The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) has launched the Canada Specialist Program, an interactive standardized training program that offers travel-trade professionals operating in the CTC’s key markets a user-friendly way to prepare them to sell Canada more effectively. Included are new marketing programs, online resources, training, research results, staff appointments and CTC-sponsored events.
CSP training is like a personalized tour through Canada's "wow" experiences. The series is presented in eight training modules: Introduction, British Columbia/Alberta, Manitoba/Saskatchewan, Ontario/Quebec, the Atlantic Provinces, Canada’s North, Winter Experiences and Aboriginal Experiences. Visuals for the learning experience include such tools as an interactive map with itineraries and classic driving routes for agents and operators to download, plus photo carousels that showcase Canadian travel experiences. While learning at their own pace, agents and operators must pass a quiz on each module to progress to the next.
Once qualified, they have full access to the site’s tourism tools and resources that make it easy to understand what Canada’s tourism brand is all about, such as the five key Unique Selling Propositions (USPs), the Explorer Quotient (EQ) customer segmentation web tool and the Canada Brand Library, a national resource of images, video and graphics. There will also be a localized component where CTC travel-trade managers can post pertinent travel news and events information for each market’s agents and operators.
Qualified agents will also gain access to a wide range of benefits outside website offerings, including CSP agent familiarization (fam) trips, discounts, partnership funding for promotions, listing on the CTC’s consumer website, window display materials and much more depending on markets.
The initial rollout is for the English-speaking markets: UK, U.S., Australia and India. Other markets, including Germany, China, Brazil, France, Japan, Mexico and South Korea, will follow later in the year in the respective language of those countries.
Current Explorer level agents will be invited to use the new website to become Specialists. The Explorer program is an introduction to Canada that covers geography and helps build a foundation for the Specialist level program.
Visit www.canada.travel/csp.