website  and videos is a wealth of information on the future.

This week is Tourism Week accross Canada, June 2-8,  where tourism become the focus of attention. Tourism is an economic generator - $70 billion plus as well a vital source of government revenue - governments (provincial & federal) earn 29.1cents per every dollar spent on tourism, 19.4 billion in taxes.

TIAC - the Tourism Industry Association of Canada kicks off tourism week with a release of two important documents, the first- a press release on June 2 - Canadian Tourism Sector on the Brink of Crisis and second - the Report on Canada’s Tourism Competitiveness - A call for action for Canadian Tourism. I encourage you to read both to understand the situation tourism is nationally.

In the Press release, TIAC focus in on two areas - Access to Canada and Product Animation and asking governments to play a role immediately  while the report includes more - Marketing Canada Internationally, Canada - a Green and Sustainable Destination.  

Tourism week is a time to reflect on the tourism industry past and present and where we are going in the future.   

Victoria County has two beaches in the top twenty five for Canada as ranked by Canadian Geographic Magazine - May 2008 edition. Both beaches - Black Brook and Ingonish Beach are located in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park on the world famous Cabot Trail.

Canadian Geographic magazine wanted the list to represent the entire country and a wide range of beaches.  The magazine noted that Black Brook was a geological gem dividing the beach in two between rivers, deep canyons, steep cliffs and mountains as well Ingonish Beach between the Atlantic Ocean and Freshwater Lake.

But I would also add Black Brook biggest attraction is the waves and using boogie boards to surf the waves. Notice in the above picture the falls in the background - Still Brook Falls.  Black Brook beach also does not seem to attract the jellyfish in the summer.  Ingonish Beach has a been a popular beach for many years and has great views of Middlehead & Keltic Lodge and Cape Smokey.  

Ride the Lobster is coming soon !!!!   What is it ?   It is the world’s longest unicycle race - 800 kms from Yarmouth to Baddeck, Nova Scotia.  So how did this event get its name ? If you look at a map of Nova Scotia, the province is shaped like a lobster thus the event is called Ride the Lobster. To date 35 teams from thirteen countries have registered - 3 on a team - it is a relay race.  To introduce you to this event, a Nova Scotia rider and the sport of unicycling watch the event’s first video -