Originally published November 30, 2014
It is with great honour that Fotaflo owner Ryan O’Grady was able to attend the 2014 Canadian Tourism Awards on Nov.26 to support our dear friend and client Jori Kirk of Cypress Hills Eco-Adventures as he was a finalist for the Small to Medium Canadian Business of the year. This is the pinnacle of achievement for Canadian Tourism businesses and Fotaflo has been blessed with not only working with a 2014 finalist, but also with a 2013 finalist for this same award when Long Point Eco-Adventures was a finalist the previous year. It was a nervous evening sitting and waiting with the Saskatchewan Tourism team as Saskatchewan doesn’t often get credit for their tourism industry, even though they’ve made incredible strides over the last couple years, especially with the #exploresask television campaign.
When Cypress Hills Eco-Adventures was named the 2014 Small to Medium Size Tourism Business of the Year it was incredible for us to witness this accomplishment and see a very deserving entrepreneur and Fotaflo client achieve such success, but it was no surprise. Jori is one of our most engaged clients and has leveraged his Fotaflo system to get the most out of the marketing benefit of this powerful tool. Jori was our first client to give up 50% of his photo revenue to give back to the guides and retail staff using the system. When Jori started to see the positive increase in his social networks, referral and return rate from the Fotaflo system, he decided to fully embrace the photo system as a marketing tool and has seen incredible results ever since. The Fotaflo photo service has become a major part of the experience at Cypress Hills Eco-Adventures and subsequently his repeat and referral business has skyrocketed and more than doubled since implementing Fotaflo. Jori has also fully embraced the “outward-in” marketing approach developed by Ryan O’Grady and Fotaflo allowing his guests in their private social environment to promote his business and increase visitor numbers.
We at Fotaflo really feel that we are a part of this award and it’s not just because Jori thanked Fotaflo during his acceptance speech. We at Fotaflo truly believe that we make an incredible positive impact with the visitor numbers of our clients and that Fotaflo is our clients most successful marketing tool. We also believe that it’s not a coincidence why two of our Canadian clients have been nominated for Tourism Business of the Year.
