Inspiring the Canadian Tourism Commission to Go Digital

The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) is Canada’s national tourism marketing organisation and a federal Crown Corporation of the Government of Canada. The CTC is responsible for providing a consistent voice for the Canadian tourism industry as it markets Canada as a four-season destination where travelers can enjoy extraordinary experiences.

CHALLENGE

The CTC’s vision is captured in their tagline, “Inspiring the world to explore Canada.” The board driving the strategies that make the vision a reality is composed of 12 members. Their executive meetings are held six times a year, four in person and two virtually. But satisfying the demands of those meetings wasn’t an easy task. According to Raya Rahmen, Board Liaison Officer for the CTC, “The process we used for preparing materials was very dated and required manually assembling binders to hold the various reports and source material.”

That made inevitable last-minute changes a nightmare to address, as secretariat staff scrambled to reprint and re-collate new versions of meeting packs. When the group held strategic planning sessions and invited third-party participants, Raya’s staff had to churn out up to 40 copies of the unwieldy binders. Overall, material production for meetings demanded two days of full-time work and often additional overtime hours.

APPROACH

The CTC’s own CEO served as a catalyst for change. She served on other boards and suggested that the organization switch to a digital solution. For a brief time, the CTC considered launching a free or low-cost, “do-it-yourself” software approach. When they looked more closely at security risks, the idea was ultimately rejected.

Raya began the search for the right provider and conducted a thorough review of potential candidates. Seven finalists were selected. Diligent Boards™ was chosen after each company’s solutions were vetted. The main factor that tipped the scales in Diligent’s favor: simplicity. The Diligent solution was the only one that looked and behaved like a book, but with all the benefits of a digital portal.

RESULTS

When the CTC used binders for their board materials, they invariably brought in extra resources to help with copying and collating. Now, thanks to Diligent, those extra costs are gone. Creating and distributing materials through the board portal has significantly reduced production time and eliminated the need for couriering binders to members across the country.

Board members embraced the iPad-based solution readily and required little training. As an added benefit: executives are using the Diligent solution to store documents for other meetings.

“It’s absolutely amazing,” commented Raya. “The before and after is black and white. Our executives have everything they need at their fingertips. Looking back at the way we used to do it, I don’t know how we managed.”