Canada’s expansive eastern side offers business groups much more than they usually expect. Besides a portfolio of facilities that makes these provinces prepared for any group occasion that comes their way, there’s the enticing range of waterfront and countryside beauty.
Take your pick—urban sophistication with absorbing historical connections, memorable coastal encounters or mountain resorts. It’s all here, and much of it comes with booking incentives that sweeten the deal when it comes to overall value.
Quebec
For a continental experience that doesn’t require an ocean crossing, groups find Quebec filled with European sophistication, maritime excitement and invigorating coastal activities like whale watching, boating and historic lighthouse touring.
Montreal and Quebec City are meetings central in Canada’s geographically largest province, and they combine formidable North American historical connections with enticing retail and restaurant districts, nightlife and a year-round roster of festivals and cultural events.
There’s not much lacking in Montreal, where delegates have a dazzling experience day and night. The enticing commercial hub of Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Old Montreal’s winding historic streets within close proximity to the Montreal Convention Centre are just two lures.
The city is an island gem in the mighty St. Lawrence River, and many groups enjoy its beauty from the water. With its glass-covered frame, roof and outdoor terrace, The Bateau-Mouche conducts dinner cruises with live entertainment and five- or six-course meals prepared by the chef of the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
Nightlife is an important part of the Montreal profile, and Montreal Nitelife Tours is one way to sample the culture. This lifestyle-travel agency provides professional itinerary planning and VIP packages with access to Montreal’s bars and prestigious nightclubs, and exclusive discounts at restaurants and attractions.
Luc Charbonneau, director of sales and marketing for Tourism Montreal, encourages planners to rely on his bureau for help with planning events—and offers new incentives for doing so.
“Planners can depend on our experienced and dedicated bureau staff for help in finding the right facilities and activities,” Charbonneau says. “We also provide a full range of services, including online housing assistance for groups using at least two hotels. At the moment, we have an incentive of $10 per room night used for groups of any size for dates booked 2010 through 2013. The group may use this money for any purpose. The only requirement is that their RFP transits Tourisme Montreal.”
Along with the booking incentive comes a collection of new facilities, including the 454-room Westin Montreal that’s linked to the convention center, with 40,000 square feet of meeting space; Hilton Garden Inn Montreal Centre-ville, with 221 guest rooms and meeting space for up to 200 people; and Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Montreal Airport, with 162 guest rooms and suites and 3,700 square feet of meeting space.
Meanwhile, newly renovated properties include the Hotel InterContinental Montreal.
Only about 90 minutes north of Montreal are the Laurentian Mountains, where the ski and golf centers of Mont-Tremblant offer lodging choices ranging from business hotels to bed-and-breakfast properties. Centre des Congres Tremblant is the major event facility, with 23,000 square feet of space. Loto-Quebec has added Casino de Mont-Tremblant in Versant Soleil Village.
Quebec’s continental flavors reach an apex in Quebec City, where centuries of history flow through the winding streets of Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Cobblestones, churches, boutiques and former battlefield sites combine on these banks of the St. Lawrence River for a memorable visitor experience.
At Hilton Quebec, one of the city’s primary group hotels, top-to-bottom renovations have been completed. In the trendy Saint-Roch district, Hotel PUR is a new urban hotel with 12,500 square feet of meeting space and 241 guest rooms decorated in minimalist style.
Ontario
Ontario not only has Canada’s largest population and largest city, but also a range of stunning scenery and natural beauty that draw millions of visitors annually to stops like Niagara Falls and the region around the Great Lakes.
Toronto is the center of English-speaking Eastern Canada as well as the nation’s major business hub, with a globally diverse population. With easy accessibility especially from the U.S., Toronto offers a plethora of accommodations at all price points, myriad attractions and cultural events in spades. Headliners include the Toronto International Film Festival and Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Modern meeting facilities abound in Toronto, and options include the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, with 600,000 square feet of space, and Allstream Centre, Canada’s newest and most environmentally responsible conference center, opening later this year. The new facility will feature panoramic lake views, lots of natural light and Toronto’s largest column-free ballroom. It will connect with Direct Energy Centre, another premier meeting space, via an underground tunnel.
