 Turning a live business event into a virtual one is one thing. But what about turning a tactical in-person familiarization trip for meeting planners into a virtual showcase? Talk about a tough crowd, but that's exactly what Quebec City Business Destination did. And they hosted a virtual education tour in early June 2020 for over 80 meeting planners from around the world. So how did it go? Well, I recently sat down with the team from Quebec City to talk about best practices and a few learnings that they are putting in their back pocket for the next time they host a virtual fam. It's all part of our 2020 series where we're looking at meeting planners and partners that are defining the status quo and reimagining how events can look like in this new economy. Ensure you subscribe to my YouTube channel and then you'll be notified of all the stories as they come out. And now let's hear from Quebec City. Fun, it's Leanne Calderwood. Thank you so much for joining us today. I am thrilled by today's guests. About several weeks ago you probably received an email if you were a meeting planner about a virtual fam coming out of Quebec City, which was the first that I had seen in the industry. And I was just wowed that a destination would take on this daunting task of creating a tactical experience in the virtual environment. So I've reached out to the team at Quebec City Business Destination and the Quebec City Convention Center to talk about how they put this together and any success stories that they can pass on to their fellow colleagues in the meetings industry. I'm welcoming today Emily, Pat, and Renee Frederique, and we're going to get started talking about the Quebec City virtual education tour. Welcome everyone, thank you so much for joining me today. Hi Leanne. Hi Leanne, great seeing you again. It's great to see you guys even though we're doing it in a virtual setting and yeah I haven't seen many of you since I guess January. So when the hammer came down in March and kind of disrupted I guess your plans to host your summer familiarization trip, what prompted you to to kind of pivot and create something new for your planners? Well I guess I'll step in. I think the main thing is that we wanted to maintain our visibility in the different markets and keep the relationships that we have with our clients. We didn't want to do something that had already been done by an end of the destination. We wanted to try and do something that was really really innovative and that's where the idea of doing a three-day fan trip came up and I know you were on one of our fans a few years ago so really what we replicated was that kind of experience but using you know obviously digital technology and that kind of thing. So really for us we saw it as a professional challenge to really pivot our strategy almost 180 degrees and to be honest to keep ourselves busy you know. The stress of the initial COVID was setting in and we were kind of wondering well what do we do next? Where do we go? Well you raised an interesting word you said the word challenge a couple times and I'm going to assume as you were leading up to the educational tour that you did encounter some challenges. Can you tell us a little bit about those? Well it was a first for everyone first of all and also pivoting to virtual is a new challenge. First we were all working from home so we had to organize this all in our own homes and nobody has ever done this before so it was really new to us. We didn't have any like Pat and Regis were hosts. They're experienced to host real virtual fan tours. Real tours I mean but not virtual ones. So that was really the main challenge and to align everything and also we decided to do this really quickly. I think we had the span of a month to organize everything so we really had to do this quickly with everything we had in hand. Almost we created some new content and it was almost like a microsite that we had to build in one month. What was the main challenge? Yeah it was just jumping on what Renee is saying. It was challenging, it was fun, it was quite a great experience for our team almost like a team building experience. We were all working remotely from home and then we had this big project to put together in a very short period of time a new project nobody has ever done it and but we have fun doing it and we were able I think to put together something that that was engaging and interesting for pro planners. So as a planner myself I did jump on the microsite. Now I wasn't an attendee of the actual fan but I did jump on the microsite and there was a lot going on. It was very clear. I should preface it by saying that it was very clear to understand but you had a lot of different components that had to come together for this day. What can you tell me about the technology and the AV that you had to put together to make this work? I'll jump in because we did a complete overall of our website and the new website was at the beginning of April I think. So the timing was great because on our old website I think the user experience would have been quite different. So we were lucky to have this brand new website with new with the new interface and everything. Regarding technology we had to get used to our new website. We did all the pages and we integrated everything almost in-house. Almost all of it was integrated in-house. The virtual visits of the hotel and the city were prepared by a local photographer that we're we've been working with for a few years. So we was very helpful putting together everything quickly. We had help from our website. Sorry for the noise. We had help from our web firm to integrate the pictures but other than that we did everything almost in-house and it was it was a challenge but it was fun to get used to our new environment. So I may add we also had our we worked with our partner on core for two of the webinars out of three. So that was helpful. We didn't have to do anything. They handled all that part. Oh perfect well you know and that's a resounding theme I'm sensing from all the various interviews I've done this season is the partnerships with people like on core who are