Alberta Business Marketing

This afternoon Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined Premier Ed Stelmach, federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice and Mayor Dave... what?... what's that? Bronconnier wasn't at the Calgary ring road funding announcement? But it's the Calgary ring road. All three levels of government are putting up the cash for it. Where the heck is the mayor? Deputy mayor? Or an alderman of any kind? I don't see any of these folks in the 'platform party' photos.

Maybe we sent this sleepy/bored Roads worker instead to represent the City instead.


BTW, is this really one of the best photos you have of the event? Aside from the City worker it looks like the two speakers are about to fall asleep too. Maybe Bronco knew this and decided he had better things to do than nod off in a SE Calgary hanger.

Tags: Dave Bronconnier, Ed Stelmach, Jim Prentice, ring road, Stephen Harper
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

With the relaunch of GlobeandMail.com and the regular Wednesday travel feature, we were delighted that Northern Edge Algonquin was featured in image and text in a story about a new travel trend… Glamping.

For the past few days, the phone has been ringing like crazy as a result of this article.

But the story just ends there.
This article is about the beginning of this story.

The purpose of this story isn’t to encourage the travel industry to embrace the BYOT (bring your own tent) practice, but instead to:

• appreciate the most important benefit of twitter – access to current trends by following travel twits.
• understand the power and immediacy of the product development cycle in an Internet age
• appreciate how Help-a-Reporter has turned the press release formula upside down.

Twitter provides access to Current Trends:

The story begins one month earlier when I noticed a tweet in my twitter stream that got me thinking about our travel packages and the current marketplace. There are really interesting people sharing their ideas on Twitter. Ideas that can enhance your business.

This tweet got me thinking about adjusting our product offer to provide a recession-based offer without lowering our price:

With a discussion among our team we realized that we could change our travel product

offer to provide a lower price point, without compromising the perceived value of the experiences we offer.

Bring your own tent and our Glamping package were born.

It’s never too late to adjust your product offer:

This isn’t the first time a challenge has faced the travel and tourism industry in Canada. April 23, 2003, Toronto was blacklisted as a travel destination by the World Health Organization. Our business, and others were hit hard hit by cancellations. It is easy to blame a difficult business environment for a poor travel season. But within weeks that year, we had created new product to fill empty beds and today, Quest for Balance (which likely wouldn’t have been created in a comfortable economic times) is a staple of our summer experience offerings.

When economic shocks shake up your business, think of it as a creative opportunity to enhance your tourism product.

Help A Reporter is more effective than traditional press releases in getting earned media:

HelpAReporter.com is a Web site that journalists, writers, reporters, bloggers and other media use to find sources for stories they are currently working on.

A newsroom, writer or reporter somewhere, right this minute is currently working on a story that you could be a source for.

Every day, approximately 100 briefs are provided in three short emails by reporters who need your help.

We saw this in a recent HARO email

I responded by email and two days later was interviewed for the feature story that is currently running on Globe and Mail.com and was featured in the print version of the paper.

Each day I spend about three minutes reading the headlines of the stories and if there is one I think I can help with, I read the brief and contact the reporter. It’s that easy.

To summarize:

• Pay attention to what’s happening NOW with Twitter. There are dozens of really helpful travel tweeps. Get started with a few travel follows like: @targetvacations , @elliotng, @kimmance, @wendyperrin, @nerdseyeview, @sekeener, @celesdavar, @cajun_mama, @authenticcoast, @happyhotelier. I know I’m leaving out a bunch, hey, I follow nearly 200o great people.
• When things get tough, get creative. Adjust your tourism offer any time you get an idea.
• For heavens sake – sign up for HARO

Links:

• twitter.com
• http://globeandmail.com/life/travel/roughing-it-hardly/article1143569/actions.jsp#
• HARO – Help a Reporter Out

Tweet This

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When I first heard about Calgary’s two “designer” bridges I was skeptical but excited. If there is one thing ALL Calgarian’s agree on it’s that our city needs to be more lively and attractive. “Iconic” architecture is something we are seriously lacking currently.

One of these bridges is set to be placed just off the western tip of Prince’s Island Park connecting Sunnyside to the downtown near the helicopter pad. This bridge will be paid for by the City of Calgary. The second bridge – I believe to be paid for by the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation – links Bridgeland and the new Rivers district (East Village) while touching the western tip of St. George’s Island where the Zoo sits.

Here we are about six months after Spanish designer Santiago Calatrava’s name was first mentioned and all the hubbub in the news about the cost being double what it would take to build a regular bridge. Much of the rhetoric still is about the cost. I’m over that. What’s done is done. And the price isn’t as outrageous as it was made out to be. (I’d like to see someone try to build a bridge over the Bow River for $2 million!)

Instead I find my mind wandering to what kind of an “iconic” bridge we’re going to get.

The City has seen the initial drawings for the first bridge and they say they will release them to the public before the end of May. (I haven't seen them as of this writing.)

But this is the first I’m hearing about the limitations being imposed on the bridge and I’m a little worried the bridge might not be as ostentatious as we had hoped for $25 million. First off, because of the helicopter pad the height of the bridge is limited. “Don’t expect towers and cables,” Mac Logan, the he city's director of transportation infrastructure says in this Calgary Herald article from May 4. (BTW, I’m not sure how a pedestrian bridge is “transportation infrastructure, but I digress.)

Cables and towers are Calatrava’s trademark though.

So what will we get? Perhaps something closer to the bridge pictured below that Calatrava designed to span Venice’s Grand Canal. A bridge that has been hit with major criticism because critics charge it doesn’t fit in with Venice’s existing architecture (something Calgary doesn’t have to worry about) and four times over budget (something Calgarian’s would certainly NOT allow given all the latest shenanigans at City Hall in the past couple of years). All this despite Calatrava himself calling the crossing “my most beautiful bridge.”


Below are some of the kinds of bridges Calatrava designed I imagine city aldermen were hoping they might get when they approved the $25 million budget. Sorry, not happening.


Personally I’ve got my fingers crossed it will be an amazing piece of architecture none-the-less. Something so amazing the critics have no choice but to swallow their pride and be admit it will be an attraction for locals and tourists for decades to come. But right now, looking at the reality of it all, I’m not convinced yet.

Tags: Bridgeland, bridges, Calgary, calgary city council, Calgary Zoo, East Village, Santiago Calatrava, Sunnyside
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off