The Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games were an exceptional opportunity to raise awareness of Canada as an attractive destination. They provided high-profile venues to showcase Aboriginal culture and experiences as well as a broad range of other cultures from across the country. Billions of people were exposed to Canada right in their living rooms.
Recognizing this, we invested $26 million over five years to take advantage of the international media attention paid to Canada as a result of the Games. In partnership with other levels of government, we supplied international media with thousands of stunning images, hours of high-definition footage and hundreds of inspiring travel stories about Canada.
These efforts paid off and resulted in this material being viewed more than five billion times in television broadcasts and seen nearly four billion times in print media. Heightened interest in Canada led to substantially increased traffic on CTC websites and increased measurable travel interest in nearly all of our key international markets. This awareness is translating into travel bookings in core markets as a result of our post-Games marketing campaigns.
This extraordinary event has helped galvanize cooperation among all levels of government and a variety of tourism partners. It has also highlighted the importance of joint efforts to promote Canada to the world with a united voice.