
TIAC, The Tourism Industry Association of Canada, is presenting Canada-e-Connect (CEC), an e-Tourism Strategy Conference for Canadian tourism on January 21-23, 2009 in Toronto, ON.
In order to kick-start a flailing tourism industry the CEC will bring the tourism industry and technology together for a conference featuring keynote speakers including Google’s Rob Torres as well as Terry O’Reilly, the founder of Pirate Radio and Television, the largest audio production company in Canada. He is also the host of CBC Radio One’s Age of Persuasion. In hs career, O’Reilly has won over 400 national and international awards for directing and writing and has been named as one of “Most Influential” figures in Marketing magazine’s annual “Power 100 List.”
In all, Rob Torres has logged more than 15 years of travel industry experience. As Google’s Industry Director of Advertising and Marketing for the North American travel sector, Rob oversees the development and growth with integrated and innovative advertising campaigns. Before joining Google, Rob held a seven year position in a then-u”upstart Travel site” called Expedia.ca where he was Vice President of Strategic Hotel Partnerships.
The heavy hitters as well as those who are eager to learn at CEC discussing the emerging trends in e-tourism, including digital marketing, social media, mobile technology and Web 3.0. As social media is hotter than a forge fire right now you can bet Facebook and Twitter, as well as the top video sites like YouTube, will be on the forefront. TIAC President and CEO, Randy Williams, and Chairperson of the CEC Advisory Committee, Jaime Horwitz, guarantee that this will be a watershed event.
These type of events are usually booked a year in advance. Back in the spring of 2008 tourism was in a shallow slide but I don’t think anyone could have foreseen the economic distress that awaits the 2009 season. However, with all these bright people in attendance this convention will certainly be afire with new strategies and precepts that were probably never discussed last summer. In other words, this one is for a ll the marbles and I imagine that the unique proposals on tourism for these economic times will make this an amazing event.
Here is the Canada-e-Connect 2009 FaceBook group.
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