Alto Awards - CHA & Tourism Calgary Win Marketing Partnership Award

CALGARY, October 27, 2010—The Calgary Hotel Association is very pleased to announce that our partnership with Tourism Calgary on VisitCalgary.com was recognized with the Marketing Partnership Award at the Alto Awards during the Travel Alberta Fall Industry Conference.

This is a wonderful testament to the power of collaboration.

Back in the summer of 2009, the CHA took the lead to launch a new destination website with a consumer-centric focus that would turn lookers into bookers.  Our RFP generated some tremendous proposals from top notch on-line marketing agencies.  In the end, our Website Advisory Committee (consisting of diverse stakeholders from the tourism community - Tourism Calgary, TELUS World of Science, Heritage Park, Calgary Arts Development Authority, DMF, CHA) selected Evans Hunt Group as our website supplier and Meridian Reservations Systems to handle the booking engine.

Joseph Clohessy, Brigitte Fritz and George Brookman (Chairperson of Tourism Calgary) constituted the Executive Sponsor Committee to oversee the build and funding of the site which would ultimately replace Tourism Calgary's old website with a new destination website and e-strategy platform.  The Executive Sponsors charged Fraser Abbott from the CHA and Patti Hunt from Tourism Calgary to be part of a Working Committee liaising with Evans Hunt Group and Meridian on all aspects of the new site and booking engine.  Peter Gregus from Meetings & Conventions Calgary also assisted in the early phases of this work.  Over a series of months, the team at Tourism Calgary worked tirelessly under the leadership of Randy Williams to ensure this site would be a success.

CHA's DMF has invested over $1.5M in the development of VisitCalgary.com and the new e-strategy platform at Tourism Calgary.  It is the first step in a major paradigm shift for our DMO in reaching consumers in compelling ways to choose Calgary for their visits.

We are very pleased that Tourism Calgary and the CHA were recognized for this partnership initiative.  We are also very appreciative of the work done by the talented professionals at the Evans Hunt Group under the leadership of Dan Evans, Jim Button and January Kohli.  Kudos to John Pinter's team at Meridian Reservations Systems that have built Calgary an impressive booking engine that will address the needs of multiple stakeholders.

All of the parties involved with this project will attest that VisitCalgary.com is an evolving success because of the collective efforts of many people and organizations.  Our E-Strategy Paradigm will be successful as more players contribute ideas, content and packages to help promote Calgary as an exciting travel destination.  We also hope that this first Alto Award breeds into more successes through the diverse marketing initiatives that will be pursued over the next few years.

For more information on the award and the partnership, please review the attached press release from Tourism Calgary.  Press Release

October 27, 2010