Travel Alberta is seeking an In-Market Representation vendor to provide general sales and marketing services in the United Kingdom (from here forward to be referred to as “UK”). The vendor, acting as Travel Alberta’s partner, has the capability to help us to achieve our ambitious growth goals in the UK.
The successful vendor will act as Travel Alberta’s partner in the UK to build awareness of Alberta and our tourism experiences to travelers considering Canada. Our goal is to attract high-value travelers to visit more places in Alberta and increase their spending.
Travel Alberta’s work in the UK is done in partnership with Destination Canada, and travel industry providers. (Provinces, Destination Marketing Organizations, and travel providers/suppliers active in the region.)
The In-market Representation vendor achieves their goals in the UK through on-going travel trade education, travel trade key account management, media and public relations, social media, and direct to consumer marketing activities, including in-market support for Meetings, Incentive, Convention and Exhibition (MICE) activities when required.
Responsibilities of the In-market Representation could include the following:
Strategy:
• Provide Strategic Insights for the UK Market.
• Work in close collaboration with the Destination Promotion team at Travel Alberta to provide cultural, social, economic and political insights that will drive marketing plans and strategies.
• Stay up to date on consumer behaviors, travel trends and competitive intelligence in the market.
• Have good knowledge of marketing theory, concepts and practices to assist in delivery of programs across all lines of business.
• Be adaptable, and resilient and modify programs to reflect changing market conditions.
Administration and Reporting:
• Provide market intelligence on sales performance from key accounts, updates in air capacity, emerging tourism trends, market development activities (e.g. trade, media, PR, social, etc.), the competitive environment and future outlook for sales to Alberta.
• Demonstrate and share best practices with the Travel Alberta team and in-market representatives across the Travel Alberta markets as needed and when required. (Typically, there would be annual planning meetings in Alberta once or twice per year.)
• Regular administration and ongoing reporting will be required but would also include monthly trade and media evaluation reports, annual evaluation reports for each channel, quarterly variance and forecast budget reporting.
Brand & Content
• Representative will act as the market-specific content advisor providing a clear understanding of the strategic role of content including how it is integrated and distributed across marketing channels. This includes working with Travel Alberta’s translation vendor and (at times) leading content localization, translation and transcreation of content for destination promotion purposes.
Business Development:
• Partnerships:
o Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the international markets and specifically the tourism distribution eco-system in the UK.
o Demonstrate understanding and knowledge to develop, manage and execute strategic partnerships designed to grow visitation and tourism revenue from high value travellers to Alberta.
o Demonstrate extensive experience and strong working relationships with tour operators, travel wholesalers, travel agents, online travel agencies, airlines, and other third-party travel providers to increase travel options featuring a specific region.
o Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of how a country and state/province need to work together to achieve tourism growth to a region.
• Sales:
o Must demonstrate knowledge and experience developing a multi-year sales plan to drive revenue and meet sales goals.
o Must have experience planning and organize, in-market tradeshows, events, and sales missions.
o Must demonstrate expertise and willingness to support sellers interested in developing business from the UK.
o Must demonstrate knowledge and understanding of Meetings, Incentive, Convention and Incentive market.
o Build and deliver compelling presentations.
• Education and Training:
• Demonstrate knowledge and best practices to facilitate training and education for agents, and operators.
• Demonstrate experience organizing and leading business development familiarization trips in partnership with destination marketing organizations and airlines.
Direct to Consumer Marketing
• Earned Media & Public Relations:
o Demonstrate knowledge of the UK’s earned travel media relations landscape including trends, media outlets, and best practices including earned media measurement for delivery against annual KPI’s.
o Extensive experience and strong working relationships with key media contacts including senior editors, publishers, freelancers, and freelancers across print, online, social and broadcast media with demonstrated success in placing travel and tourism stories that build destination awareness. Tactics vary from proactive pitching, information support, deskside meetings, events and marketplaces, to executing in-destination media familiarization trips.
• Social Media & Influencer Marketing
o Demonstrated understanding of organic and paid social media marketing best practices and influencer marketing. Representative would bring local market expertise to Travel Alberta’s global social media and influencer marketing approach.
• Paid Advertising
o Demonstrated understanding of paid advertising with a focus on digital advertising including paid social media, search and advertising with online travel agencies (OTAs).
This scope of work outlined above indicates the entire potential scope of work for this awarded contract. Due to the recovery out of the Covid-19 pandemic, the vendor must be able to demonstrate flexibility to ramp work up or down accordingly as market conditions and budgets dictate.
