Sometimes this travel industry can be downright perplexing. Why do Canadian airport codes start with Y? Why do hotels charge astronomical prices for the humblest room service meal? And why would a tourist board go to the effort of arranging a promotional evening only to have it fall flat on its face?
On paper it looked like a great “do” and the promotional company had been hounding us for weeks to attend. A one hour travel expert seminar followed by a cultural show featuring live Indian music, dancing and singing. The venue: a 260 seat theatre in North Toronto.
But sadly we did not receive the promised evening of promotion, meaty information and enchanting entertainment. The tourist board host could not find the venue and was more than one hour late. That left the event promoter and organizer to handle the seminar portion of the show. The poor guy turned on the power point and bravely raced, and I mean raced, through an hour long presentation in about 15 min. flat. Then we were asked to go away (!) for 20 minutes before the cultural show could begin.
I use the term “we” loosely here: I counted 6 people in the audience.
Guys, this is not rocket science. Plan, promote, predict your audience numbers and if it’s going to be a non-event (literally) just cancel it and graciously walk away.
