County tourism officials heading to Canada

The Cape May County Department of Tourism will be traveling to Montreal, Canada, the first week in June to network with more than 100 journalists and correspondents representing print, radio, TV and Internet outlets at the annual media showcase hosted by the Association of National Tourist Office Representatives (ANTOR). Director of Tourism Diane Wieland and Deborah Bass of the department will attend the special media event at the Hilton Bonaventure in Montreal to meet with media representatives in an effort to pitch story ideas about the destination and encourage future media tours of the area, according to county officials.

Cape May County, is a member of ANTOR, Canada along with tourism offices representing countries such as Belgium, Sweden, Morocco and France among others.   ?This event has been extremely successful for the department.  More than  a dozen stories have been generated as a result of our participation producing thousands of dollars in publicity to cost-effectively augment a small advertising budget targeted to the Quebec province,? said Wieland, before this year?s event. 

?As a result of the ANTOR event, eight journalists in two years have traveled to the county to cover a story about the area resulting in thousands of dollars in publicity. Recently, a story pitched at ANTOR to an editor from LaPresse, a daily French-language newspaper, resulted in a journalist coming to the county to cover the hobby of birding and the World Series event.  The article published on May 19 had an advertising value of $59,772 that we could not have afforded as an advertisement,? she added.
At the ANTOR event last year, Wieland and Bass invited an editor of two golf magazines in Canada to cover the county?s golf options.  In September, 2009, the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Wildwood Tourism Authority (GWTIDA) joined the Department of Tourism to host the golf editor and a photographer from the magazines Revue Golf and Revue Golf International.  Since that time, the writer has produced three full-color, multi-page articles that were published in January, February and March and also appeared on the companion Web sites.

Both the LaPresse and the Revue Golf Magazines articles promoted the 40th Anniversary celebration campaign targeted to the Quebecois and highlighting the ?Passport to Savings? coupon book translated in French and created and managed by the Cape May County Department of Tourism.
As part of the evening?s activities, Nicolle Dufour, public relations consultant for the department, will make a presentation about the destination in French to the journalists.  The department will also provide marketing materials translated into French to all journalists in a welcome bag that each representative receives as part of the evening.

The Association of National Tourist Office Representatives (ANTOR) is the principal lobbying organization for the world's tourist offices. There are ANTORs in Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Russia, Taiwan, Korea, and Australia.

 

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