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Tourism Thunder Bay & Northwestern Ontario

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Outlook for
Tourism in 2010

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Tourism Outlook 2010?

Over the fall I have been talking to several key people in the tourism industry to try to see what the experts think 2010 is going to look like for Tourism. Below I will share with you what these key people are thinking and what they are advising their advertising clients.

If your like most outfitters you had a pretty slow year in 2009 and maybe even saw a pretty bland year back in 2008. You probably have found that US Sports Shows are not yielding the way they Your next client could be referred to you by ThunderBayTourism.comused to do.

Following Your Customers

Northern Ontario has a great product and a solid reputation, yet Tourism in our region has been on the decline. Is tourism in general on the decline possibly, but it is not going to disappear so I believe we need to do everything we can to kick it back into high gear. That means getting what's out there through aggressive advertising and more specifically using smarter advertising.

As a long time business owner like you I know that nothing beats direct contact with a new potential client. I close more deals and satisfy more customers over the phone than I ever could via the web or even in person.

Tourism is changing. The people visiting Thunder Bay aren't necessarily looking for the same things tourists were looking for 20 years ago. At ThunderBayTourism.com we monitor the market and look to change with it. Static advertising is effective; we've been using it since 2002 and giving people 3 to 5 options is a great way to give our vendors a reasonable probability of contact and to allow customers to make a personal choice.

Thunder Bay Tourism designs and hosts static advertising from $100. Your new advertisement can be on an existing page or a new page designed from the ground up to capture a niche market. (Read More on Featured Business Ads)

Looking For New Contacts?

What if I could supply you with contact information from inquiries I receive? Imagine your Well yes Paul we are looking for a Moose Hunt, last year we went deer hunting but this year we are thinking more of trying moose hunting. effectiveness if you are one of no more than 4 Tourism Operators responding to a inquiry.

"Hello Joe, its Paul Boucher at Ogoki Frontier. I run a hunting and fishing lodge up in Armstrong Ontario"

"Thunder Bay Tourism asked me to contact you about about a Moose Hunt that you are planning..."

As of May 2008 Thunder Bay Tourism is forwarding inquiries to businesses like yours for both Urban Adventure and the more traditional Hunting and Fishing Lodge Inquiries through our Travel Information System !

Are You Reading The Trends

The traffic on our urban attractions inquiry form has dwarfed the fishing and hunting inquiries this year. Compare these traffic estimates from Seo Books:

Traffic Source
GOOGLE
YAHOO
MSN
Hunting
2314
665
289
Hunting Canada
25
7
3
Hunting lodge
36
10
5
Fishing
6500
2100
916
Fishing Canada
105
30
12
Fishing Lodge
23
6
3
Touring Canada
17
5
1
Eco Tourism
40
11
5
Bird Watching
138
39
17
Beach Canada
26
9
5
Cottage
229
66
29
Amusement Park Canada
24
7
3
Attractions Canada
109
31
14

Note the low search volumes per day and note that hunting canada represents only 1% of hunting in general. Additionally we are seeing trends toward urban adventure over parks and wilderness adventure. There is no question that the pool is changing, the question is can we learn to fish in the new streams of traffic.

Check Your Website's Performance

How to Select / Evaluate a Web Marketing Partner

There are lots of people in Northern Ontario making websites but how do you decide which developers to partner with? Amik Technology owner of thunderbaytoursim.com offers the following criteria:

  1. How much competition is there within the directory. Are you one of 5 lodge options for a visitor or are you one of 35 lodges listed.
  2. How many referrals are you getting for your advertising dollar.
  3. What are the quality of the referrals you get, can you close them?

 

So who do you advertise with, how much does it cost, and what do you get? These are important questions in today's tourism market!

1/ The primary goal is bookings. All this nonsense about advertising on the web is really about sales. If you are not getting sales from what you are doing then change or scrap what you are doing.

2/ Measure clicks from the referring domains you are advertising with. Good clicks from real potential customers, people who are looking to buy your service or visit your area would be ideal.

3/ Learn about cost per click and conversion rate. The dollars and cents of Internet marketing is how much does it cost to get someone to click into my site and what is the probability that I can convert that visitor into a Booking or Sale.

