Canada’s splendor is being showcased through a series of billboards in Toronto’s Pearson Airport in an effort to profile Canada’s tourism industry before, during and after the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

The ‘Welcome to Canada’ campaign is a media strategy spearheaded by the Canadian Tourism Commission that launched earlier this year in Ottawa and officially arrived at Pearson last week. It’s comprised of billboards installed throughout the airport designed to show off Canada’s tourism hot spots to the approximately 26,000 international passengers who pass through every day. The billboards will be up for a year and the content will change periodically to reflect changing seasons and events.

‘The airport provides the initial first tourist experience,’ Ernst Flach, executive director of business development, Canadian Tourism Commission, told MiC. ‘We thought it was an opportunity to let them know what each province has to offer.’

The ad creative was produced by the CTC, with inspiration from existing campaigns done by the CTC’s AOR DDB, and the media planning was arranged through a strategic – and first-ever – partnership between the CTC, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), and for the Pearson installation, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) and the Ontario Government. The goal, said Flach, was to create a media experience people couldn’t miss when they pass through the airport on their travels.

‘We really dominate the space and its something you just can’t help but experience,’ says Flach.

The campaign will soon be featured in other Canadian international airports.