Source Link: Rocky Mountaineer

Rocky Mountaineer Vacations has always offered seamless vacation experiences, but now the company is taking it a step further by introducing five new Escorted Rail Tours through Western Canada in 2009. Guests enjoy the expertise of a Tour Escort onboard the internationally acclaimed Rocky Mountaineer as it travels through the magnificent Canadian Rockies. Escorted Rail Tour guests also have access to a private lounge onboard the train which features entertaining and educational presentations such as wine tastings, natural history, regional storytelling and photography lessons.

“We are consistently striving to exceed our guests’ expectations by creating innovative and unique product offerings,” says Hubert Wat, Vice President, Marketing of Rocky Mountaineer Vacations. “With our new Escorted Rail Tours, travellers are given personalized service and guidance by our knowledgeable Tour Escorts, offering an in-depth experiential journey through Western Canada.”

Escorted Rail Tour guests have exclusive access to two coaches onboard the Rocky Mountaineer. In the designated dome coach, travellers can relax and take in the stunning scenery or head to the Escorted Tours Lounge, where they can mingle, browse the library or enjoy onboard presentations such as Wine Appreciation, Take Better Photographs, Storytelling and Natural History. Guests may book their Escorted Rail Tour depending on which feature appeals to them the most. A schedule is available in the new 2009 Rocky Mountaineer Vacations’ brochure.

One of Rocky Mountaineer Vacations’ five new Escorted Rail Tours offered during the 2009 season, is the Escorted Rockies Highlights which is a five-night/six-day package. It combines heart-stopping scenery by day and deluxe accommodations by night. On this fully escorted vacation, travellers visit Vancouver, British Columbia, Lake Louise and Banff, Alberta and enjoy a thrilling summit Helicopter Tour for a spectacular view of the Rockies from the air. Prices for this package begin at $2,539 CDN.

Anothernew package is the Escorted Rockies Circle, where travellers experience ten-nights/eleven-days in Canada’s West. Guests marvel at the vast forests, winding river canyons and surrounding peaks of the Coast Mountains, Cascade Range and the Canadian Rockies as they journey aboard Rocky Mountaineer’s Kicking Horse and Yellowhead routes. They also stay in Fairmont Hotels & Resorts properties throughout their stay and spend time in the great Canadian Rocky Mountains. Prices begin at $5,249 CDN.

All Escorted Rail Tour packages include a Tour Escort throughout the itinerary, transportation, accommodations and welcome and farewell dinners.

Source Link: by Jeff Lee, The Vancouver Sun

Last week I encountered three cases that show how hyper-sensitive the Vancouver Organizing Committee and its partners are to the issue of Olympic brand protection.

With 250 international journalists and media managers in town for the one-and-only World Press Briefing, Vanoc wanted to make sure that whatever message it sent out it was consistent with its message of protecting the Olympic brand.

The first one involved an evening reception for the media at the B.C. Institute of Technology’s aviation campus near YVR. The event was a closed-door affair where media were encouraged to put down their pens and leave their cameras back at the hotel for a night of contact-bonding.

The campus has a huge teaching hangar in which were several jets and aircraft, including a Boeing 737-200 passenger jet WestJet donated to BCIT in 2003. It turns out that the sensitive folks at Vanoc didn’t want WestJet’s logo to be seen by the journos – after all, Air Canada is the official Olympic sponsor. So a large BCIT banner was hastily thrown over the side of the jet that was showing through the glass doors between the reception and the hangar. It seemed a bit odd to me only because I had to wonder what the infringement was; the event wasn’t being filmed and none of these professionals would likely have made the connection – or even cared about it.

For reasons I don’t understand, the brand police didn’t cover up the other side of the jet – the side that faced a huge glass window to the front of the building where all the media walked by. I mean, I saw WestJet’s logo large as life and I didn’t need glasses.

If one issue of Olympic brand protection is to not give unintended exposure to a competitor, then the next example is a bit odd as well. Another evening reception hosted by Tourism BC and its government tourism partners took place at the Rocky Mountaineer train station off Terminal in Vancouver. But because the tourist train isn’t a sponsor – that’s Canadian Pacific territory – the invitation given to the journalists omitted any reference to the Rocky Mountaineer. It simply identified it as “Train Station” and gave the address. For a Vancouverite, I was admittedly confused: I thought it might be the Pacific Central station, which is also the bus depot. Rocky Mountaineer, by the way, isn’t in competition with CP, which is Vanoc’s rail freight forwarder.

The third example is one that has to be a joke but it shows how very, very VERY aware of branding all Vanoc employees are: a staffer attending the world press briefing and carrying a Starbucks coffee relayed how the person was stopped by a brand protection division colleague who noted that it was not a Coke product. Coca-Cola, you probably know, has the Olympic beverage sponsorship. And when the Games arrive in 2010, you won’t find a single Starbucks, Blenz, Artigiano’s or other brew house inside Olympic venues. Instead, Vanoc says Coke will provide its own coffee, marketed under the Far Coast label. Coke launched Far Coast in 2006. I haven’t as yet found any of its shops in Vancouver, although one opened in Toronto two years ago.