The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour trailer for 2010/11 has been posted. As usual, it is action-packed and inspiring. The eagle at 0:12 was shot in Mongolia’s Bayan Olgii region in a segment on Mongolia’s eagle hunters as part of a film on mountain peoples. Jasper National Park’s Maligne Lake made it into the clip as well, at 2:05.
Alberta, Canada, National Parks | Rogier | 
November 10, 2010 22:00 | 
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Hiking Jasper trail guide
Rob Bryce’s new Hiking Jasper and Robson is a hiking guide with a twist. It has descriptions of 70 trails in Jasper National Park and Mt. Robson Provincial Park, but, it also comes with a DVD that has GPS data for all 70 hikes on it, including elevation profiles, Google Earth map overviews, and tracks and waypoints that can easily be downloaded to a GPS. If you are a technophile, or like to carefully plan your hikes, this guide is for you.
The guide is available at stores in Jasper, MEC in Alberta and BC, and soon some other stores in the region. Or it is available online at Canadian Rockies Books.
Alberta, BC, hiking, Jasper, National Parks, trekking | Rogier | May 26, 2010 16:00 | Comments (3)
Tourism Jasper just released a catchy new promo video. It describes the town and the park pretty well!
Alberta, Canada, Jasper, National Parks, Tourism | Rogier | May 22, 2010 19:00 | Comments (6)
The famous Banff ground squirrel is still getting more social media attention. An enterprising soul has created a squirrelizer – a website where you can add the famous squirrel to your own images. And Banff Lake Louise Tourism’s Banff Crasher Squirrel movie has had 15,000 views over the past few days. Not bad for a an innocent little rodent.
Of course I am adding to the viral effect with this post too…
Alberta, Tourism | Rogier | August 21, 2009 23:00 | Comments (0)
Banff's famous ground squirrel (from nationalgeographic.com)
Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) spend millions of dollars to produce the perfect photos and videos to attract the attention of visitors and the media. Nowadays we do our best to get this content out into the social media spehere to try and attract some attention. Yet, as the Banff ground squirrel has shown us in the last week, nowadays it is not the carefully staged hero photo or travel video that makes it – it is a simple snapshot gone wrong when a curious ground squirrel decided to jump into the frame. Totally unplanned and unstaged, but utterly classic – no ad agency could have replicated such an honest moment in any photo shoot. The picture was featured in the media around the world, making the front-page of many national newspapers, and being featured on newscasts worldwide.
It reminded me of Susan Boyle, the Brittish Got Talent sensation. No-one would have guessed she would be successful, but 73 million YouTube views don’t lie.
The question is, how does one find a groundsquirrel or a Susan Boyle? These examples show that one doesn’t – they have to come to you. They must be real moments, real people. Such is the new reality of social media.
Who is Canada’s next ground squirrel? It may well be Lucky the dog. Lucky stars in several YouTube videos from Labrador – one with a collapsing iceberg, and several where he valiantly barks at nearby humpback whales. With his trademark red doggie lifevest, Lucky may one of these days become a social media sensation as well.
But what can a DMO do to prepare when such an opportunity does present itself? Be ready. Create a social media strategy, have a Youtube and Flickr channel ready to upload such a video or photo too, and most importantly, have a Public Relations strategy in place to get the word out to the mainstream media as well. Then, if a great opportunity presents itself, you can capitalize on it immediately. Banff Lake Louise Tourism’s PR team went into overdrive the minute they realized the power of this picture, and the results were phenomenal. Tourism Newfoundland and Labrador has also worked hard to promote Lucky, and find additional footage of him.
Alberta, Labrador, Newfoundland, Tourism | Rogier | August 15, 2009 18:00 | Comments (1)
The British press is having a lot of fun with a promotional ad for Alberta, which features a beach in Northhumberland. Not a wise thing to do when you are trying to promote your province. On the other hand, it has generated quite a lot of press coverage of Alberta in the UK. Who knows if it generated some interest. The tourism folks in Northhumberland are certainly very happy with the attention!
Alberta, Canada, Tourism | Rogier | April 24, 2009 23:00 | Comments (0)
Earlier this year, the Crown of the Continent Geotourism Council, together with National Geographic, launched a cool new website about the region that includes and surrounds Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park in southwestern Alberta, southeastern British Columbia, and northwestern Montana. They also publish an accompanying hard-copy mapguide of the area. It’s well worth getting if you plan to explore this lesser know part of the Rockies.
Alberta, Canada, Tourism | Rogier | July 3, 2008 18:00 | Comments (0)
Together with their top destinations, TripAdvisor also published their top 100 places to stay. Canada has three entries in the top luxury hotels:
17: Fairmont YVR airport hotel
27. Hotel Dominion 1912, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
95. Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada
I would have rated the Fairmont Waterfront in Vancouver or Chateau Lake Louise higher – I wouldn’t don’t see an airport hotel as a wonderful place to stay, no matter how luxurious.
The rest of the top 10 luxury hotels in Canada:
4. Auberge Saint-Antoine, Quebec City, Quebec
5. Loews Hotel Vogue, Montreal, Quebec
6. Hotel Nelligan, Montreal, Quebec
7. Four Seasons Resort Whistler, Whistler, British Columbia
8. Hotel Gault, Montreal, Quebec
9. Le Place d’Armes Hotel & Suites, Montreal, Quebec
10. Sofitel Montreal, Montreal, Quebec
Some interesting hotels among their top 10 hidden gems in Canada:
1. Harbour House Hotel, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario
4. Alpine Village – Jasper, Jasper National Park, Alberta
6. Mt. Engadine Lodge, Canmore, Alberta <- keep an eye out for this lodge. Up and coming.
8. Patricia Lake Bungalows, Jasper National Park, Alberta
9. Chateau Beauvallon Mont Tremblant, Mont Tremblant, Quebec
10. Artisan Inn, Trinity, Newfoundland and Labrador <- another property to keep an eye out for. Very cool place.
Alberta, BC, Canada, Newfoundland, Quebec, Travel | Rogier | April 30, 2008 20:00 | Comments (0)
More and more jusrisdictions are putting trail maps up on the Web. Alberta, flush with cash, has just started a trail mapping project. They’ve done parts of NE Alberta as a trial. The section of the Trans Canada trail in that area looks intriguing – the 300km Iron Horse trail.
Travel Alberta has picked up on the project, and lists it on their site as well. Let’s hope they call the project a success and complete the entire province soon.
Alberta, Canada, Travel | Rogier | January 29, 2008 22:00 | Comments (0)
Canada’s highways are great fun to drive, but you tend to be behind the wheel many hours at the time. You just whizz by towns and sites along the way, often wondering what’s the story behind the sights. No longer – thanks to GyPSy, an innovative GPS-based audio guide. Install the GPS-enabled device in your car, attach it to a small FM receiver, and start driving. Every few minutes, you get a short commentary about some interesting fact or historical figure. And if there is not much to say about the trees along the way, you may get some interesting facts about Canada as a whole. It’s great not only for first-time visitors, but also for locals. Currently they offer commentaries along the main highways of BC and Alberta, as well as city tours of the main cities, in English, French and German. They’re hoping to add additional routes and languages. Great adaptation of GPS technology.
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