Montreal, February 9, 2021—Languages Canada hosted its very first virtual fair last month, creating valuable opportunities for 20 of its member schools to connect online with prospective students from three key source markets: Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
“When we announced that we were organizing our own virtual fair back in November 2020, we felt confident that LC members would be interested in participating, but their reaction surpassed our expectations: all 20 spots sold out in a single day!”, said Diego Sanchez, Manager, International Promotion and Marketing at Languages Canada.
Participating member schools made up a wide range of academic and geographical options for students. With study locations in cities both large and small spread across 7 Canadian provinces (Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Quebec), and K12, college and university offerings in addition to English and French language programs, there were exciting opportunities for every type of student visiting the Languages Canada fair. LC exhibitors were:
- Algonquin College
- Canadian College of English Language
- Coquitlam College
- Global Village English Centres
- Halifax Language Institute of Canada
- Hansa Language Centre
- Heartland International English School
- ILSC Language Schools
- London Language Institute
- Mentora Language Academy
- NorQuest College
- Queen’s Language School
- Queen’s University
- Sheridan College
- Tamwood International College
- Trent University
- University of Regina
- University of Waterloo
- University of Windsor
- Upper Madison College
Almost 20,000 students pre-registered for the event, providing exhibitors with a high ratio of students to schools; collectively, LC members left the fair armed with thousands of leads to follow up on over the coming weeks. Shoji Kuwayama, Marketing Director at Canadian College of English Language was pleased to report that a few students had already booked trial lessons for his program’s Online English course, while Renison University College – University of Waterloo’s Director of Marketing and Recruitment, Grant Leach, said: “The fair has yielded several follow up inquiries. We have a potential lead for a student from Colombia already.”
Latin America generated the most registrations (over 12,000), while the European and Asian markets demonstrated solid enthusiasm with 4,000 and 3,000 registrations each. Participating students were mostly aged between 19 and 30 and primarily from Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Peru, Turkey, Russia, Vietnam, Italy, and France.
Highlights from the fair include Education Trade Commissioner (Canadian Consulate, Sao Paulo) Fernanda Albano’s presentation in Portuguese to Brazilian students, during which she emphasized the importance of seeking out trustworthy LC accredited language programs, and, over in the EduCanada booth, a presentation from IRCC officials in Sao Paulo providing advice to students about preparing for travelling to Canada to pursue language studies.
Technology, logistics, and promotion for the event were provided by industry-expert FPP EduMedia, who did a remarkable job of communicating, planning, organizing, and executing the fair, according to Halifax Language Institute of Canada’s Student Recruitment Officer Alexis Pascual, who went on to say: “The online platform is very user friendly and easy to navigate. We had an incredibly high number of visitors from Latin America."
The Languages Canada Virtual Fair took place January 26-28, 2021, and was made possible thanks to Global Affairs Canada’s CanExport Associations Program.