‘Welcome to Canada’ gives visitors a taste of travel, local flavour on arrival.

CTC and Canada Border Services Agency increase wow factor at Canada’s main ports of entry.

Entering a new country can often be a bland experience: the same beige tunnel off the aircraft, into an identikit path to customs with moving walkways, then the cavernous baggage reclaim halls. Not the case in Canada! The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) are spearheading “Welcome to Canada,” a program that gives visitors a taste of travel and local flavours as soon as they hit the ground at major ports of entry.

Ontario’s Toronto Pearson International Airport is the latest to get spruced up. Giant posters of Ontario’s dining and travel merrymaking dominate travellers’ eyelines, with taglines such as “Take a bite out of winter fun,” “Savour the best of the season” and “Feel as young as the night.”

“Welcome to Canada” launched in March at Ontario’s Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, and is targeting other major entry points across the country over the next two months: British Columbia’s Vancouver International Airport; the land crossings at Douglas and Pacific Highway, BC; and Edmonton International Airport, AB.

The CTC and CBSA are anchor partners at each venue, with local involvement from airport and tourism organizations such as Greater Toronto Airports Authority and Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation. It’s also a legacy program, with hopes for it to continue well beyond the 2010 Winter Games. Reflecting Canada’s tourism brand, the tone in the customs area is welcoming, warm and witty: “Luggage? Passport? Olympic Spirit?” or “Customs Card? Passport? Hockey Stick?”

“Normally, you arrive at an airport and it doesn’t give you a sense of place,” says Ernst Flach, CTC executive director of Business Development. “We’re now creating exceptional first impressions to inspire visitors to do more and travel more while in Canada.”

CTC has also collaborated with CBSA on an interactive CD-ROM that will be used for training frontline border services officers. Based on being courteous and professional as well as representing the brand in person, the CD-ROM offers advice on interacting positively with new arrivals at Canada’s ports of entry. It shows the incoming experience through the eyes of a visitor and acts as an ice-breaker to the main training that these officers undergo.

Read the CTC media release.

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dale lockhart
3 November 2009
@ 10:02am

Ha, that is a joke and a waste of taxpayer money. From personal experience many CBSA officers don't actually know the law pertaining to short term students studying from from visa waiver countries. They always have to ask a supervisor for confirmation. CBSA officers have a long way to go to catch up to the US customs officers who are extemely professional, well trained and much friendlier overall. Our international students from over 20 countries feel that Canadian CBSA officers ask too many ridiculous questions, are generally unpleasant, ill trained and unprofessionalcompared with many other countries like the EU, Switzerland, Japan and Korea.

Dale Lockhart
Director
International Gateway Kelowna