Our Price $100

To learn more about how the top 4 compare see NOSTA vs Sunset a comparison of traffic for one northern ontario business and the impact of being a member of the various directories in the area.

About Advertising On Thunder Bay Tourism.com?

ThunderBayTourism.com is owned and operated by Amik Technology, a computer consulting company, located in Thunder Bay Ontario. Ross McCubbin owner of Amik Technology has developed this site in support of the Tourism Industry of Northern Ontario. This site has been in operation since 2002 and has been experiencing growth in the neighbourhood of 25% annually. Feel free to call us 807-475-3196 it is the most direct route to working together.

Our Winning Strategy

A huge volume of visitors type in the thunderbaytourism.com domain name directly. This direct traffic is great for business!

Ross McCubbin is a search engine specialist located in Thunder Bay. He specializes in organic search engine optimization through content design. Amik Technology has been designing websites since 2000 and has become is a relative expert at content design and marketing on the Internet.

I would like to invite you to advertise on this website and help draw business to Northern Ontario. Yes, every time I add content to this website we as a collective group of businesses draw more traffic. Strength does come in numbers especially when we talk about the number of well designed pages that are out on the Internet drawing traffic for Northern Ontario businesses. Guaranteed, you will attract more business by partnering with Amik Technology. How? To start buy an ad! That will start us working on the same team and start me designing content to support your needs.

Our winning ad design strategy involves building feature advertisements that highlight the strengths of your unique products or service. We incorporate "Targeted Images" that help to display the product you offer.

2007 Design Focus

Each year we (me and my and few website developer friends) add new areas to the website, this year we are adding restaurants by merging in thunderbayrestaurants.com developed by Penny at Jentar EBS. I will also be re-engineering the existing content working on areas like Rossport, Schreiber, and services like B&B's in Northern Ontario.

Averaging 2,000 Unique Visitors Each Month!

Your business could be featured on Thunder Bay's premier tourism website thunderbaytourism.com. This website is a tourist magnet and features the finest of tourism attractions and services.

24,000 unique tourism visitors viewing your business ad equated to serious exposure from your advertisement with thunderbaytourism.com (View actual traffic stats)

This is a land of secret places and hideaways, great attractions, and ruggedly beautiful trails, but secrets they remain unless you advertise.

The best part is that you can tap into this huge volume of traffic for as little as $120.00

As a perfect follow-up to a long days adventure, let us lead weary travelers to ideal accommodations, a culinary experience, or onto tomorrow's adventure!

Personal Service From Amik Technology

We care about tourism in this region, we care about your business. We know about the problems you are facing in getting your site recognized, that's why we created this directory!

We will work with you on an ongoing basis to bring customers to your business.

It's easy and personal. Call us or e-mail us, we would be glad to meet in person with you. Initial consultations are free. Lets discuss what it is that you are trying to do. Even if you decide not to proceed with advertising on this site, you will have developed a plan of action for your web site advertising.

And the biggest Reason to Consider thunderbaytourism.com

Compare the product at thunderbay.ca While the City of Thunder Bay is improving, they still have a way to go.

How many clicks does it take you to get to the place you should be listed? Could you even find the information? And how much competition is there once you get to that spot?

Now consider the customer care you will receive ... Yes I heard you laughing! If your not Old Fort William or willing to cough up $3600 you will be no more than a directory entry buried 5 clicks deep.

Finally consider your cost per click. Think about the cost to get someone to your website and look at the conversion rate.

Wouldn't you rather be one of a select grouping of businesses featured on a well designed search page with a great text write-up, images, contact info and link. You could be one of the many clients telling me about the customers they are meeting through website sales.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sample Advertisements: [Text Ad] [Box Ad] [Full Page Ad]

Monthly Statistics - See our growth in popularity

Key Terms:

Hits: The total number of files requested from the server.
Bytes: The amount of information transferred in filling those requests.
Visits: The (approximate) number of actual individual visitors.
PViews: The number of Web pages viewed by those visitors.

The bar graphs below are based upon number of visitors.

