Rethink Alberta now targeting travel agents.
Posted Aug 19, 2010 10:25 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Travel agents throughout the U.S. should soon be receiving anti-Alberta messages in their mailboxes.
The Rethink Alberta campaign has launched a third wave in its efforts to tell tourists to avoid our province due to the oilsands.
75-hundred postcards with graphic imagery have been sent out to tourism operators in some of Alberta’s most important travel markets south of the border.
The campaign has already thrown up billboards in the U.S. and U.K. and bought advertising on popular websites.
There are also plans to expand it throughout Europe.
But Tourism Minister Cindy Ady still believes this campaign won’t hurt the province.
“You can broadcast a message but does it really have the impact you’re looking for? I’m not sure this will,” Ady tells 660News.
She adds when people think about heading to Alberta, they aren’t looking to activist campaigns, they’re searching for information about our gorgeous parks or things to do in the mountains.
On the other hand, the environmentalists believe the postcards will make an impact.
“A warning alarm that the future of tourism in Alberta is really threatened by the continued unbridled development of the tarsands,” says environmental campaigner Michael Marx.
To battle this Travel Alberta will be meeting with the energy industry to develop a counter attack campaign but that won’t even begin until the fall.
Until then, tourists in select markets will continued to be hit by this negative view of our province.
