Posted by Tahira Endean on Thu, Dec 29, 2011 @ 10:35 AM
2011 was a fantastic year that was full of great experiences for our team, which all translate down to great experiences for our clients and your guests. Below we have shared some of these highlights for you to enjoy.
From "Miss Alaska", Teresa's highlights included 24 hours in Alaska with Discovery Channel – helicopter sightseeing and dogmushing on a glacier followed by canyoneering and goldpanning!
Also included are a Site Inspection where we made the beluga whales appear! We also flew through a 360-degree rainbow! More helicopters, glaciers, Beavers/Otters, jetboating, scenic train rides, glacier cruises, trams, rivers, lakes, lodges and Mt McKinley. Also, very large food portions and awesome characters added to the experience.
From our Conference Services team, Missy notes
2011 was such an incredible year for so many reasons but if I had to choose just one it would be the how these tricky economic times have provided abundant opportunities to innovate our company’s value added services.
The old saying that “necessity is the mother of invention” rings more true than ever. It is our honour and privilege to continue to partner with our clients and industry peers to come up with innovative and trustworthy solutions to deliver and exceed their guests’ expectations. Whether it be developing a registration platform that gives clients direct real time access to their own registrants information; or unusual new ways to set up a plenary session that creates true collaboration and dialogue or something as modern as creating a custom social media app to teach and engage. This past year has really proven to be the best examples of the power of possibility and to never settle for just making do.
From our Banff office, Kim says "Hanging out with Will and Kate at Stampede!"
From our Travel Department, Selene's highlight was coordinating the travel for Mayor Diane Watts Business Mission to India in February.
Production Manager Kelly tweeted in December "5 years ago today I started at Cantrav Services on a bus to Sun Peaks. Today I fly to London. Thanks for taking me places!"
These are just a few of our highlights of 2011, look out for more, and please, comment and share your highlights with us too!
Posted by Tahira Endean on Mon, Dec 19, 2011 @ 04:34 PM
At this time of year we are overwhelmed with the generosity of people in our industry, and we enjoy many delightful treats. This year we collected many things which are off to their new homes to be used by others not as fortunate inVancouver. We would have had one additional bag, but while producing one of our holiday parties this year, a homeless man spent the evening keeping an eye on one of our cars, and in return he received one bag of men's clothes destined for the office charity drive, but instead finding their way directly to him.
- We have over $125 in cash
- 6 Boxes of food.
- 2 Boxes of toiletries.
- 7 Boxes and giant construction bags of clothing for men and women.
- 2 Boxes of household items.
- 3 bags of children’s items
- 1 giant box of napkins
We thank everyone for their support and generosity! Happy Holidays!
Posted by Tahira Endean on Fri, Dec 16, 2011 @ 10:27 AM
We are raving fans of Alberta and the Rocky Mountains for both meetings and incentive programs. Guests expect to see the flat prairie landscape that makes up much of the middle of North America, and are left breathless at the beauty that is the Rocky Mountains. The experiences they have here are memorable and return visits often included in their cycle, because guests want to come back!
This was sent to us the other day, and like they say, a picture is worth about a million words... see for yourself!
Alberta is Amazing - VIDEO
Posted by Tahira Endean on Fri, Dec 09, 2011 @ 09:35 AM
We LOVE this time of year, the sun sparkling off the snow-capped mountains, the carolers on the streets of the City, the holiday train running through Stanley Park and the many opportunities to enjoy time with friends at the cornucopia of holiday gatherings. Occasionally we also get to plan holiday parties, and last night we had two that were so different, and both so much fun, we had to share.
The first party began actually in the morning, as our group of 14 ascended to the top of Grouse Mountain (seen here) and started they day with a delicious hot breakfast overlooking the city, followed by skating outdoors under a blue and sunny sky. In the evening they gathered under the gingerbread house at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver for sparkling beverages, before heading to the 14th floor for dinner with another view. Here the table was set with deep reds and accents of frosted white snowflakes and silver reindeer, holiday crackers and a jingle bell for everyone, with naturally dinner served family style. For the vegetarians, the hotel prepared a gourmet tofurkey - delicious! So wrapped up in the spirit of family traditions, they even broke into a spontaneous game of charades, and the hilarity continued into the evening.
On the other end of the spectrum, our creative team also produced a Naughty Santa evening for a group of one hundred nice guests. Greeted by performers wrapped in flaming hula hoops, they were then led down the stairs where body - painted elves greeted them with a special cocktail, and Santa, bemoaning the recent separation from Mrs Claus, toyed with the guests. A gorgeous buffet, beautiful burlesque dancers glittering brighter than the holiday trees, and a Cuban cigar lounge set on the patio above (including a shimmering chandelier and faux fur accents) all added to the fun. For these guests, the gorgeous stone cellar imbued with festive delights ensured that the frivolity and conviality were what will be remembered!
