Tourism Vancouver and VISA form partnership to boost travel to Vancouver

VANCOUVER, BC, Jan. 15 /CNW/ - Tourism Vancouver and Visa Canada
announced today a three-year marketing partnership to promote both domestic
and international travel to the city. Currently more than 8.4 million domestic
and international tourists spend approximately $3.5 billion visiting Vancouver
every year.
In British Columbia, 2.8 million Visa cardholders spend approximately
$2.3 billion on the travel and entertainment industry each year, representing
approximately 16 percent of Visa travel and entertainment business in Canada
overall. This new partnership is designed to increase tourism spending while
providing a number of benefits to tourists, Visa cardholders and to Tourism
Vancouver and its members.
For Visa, the partnership further demonstrates its commitment to the
travel and entertainment sector by adding a key market into its mix of
destination marketing alliances. Through its Destination Marketing Program,
Visa holds successful alliances with other key travel destinations including
Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Whistler and the Canadian Intrawest
Resorts. The new partnership also provides Visa with the opportunity to
increase prominence in the important Vancouver market.
We see tremendous opportunity in the Vancouver market where the number
of visitors has grown consistently for many years, said Rick Pyves, Senior
Vice President, Visa Canada. This partnership allows us to provide valuable
offers to domestic and international Visa cardholders traveling to Vancouver
and gives us the opportunity to support and build relations with key travel
and entertainment sectors.
Tourism Vancouver Executive Vice President, Paul Vallee says the Visa
partnership will help the recovery of the Vancouver tourism industry.
Tourism Vancouver has long recognized the power of partnership through
initiatives such as our Tourism Vancouver Signature Partners program. Forming
strategic alliances provides us with competitive advantage in this dynamic
industry allowing us to reach new customer targets and leverage our marketing
resources. We're extremely excited about our partnership with Visa who are not
only leaders in their business but a key part of the tourism industry
internationally, said Vallee.
The first key initiative within the partnership is The VISA Vancouver
Rewards program, a program allowing domestic and international Visa
cardholders to benefit from great savings and rewards. As part of the
agreement, Tourism Vancouver will promote Visa as the Official Vancouver
Destination Payment Card. Tourism Vancouver's member businesses will sport
point-of-sale decals bearing the tagline and official partnership logo
Vancouver's Best Way to Pay. Other activities include jointly branded
advertising and online savings programs.
The travel and entertainment sector also represents an important market
for Visa. In Canada, travel and entertainment represents approximately 17
percent of Visa's overall sales, said Pyves. While the industry has faced
some challenges over the last few months, we believe that partnerships and
alliances like this one will help get the industry back on track.
As the World's Best Way to Pay, Visa is the leading credit card payment
brand in Canada and around the world. There are more than 23.6 million VISA
cards in Canada accepted at more than 604,000 merchant locations across the
country. In British Columbia more than 119,000 merchants accept Visa, almost
double the amount of merchants accepting Visa in 1993. VISA is accepted at
over 23 million locations around the world including over 700,000 ATMs. The
Internet address for Visa is www.visa.com.
Tourism Vancouver's focus is on building exceptional customer
relationships with meeting planners, travel influencers, travel media and
independent tourists. Our efforts generate demand for the destination, thereby
creating value for members and stakeholders. Innovation, partnership, research
and accountability guide our approach. We utilize person-to-person and
technology-based sales, marketing and visitor servicing activities to achieve
results. Through positive positioning of both the organization and the
destination, our leadership benefits the society, culture, environment and
economy of Greater Vancouver.


Logos, product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

Reader Comments:

Be the first to leave a comment for this article

Tweet