MARKETING ACTIVITIES 2021

Tourism marketing continues with funding provided by the Regional District Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) in partnership with Destination BC. The MRDT funds are leveraged for some cooperative projects and some are fully supported by MRDT Funds.

Tourism Marketing Project Management provided by the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association supported by contract services of the Boundary Country Stakeholder liaison. This model provides expertise and connectivity to the regional and provincial tourism organizations with local insights and engagement essential for capacity building and stakeholder engagement locally.

BOUNDARY COUNTRY MARKETING ACTIVITIES

Boundarybc.com website – RDKB with Destination BC Funding

• Main call-to-action for marketing activities
• To increase business referrals from the website to operators
• Website improvements continued through 2021 with the final push for updates towards the end of the year, launching early 2022.

Boundary BC Travel Experiences Guide – RDKB with Destination BC Funding

• Main fulfillment piece for visitor services
• Partnership with Black Press

Trail Map

June saw the release of the trail map distributed in Visitor Centres, Accommodations, Eateries, retail stores and other Boundary Stakeholders. View the online version here.

Social Media Channels – Facebook/Instagram – RDKB with Destination BC Funding

• To increase social media engagement and traveler advocacy
• Digital campaigns proving successful in increasing engagement – see monthly analytics reports here 

Digital Campaigns – RDKB, DBC Co-op program funding with MRDT Funding

• To drive traffic to the website and increase social engagement
• Summer Campaign centered around the release of the Trail map: July 1 to Sept 8 – Photo Challenge virtual event for all BC residents, that featured a new trails page featuring several stakeholders including; Visitor Centres, Accommodations, Eateries, Trails and other natural sites such as lakes and rivers. Tourism businesses were asked to provide prizes and to post the contest onsite with a QR code to lead people to the trail campaign page and to pick up a trail map at a nearby visitor centre or business. The event was in partnership with Black Press Media (Grand Forks Gazette and Boundary Times) “Take a Hike” featurette. Final winners and prize contributors were on two page spread on Sept 15 
• Winter campaign: Oct 15 – Nov 15 – A new page was developed for the campaign here.
• Fall campaign: Sept 1 – 30 – Experience Fall in Boundary Country – The most successful campaign to date, view here. An extra campaign for this year, paid for with DBC Co-op Covid Relief funds. In order to attempt to extend what was a more sluggish season than usual due to the fires/smoke in the interior. The campaign was run by War Room again with programmatic advertising via Facebook display ads and social display ads. The aim was to attract landing page visitors to our fall page and website clicks through to the various activities throughout the Boundary communities.
• West Coast Traveller Advertising: Managed by Black Press – Boundary Country Tourism is featured for the coming year with new articles each month on WCT, managed by Black Press. View the articles here. This was negotiateddue to the savings from printing 12,000 Experience Guides instead of 20,000.
• Offtrack Travel: We hosted the travel bloggers Offtrack Travel for 2.5 days for them to highlight some lesser-known areas to hike (their speciality). See their post here.

Destination BC Co-op Marketing program

• The Crowsnest Scenic 3 Alliance: The https://www.crowsnestscenic3.com partnership will continue in 2022 via Destination BC Co-op Marketing program. We have been working toward building awareness with the brand to date and social media will continue until the next paid campaign in Spring 2022.

Destination BC $7500 grant for asset development

• In early October a video was filmed focusing on Diversity & Inclusion in Outdoor Activities by the producer and videographer who made the fall and winter videos previously. Two sections of the KVR & CWR, Grand Forks Market, Fresh Tracks and the Wooden Spoon were filmed for some additional content collection that featured people of colour and adaptive wheelchair trail use to show accessibility on the rail trails. This content is to be submitted to Destination BC and will be used by Boundary Country Tourism for web and social channels and shared with stakeholders