For our team, it is about ensuring that the guests get the experience they want and that expectations are exceeded, with enough delightful surprises that they can't wait to see what we come up with next year!
Posted by Tahira Endean on Thu, Nov 17, 2011 @ 08:27 PM
We have been having a blast lately, and wanted to share some highlights with all of you! The summer was full of great programs throughout Western Canada culminating in an event for 900 in Stanley Park.
When we had a little down time we took on some fall cleaning, with all the items first going into our small boardroom where for a donation our staff could choose some treasures. This netted $110 which we donated to the Vancouver Food Bank (where the value they can purchase in food with this roughly triples its value), and the balance of the items were picked up by a local organization where they would again be turned into dollars they can use.
Just this month we were collaborators on Event Camp, a meeting that brought together event professionals from the region to talk about subjects ranging from corporate social responsibility and ethics to hybrid meetings and event design. This was a hybrid meeting that also involved meeting professionals from across the globe, so many ideas and opinions were shared among these thought leaders.
This fall also saw Janice, our VP of Sales and Tahira, our Creative Director heading to San Antonio for FICP, an annual conference that brings together financial and insurance meeting planners and their hospitality partners to discuss issues and share relevant education. This included a session presented by Tahira and Andrea Sullivan titled Brain-Friendly Food, Changing your Meeting one Meal at a Time which looks at improving menus at your meetings, something we did successfully at EventCamp with the Vancouver Convention Centre. They had the opportunity to share in the education and to see fantastic and inspiring keynote presentations from Gary Mungor on the differences between male and female brains, journalist Lisa Ling and the incredible story of Aron Ralston, who inspired the film 127 hours. The opportunity to share relevant knowledge and build connections is something most of us spend time planning for others so it is really nice to be able to experience it from this side too!
We have also just seen Heather head off to South America, our fourth team member in a year to enjoy a trip to this exciting continent. On the flip side, this year we have welcomed groups to Canada from Brazil and Venezuela. Ask us... we are always happy to share stories of memories created across borders.
We look forward to the fantastic winter programs we have coming up in Whistler and Banff and to sharing our incredible corner of the world with your guests - follow along for ideas you can bring to your own events!
Posted by Tahira Endean on Sun, Nov 06, 2011 @ 10:18 PM
This past weekend EventCamp Vancouver took place. Cantrav was fortunate to be a member of the host committee who collaborated to create a weekend of learning and education designed for meeting and event professionals exploring event innovation, social media and event design and who seek continued growth in our exciting industry.
It began at the Westin Bayshore Vancouver on Friday where formats that inspire trust and fun were introduced, and sessions that explored topics including Ethics, CSR, Fair Trade and Sustainability and the Future of Hybrid Events were participated in before attending the Connection Reception.
That evening our creative and production team went to work with our partners setting up for a hybrid event that would be live streamed from the main session room on both Saturday and Sunday mornings to an audience that included people from Canada, the US and across Europe. The program also included presenters who joined via livelink from Switzerland, Chicago, and New York, extending the opportunity for learning from global meeting professionals. The production was designed to serve both the live and the remote audiences and the diverse needs of these audiences, and in the end offered interesting interaction with our social media concierge in the room, a remote host based out of New York, a connection to our pod in Montreal and the live audience. By all accounts this production was a seamless experience for the guests that created engagement on a variety of levels through both the whole group sessions and small group interactions.
The education focused on a diversity of areas, and took a hard look at collaboration, industry challenges, design and meeting design and flow including genius bars with industry experts, and the use of social media for personal and organizational branding. Sunday we took a hard look at the use of mobile apps, hybrid meetings and sustainability. Speaking of sustainability, the mobile app and its associated game, Get your Green On saw our very own Kelly Clarke committing to the most acts of green over Camp, where we had in excess of 1,600 individual acts of green from our face to face and remote audience showing the true power of the small decisions made by event attendees can have a huge impact when accumulated.
At Cantrav we understand sustainability is important and not only do we have to work with our clients sustainability initiatives and make responsible decisions in the overall planning, we can choose well and encourage our partners along the way to work with us and together, the power to make change is incredible.
With takeaways both diverse and relevant across many sectors of the industry, EventCamp Vancouver is an event we are proud to have been part of and we look forward to sharing our knowledge with you for your events.
Posted by Tahira Endean on Mon, Oct 17, 2011 @ 09:15 AM
Last week we had the opportunity to join the Vancouver Convention Centre, Tourism Vancouver and many other industry partners at IMEX America11 in Las Vegas. Over 2,000 hosted buyers met with 1,800 exhibitors representing the best of the meeting, event and incentive destination possibilities from around the globe. It was excellent to see many old friends and to meet with many others who are keenly interested in bringing their events to Canada where we can ably support their needs on the ground.
