Kingston, JAMAICA:- On the recent trip to Toronto to launch the JAMAICA Jazz and Blues FESTIVAL in Canada, Walter Elmore, President of TurnKey Productions and Marcia McDonnough, Marketing Manager for the Festival, visited several major tour operators in Toronto. The two were on a mission to reach out to the Canadian travel market and let them know about the Festival. Large operators such as Transat Holidays, Signature Tours, Flight Center (Gogo Tours), Sunquest Holidays, Thomas Cook, Total Vacations, and several more were each visited and given a full run down on the festival. Being national and international wholesalers and consolidators of travel, these operators have the means of reaching over 30,000 travel agents across Canada as well globally.
When asked why take on this challenge, Elmore replied, “Canadian visitor arrivals have increased by over 35% this year, and each day this number is growing. There are so many charters arriving into Montego Bay from Canada all through the week indicating that the market is ripe. The prime focus of the Festival has always been to fill hotel rooms on the island and so with over 4,000 new rooms to fill on the North Coast, we thought it was time to go out and garner new markets. We are also going to do this same thing when we go to London in November to launch the 2010 event”
“All the Tour Operators we visited in Canada were truly excited about the product”, explained Ms. McDonnough, “They all felt that the inclusion of the festival in their promotions would give them that much more to offer to their clients. In all cases they have agreed to work with TurnKey to promote the event to their agents as well as on their websites and this will give us an opening into a market that we would not otherwise easily reach. We will be supporting them with collateral material on the festival, as well as continuous updates about the event. The plan is to expand this initiative next year by starting our work a lot earlier and getting this information into their reservations systems so that the festival will become a real part of the packaging of these large operators”
To further support this marketing effort, TurnKey Productions has extended the 2010 Festival to one full week starting January 24 and ending on the 30th. “What this will do”, explained Mr. Elmore, “is allow us to offer a better product to the visitor. Many of the charter passengers do not come for three days they come for seven and so having an event which lasts seven days gives them something that they can do each night”.
The new events are scheduled to take place in the larger hotel properties in Montego Bay including Iberostar, Riu, Sunset Beach, Rose Hall Resort, as well as some off site properties such as Cornwall Beach and Blue Beat. Grand Palladium will also be included to give their guests and the patrons who stay in Negril an opportunity to be closer to the performance.
In addition an event will be staged at the Dolphin Cove in Ocho Rios. “What we are doing,” said Elmore, “Is moving the artistes around to the guests in the hotels. Each night the act in the hotel will change and so the guests will be treated to a wide range of performers. The events outside of the hotels will also be able to attract a larger cross section of persons to the festival.”
Acts performing at these hotel venues will include Jon Secada, Roy Ayres and Joe Roy Jackson to name a few. They will be supported by local and international bands chosen from the Jazz Festival Band Quest which will be launched shortly. This Band Quest will be used to identify new talent in Jamaica as well as major cities in the United States and Canada. For more information on the Festival and the Band Quest, interested persons can visit the official website at www.jamaicajazzandblues.com.
The JAMAICA Jazz and Blues Festival 2010 take place at the Aqueduct at Rosehall, Montego Bay on January 24-30, and ticket outlets and prices will be announced in the coming weeks.
Jamaica News