providing their talents and their skills. These are skills and talents they've always had and what this time has really shown is is their skill and talent and it's given them a great platform to to kind of showcase what it is that they can do. So I'm glad that you had a strategic partner like that as well because it probably lent itself to the success of your event being able to to collaborate with with smart people like those people over at on core. Well it helps a lot to have more people in this project that knew a lot more than we did. So talking about successes now it's over and I believe it's almost a month since you launched the tour. What can you tell me about the success of the projects and any learnings that you pulled from the project? Well I'll step in here. One of the I think the first thing that comes to mind to me is the amazing industry response that we had. We had over 80 participants over three days when conventional wisdom conventional wisdom tells us that if you're running a thing for more than half an hour you lose your people. So we were really out at the end of the diving board on that but we also had just great mix in between the US market, the Canadian market, association client, corporate clients and so on. So we really got a chance to welcome people to this tour that we might not have been able to have before because people were even though they were reluctant to take three days and go on a fam tour a lot of people committed to doing three days on a virtual tour and there were different clients than we might normally talk to. So that was a huge, huge one. We were really lucky as far as that goes. We discovered very quickly that the format that we designed and we were lucky in that is that people really like the fact that they couldn't master their own schedule. So they started out today getting just an email from us with just a little quirky video detailing the rest of the day that really allowed them to take the time to look at the venues and look at the hotels, look at the different things that they wanted to see but on their own time and they could pick and choose what they wanted to see. And then they knew that at the end of every day we had about a 30 minute live session with you know our partners and and everything else. So that was that was really good. Emily maybe you can talk a little bit about the response after the event from the social media that I master so well. That is our Twitter king, I'm kidding. And well we did, we built the the FAMs so we could live online after the three-day event. We wanted to put together a tool that we could send out to clients or the industry after the FAM. And so we did a social media post. We sponsored, we sponsored posts on Facebook and LinkedIn. We did email blasts from our own lists and I think Renée could confirm that we did e-blast within the industry to e-blast. And we had a fantastic response from some media, we did some interviews as we're doing here because people wanted to hear the good news of what we've put together. And so yeah it was a lot of work but it seems to interest people so the feedback was great. Well and that's exactly why I reached out to you guys because it's it's it's such a great success story and even if there were some things that didn't go right it's such a great story to share. So I am not surprised that people are reaching out to learn more about this and I'm hopeful through this they can also grab some tips and tricks for if they decide to do it on their own. So I've been feverishly taking notes because I think this is all good stuff. This is all things that destinations can take into their own experiences as they create their own educational tours in the months to come. So you mentioned the feedback from the delegates. What was the feedback mechanism like? How did you obtain their thoughts and feelings about the program and what was the overall feedback? We sent out a survey like we do after every film trip but this time it was after the virtual one and with all our questions and we even asked because it was the first for us we even asked do you like the three-day format would you have preferred to to receive just one communication or just a full day and majority of people said the three-day format was perfect for them because it could blend work with with the tours. So we asked a lot of questions if they were considering coming to big city when it's going to be safe to do so. We're going to send out a lead at some point and I think this wasn't what we expected at all we just wanted to keep the relationship as we said but we got a few leads after that. So that was kind of the major success to me. I wasn't expecting like I was expecting zero lead after that. I just wanted to bring awareness about Quebec City and I think it's mission accomplished. Well and I was going to ask if you thought it was a worthwhile investment but I'm hearing it probably was hey. Yes it was. As Emily said we even though we didn't get any leads or anything the content we created is still online and we're still going to benefit from that evergreen content. One thing maybe that we had to underestimate though also as well is that you know compared to a real fan where you might have you know 15 to 25 clients and the attention would be relatively limited to those clients. The virtual fan it's just like been throwing a rock onto a pond you know it has just created ripple and ripple and ripple effects of people that have been saying you know what like this is amazing. Some people were surprised we had the guts to do it some people thought we were crazy but everybody's commented it and you know it's just like it just it's it's taken on a life of its own up until last week are we still getting comments from people in the different you know different sessions that we have in these recessions about the education tour and what you know how we put into place so it's amazing how much interest and goodwill is generated for Quebec City it's phenomenal. So now looking ahead at this great success and and all the contacts you've made do you think you'll try it again? Yes well I do I hope we'll try it again I