Destination Canada

Destination Canada is a federal governmental agency that studies the tourism industry and boosts relationships between countries such as Germany, Australia, South Korea and the UK. The agency studies the tourism within Canada and inbound tourism.

As per Destination Canada’s website “Destination Canada provides intelligence, tools and resources that help the Canadian tourism industry reach domestic and international markets.” Destination Canada believes in the power of tourism and I do too!

My idea for this project was to create something for a destination that may not have been explored before and this is New Zealand. As I am a proud Kiwi, and Destination Canada does not currently research the inbound tourism from New Zealand, I wanted to create a booklet and presentation on reasons why Destination Canada should consider New Zealand for market research.

The key questions I asked in the research and brainstorming stage were:

  1. What can I bring to Destination Canada?
  2. What are the core values of Destination Canada and how do they correlate with my values?
  3. Who is the target audience of Destination Canada?
  4. What are the expectations as the Junior Graphic Designer?
  5. What are the must-have design elements? (Branding)
  6. What is the inspiration behind this project?

Through consideration for this questions and thorough research, I was able to create 6 spreads (including front and back) and a presentation using photos that I have taken myself in my travels around Canada and photos found online (for the New Zealand portion).

I used the Brand Identity from the Destination Canada website here. I wanted to make sure, as this would be considered a corporate communication piece, I would use the Corporate Destination Canada logo and not the logo used for Marketing Communications. I did use the logo for Marketing Communications at the end of the booklet for the physical version. I made sure to use the right brand colours – Red, Green and Black along with other accent colours (Yellow, Lilac, Brown etc.) I also wanted to put a spin in these branding guidelines and show my style and my skills.

Left is a diagram of Canada illustrating the most sought out regions of Canada in which NZers wish to settle using an NZ flag. Above is a table of statistics showing how many people claimed Oceania ancestry. On the right are photos of Bow Lake, Maori women dancing and a photo of myself and my friend Zoe, who is also a Kiwi.

With the “Kiwis in Canada” spread I wanted to show some statistics of how many Canadians claimed New Zealand ancestry. Finding these sort of statistics was quite difficult and I was able to get the data from an archive of the Canadian Census of 2016. There is a similar example of the use of white space within the branding guidelines of Destination Canada and I wanted to illustrate I can adapt to different branding guidelines.

Ever since I was younger, I heard my mother talking about the big “OE”. This is called an “Overseas Experience” and is a rite of passage for so many young New Zealanders. We set off and call another part of the world home from days to weeks and it gives young people the chance to experience the world and challenge their beliefs by meeting so many different people. The IEC is a way these Kiwis gain access to the wonders of Canada.

I wanted to illustrate a cultural significance for New Zealanders and why young Kiwis go overseas. I also wanted to illustrate a popular visa option.

Getting down to the nitty-gritty of statistics, I wanted to illustrate the ports where New Zealanders are most likely to leave New Zealand and arrive in Canada. Most New Zealanders arrive in Vancouver and make their way to other parts of Canada. I included a graph showing the non-resident arrivals from New Zealand for the years 2015-2019. I couldn’t find any recent statistics as there was the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 may still be currently studied. Behind is a photo of Castle Mountain in Alberta.

I wanted to include the resources used in this project as it was very research intensive. To make it less boring, I included other photos from my travels around Canada.

This was a very fun project! I learnt a lot more about New Zealand and learnt that there really isn’t a whole lot of information about the tourism ties between New Zealand and Canada. As we are both Commonwealth Countries and the trade, political and cultural ties are very tight, Destination Canada should use this opportunity to consider New Zealand as a viable Tourism Market for research to grow the Canadian tourism industry.

There is limited information about inbound travel from New Zealand to Canada, therefore a potential market to explore at Destination Canada.