We have worked also to develop an incredible touch screen application
for the Vancouver booth, and everyone involved had fun playing with it and using it intuitively to navigate through what a program could look like here, from your arrival at our award winning airport to the choice of four and five star properties, along with the many tours, activities and on and off-site events it really is a destination that can inspire, educate, engage and motivate.
The Vancouver booth was also a social media live hub during the three days of the trade show, with Kiki L'Italien, well known particularly with associations through her work with Delcor and her weekly Social Media Sweet Spot show was live in the booth, collecting many interviews representing a broad spectrum of the industry including Chris Gowe of the Vancouver Convention Centre, Glenn Thayer – the voice of meetings and events, Paul Salinger of Oracle and the current President of the Green Meetings Industry Council, Sam Smith – virtual and hybrid meeting expert who was there for MPI's SmartMeeting Monday, Lenny Talarico and King Dahl of MGM Events (fantastic work from this group), Leonora Valvo, the CEO of etouches who had just presented at the Women’s Leadership Seminar at IMEX, and so many more.
Check out the recap of her time at IMEX here – http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17872155
For the full list of interviews, http://www.ustream.tv/channel/delcor-social-media-sweet-spot/videos and you can connect to watch them here. There are some really great perspectives from many deeply involved in the meeting and event industry, so we encourage you to check these out. They are also available on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNBisp0GUmE
All in all we had a great time at IMEX and look forward to meeting you there next year!
Posted by Tahira Endean on Sat, Oct 08, 2011 @ 04:40 PM
Picture yourself on the edge of Stanley Park, 1000 acres of green in the heart of Vancouver, your views returning to the city over the harbour that separates you. You arrive (approximately 10 minutes on the luxury coach) and are greeted with BC wine and a band whose energizing music brings the awesome tented space to life. Next to our tent are incredible totem poles that tell the story of First Nations history in this land, and inside the tent this theme is continued, the reds and blacks of the art brought to life on the tables.
As one song finishes on stage the sound of drumbeats is heard, and a First Nations drum and dance troupe enters the tent and shares their stories of the totems, their land and leaves the group with a blessing and friendship song.
The buffets open, and the fresh, seasoned, delicious local food is enjoyed. The tenderloins, the salmon, the salads and vegetables all perfection, but this went beyond. For this event, the caterer froze fresh fruit at the peak of the summer season with the fruit galettes and crumbles that would be served tonight in mind. (Editor's note: blueberry peach galette was the best I have ever eaten!)
Then the dance band takes the stage and for two solid hours the dance floor is packed, the energy incredible and the high of a great event is relished!
What does it take to make this happen? First a client that wants to create something incredibly special, a local partner (in this case us) that can make it happen, and then the work begins. Working with the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Parks Board, the Province of BC and various permitting entities is required as we go through structural, electrical, food health and safety, liquor permits, and more to ensure the event is entirely safe and appropriate. We choose vendor partners that know how to deliver an excellent off-site experience that will leave the Park at the end exactly as we found it, and the fun begins. Months of planning, weeks of detail work, five days to build it, and three days to return it to normal... for us, all in a day's work, for the group, an unforgettable experience!
Posted by Tahira Endean on Wed, Oct 05, 2011 @ 01:30 PM
We are so excited to participate in IMEX America in Las Vegas next week. This is the first time this show will be in America and with all the education and networking available - we know it is going to be great!
Tom Ebner will be in the Canada Tourism Commission stand 431, directly across from the Vancouver stand - keep an eye out for the giant sails of Vancouver and drop by for a snack and to meet our Creative Director, Tahira!
On Wednesday at IMEX the Vancouver Booth will be the host location for Kiki L'Italien's Social Media Sweet Spot and we invite you to stop by and say hi, or even answer a question or two!
We hope to see you there.
Posted by Tahira Endean on Fri, Sep 16, 2011 @ 06:44 PM
On a recent site inspection, the client sent a lovely thank you note, and included this sentence that in many ways sums up what we believe about our organization, and why working with us reflects so well on you!
You two are the type of employees and wonderful ladies that every DMC should strive to have on their staff. You’re knowledgeable, informative, fun and truly, just a pleasure to work and travel with.
We know that in meeting and event management, from the first receipt of an RFP, to a site selection trip, to the actual operation of the program it all comes back to people. We need to first understand your group and their needs, your stakeholders and their objectives, and then translate this knowledge into a program that creates relevant experiences and memories for your guests, the kind of epxeriences that make you shine and ultimately build loyalty and retention for the organization.
We are truly fortunate to have a team of thoughtful people here that care passionately about creating these experiences. I see every day a team who will stop at nothing when working closely with you to develop meetings and incentive programs that generate this kind of positive response from every participant.
We look forward to hearing from you when you have need of a great partner to support your events in Western Canada and Alaska.