hope it will become part of our marketing strategies and a way to reach out to clients who otherwise wouldn't be able to get to Quebec so yes I hope this this is a a new tool for us to use in combination with face-to-face fan tools yes. Is there anything that you would do differently for the next one? Yes. There's a long list that we have that we do we do a post-mortem on all of our activities like every DMO does and we've had all kinds of virtual conversations about you know what went well what would be improved on the last day we had a cocktail with all of our guests and and you know ask flat out what you would change what you liked what you didn't like and so on so we got very honest feedback you know how it is when glass and wine in their hand right? Even virtually the feedback is very is very very good because we were sort of leading edge on that we're going to keep those close to the best for us so that we we hope not to make the same mistakes and we hope to take the feedback we have to improve them and I think big challenge is going to be how do we keep it fresh we don't cut and paste in three months as an example or you know we can do seasonal versions perhaps but really that freshness that we had this time around is something that has it's got amazing value so I think being first we're lucky to have done it first because you know there's only one city that can be first and we happen to be first so I think the next one as well people will have higher expectations that will have they'll have seen a couple of different attempts and so on so that's the challenge is doing something that's refreshing that's that's informative that's useful for planners and it's fresh you know yeah and we're happy to share the knowledge to to the other destinations we've already have a couple of one reached out to us and we were really honest and and what we would change and a lot of it is because we also organize it in one month so our thing that of course we wish we could have done differently but we it was also not very possible and if the next destinations is better than us and we're going to be really happy for them too but you know we we had to to produce something that was worthwhile in that time frame and we're happy to be kind of the first ones because then nobody had really expectations we could really do anything we wanted great great point well you mentioned a few words that that always resonate with me pat you you said that people thought you were crazy and I think being first doesn't make you crazy being first makes you lucky and you did say that as well so yes your team is very lucky to have gone through this experiment and to your point now you're able to share it with others through a variety of of platforms so congratulations on a fantastic event my final parting question for you guys and this has kind of been a recurring theme with a lot of my posts lately is there are some meeting professionals and partner professionals like us out there who are still struggling to kind of find the silver lining in all of this do you have any advice for people who still need that little push to to get out there and try something new like this if it's yeah and we mentioned it at the beginning of the at the beginning I think the if it's only to get to get connected with your team or the industry doing a virtual event the is a great way to connect as we mentioned it's it was like a team building for us so it was it was great for that yeah to it was just a reason to kind of do something together and see each other we were during the live cocktails we're all two meters away but we were still together and it was a fun experience and Pat didn't mention to us that when we came up with this idea to the sales team they were kind of like how are we going to do this and now you know this morning I told him now we can do anything yeah well and that's the thing the collective minds around the table you guys can do anything I love it I love it I think also Leanne it's important that that I think people one of the big hesitations we have was was it too soon you know was it too soon to talk about business was it too soon to to go back into what is still essentially a promotional endeavor and even in you know mid-may to late-may I already have a lot of planners saying you know what I'm I'm looking forward to having some good news I'm looking forward to talking about business and I think we were lucky because we could have had a negative reaction from people I was it was the opposite we knew very very quickly that a lot of people were very very interested so that kind of gave us sort of a little clue that you know what people are are concerned about our welfare and we're concerned we want to make sure everybody's okay but conversely people want to get back to work so I think that you know so somebody who's hesitating who's saying well you know is the industry ready for it you know do I have anything new to bring do I have anything to say the situation is evolved so quickly they shouldn't hesitate and there's lots of good reasons out there within don't don't stay stuck in your basement there's lots of good people out there that can help you do it oh thank you pat I I love that advice I'm definitely going to highlight that in the notes for everyone that will accommodate or sorry accompany this video and you're right the numbers speak for your for themselves you had 80 planners who were keen to give three days of your time of their time to to participate in the tours so and it's only going to get bigger I think the next one you do you'll see even a bigger return on all of your time and your talent putting it together I can't thank you enough for your time today for sure this is what I love about our industry and our industry in Canada is we're all willing to share our knowledge and our best practices to make other people better and and you three are a great testament to that well I can see a lot more invitations flying your way in the months and maybe even the years ahead I appreciate your time thank you so much and I do wish you guys an incredible summer thanks for joining me thanks again take care