Monthly Statistics

        Hits               Bytes      Visits      PViews      Month

         178           1,138,970          22          74   Oct 2002  
       1,417          16,075,327         157         374   Nov 2002  
       1,431          17,136,313         125         278   Dec 2002  
       1,278          17,258,845         146         222   Jan 2003  
       1,807          21,833,345         219         359   Feb 2003  
       3,273          43,845,393         335         539   Mar 2003  
       2,942          43,463,161         366         528   Apr 2003  
       3,213          49,536,470         352         530   May 2003  
       6,764         105,110,236         618         948   Jun 2003  
       6,191         101,283,548         750       1,068   Jul 2003  
       4,832          75,436,450         796       1,177   Aug 2003  
       5,042          67,952,109         632         981   Sep 2003  
       5,808          85,197,271         794       1,623   Oct 2003  
       6,136          99,784,308         793       1,406   Nov 2003  
       5,191          95,263,401         568       1,033   Dec 2003  
       7,700         148,265,784         748       1,469   Jan 2004  
      10,025         212,518,528         715       1,557   Feb 2004  
      10,979         248,752,162         957       1,904   Mar 2004  
      10,958         225,484,040         792       1,786   Apr 2004  
      22,637         421,142,320       1,276       5,479   May 2004  
      23,386         336,444,836       1,389       6,381   Jun 2004  
      26,422         377,066,056       1,447       3,079   Jul 2004  
      29,621         460,767,422       1,542       3,453   Aug 2004  
      19,373         282,746,836       1,150       2,220   Sep 2004  
      16,896         274,007,749         950       1,799   Oct 2004  
      15,933         254,299,823         926       1,802   Nov 2004  
      11,855         196,330,186         887       1,670   Dec 2004  
      16,412         245,151,599         906       1,790   Jan 2005  
      18,137         292,500,350       1,112       2,046   Feb 2005  
      25,425         391,447,706       1,321       2,510   Mar 2005  
      26,865         499,722,551       1,524       2,662   Apr 2005  
      29,066         443,778,134       1,676       3,009   May 2005  
      50,388         900,661,550       1,887       4,091   Jun 2005  
      56,669         842,878,492       2,093       4,166   Jul 2005  
      36,047         588,512,238       1,701       3,129   Aug 2005  
      28,186         426,979,159       1,447       2,633   Sep 2005  
      25,231         370,558,270       1,463       2,440   Oct 2005  
      19,789         264,822,372       1,168       1,780   Nov 2005  
      18,543         259,693,977       1,188       1,950   Dec 2005  
      31,315         403,203,674       1,452       2,546   Jan 2006  
      30,102         379,167,020       1,372       2,351   Feb 2006  
      43,911         680,952,108       2,321       3,857   Mar 2006  
      41,002         571,034,279       1,793       3,018   Apr 2006  
      45,174         656,148,601       1,957       3,433   May 2006  
      59,345         839,917,919       2,168       4,196   Jun 2006  
      62,992         894,301,801       2,292       4,437   Jul 2006  
      51,492         708,708,793       1,907       3,629   Aug 2006  
      40,954         588,612,687       1,745       3,059   Sep 2006  
      38,980         525,942,140       1,832       2,870   Oct 2006  
      34,257         444,555,645       1,676       2,644   Nov 2006  
      32,162         441,159,427       1,793       2,599   Dec 2006  
      47,325         626,276,081       1,939       3,271   Jan 2007  
      44,814         592,002,907       1,823       3,017   Feb 2007  

     404,042       3,646,367,100       3,911     347,989   Jan 2009  
     254,398       1,945,598,556       5,722     196,764   Feb 2009  
     194,285       1,515,975,195       6,516     124,253   Mar 2009  
     283,901       2,448,369,497       5,630     205,836   Apr 2009  
   1,062,937      10,441,328,476       6,778     908,650   May 2009  
     297,422       2,664,256,501       6,442     187,566   Jun 2009  
     216,779       1,731,414,834       6,418     100,000   Jul 2009  
     169,856       1,376,320,620       5,204      84,792   Aug 2009  
     117,494       1,061,077,101       5,872      60,807   Sep 2009  
     122,478       1,110,530,865       5,243      67,620   Oct 2009