Meetings-friendly hotels are also plentiful, with options such as the Westin Harbour Castle Toronto, which has more than 68,000 square feet of function space in its conference center.
Upcoming meetings-ready hotels include Trump International Hotel & Tower, opening in 2010; Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences, opening in 2012; Shangri-La Toronto, opening in 2012; Element Toronto Downtown, opening this year; and aloft Toronto, opening in 2010. The city is also home to the new Hilton Garden Inn Toronto.
Meanwhile, Hyatt Regency Toronto completed a major renovation, and the newly flagged Sheraton Toronto Airport Hotel and Conference Center, formerly a Renaissance hotel, is undergoing extensive upgrades to its guest rooms and 26,000 square feet of meeting space.
With all its urban sophistication and meetings experience, Tourism Toronto is working hard to assist groups with customized attendance-building and other solutions in the prevailing economic market, says Tara Gordon, vice president, meetings and sales for Tourism Toronto.
“Toronto remains a resilient destination in this weakened economy,” Gordon says. “The city has a diverse cultural offering, the strong building boom continues, and our collaborative hospitality community is focused on value, as they help with our efforts to ride out this storm. Our mandate is to partner early and frequently with our customers to customize solutions for driving attendance and to ensure that event sponsors get out their ROI message to stakeholders.”
South of Toronto, Niagara Falls is a visitor magnet, with its namesake natural wonder as well as golf courses, wineries, and historical and cultural draws. The Niagara Falls Convention & Civic Centre is scheduled to open in 2011 with 250,000 square feet of space, and another new development is the $38 million Elements on the Falls Restaurant, located at Table Rock and offering views of the falls. The destination’s 16,000 hotel rooms readily accommodate groups, and standout meetings properties include Sheraton Fallsview Hotel & Conference Centre.
North of Toronto is the 2,500-square-mile natural playground of Muskoka, with its many lakes. The destination is home to a new upscale retreat: The Rosseau, A JW Marriott Resort & Spa, featuring nearly 14,000 square feet of meeting space.
Windsor is another major Ontario commercial center, just across the river from Detroit. It’s accessible by car, rail and air service from both Windsor International Airport and Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport. Major meeting facilities include Caesars Windsor, the first international Caesars outside the U.S., which recently celebrated its first anniversary. It features a 100,000-square-foot convention center, a trade show and entertainment venue, and two hotel towers with 758 rooms and suites.
“Our growing infrastructure allows us to host conventions, conferences and meetings in size and scope as never before,” says Gordon Orr, managing director at the Windsor CVB. “We offer one meeting destination and countless agendas for groups of many sizes.”
Excitement is rising in the nation’s capital of Ottawa about its new convention center, which is expected to enhance the city’s considerable cultural and business profile when it opens in early 2011. With this development, Noel Buckley, president and CEO of Ottawa Tourism, says groups have a choice destination in his city that is getting even better.
“As Canada’s capital, Ottawa offers a variety of historic, cultural and out-of-the-ordinary venues to stage meetings of all sizes,” Buckley says. “With easy access to green space from thousands of first-class hotel rooms, a UNESCO World Heritage Site—the Rideau Canal—in the middle of town and the vibrant ByWard Market neighborhood offering culinary and other delights, meeting planners often find that Ottawa draws record numbers of delegates. With easy access from major Canadian and international centers, and a state-of-the-art Ottawa Convention Centre currently under construction, we look forward to working with even more planners in the months and years ahead.”
For some exciting northern altitude and attitude, Thunder Bay, known as the “Gateway to the Great Northwest,” is situated on the shore of Lake Superior and presents groups with excellent meeting facilities, team-building retreat sites and a smorgasbord of recreation.
One of the city’s full-service hotels is The Prince Arthur Waterfront Hotel & Suites, a famed Canadian National Railways hotel built in 1911 on the harbor front. It has an ideal location downtown and 10,000 square feet of meeting space.
Maritime Provinces
Canada’s maritime heritage and beauty is the main attraction throughout its easternmost provinces, and conference groups often relish the culture along with the seafood and the region’s outdoor pursuits.
Enthusiasm is building in New Brunswick’s first city of Fredericton about construction of the city’s new convention center, scheduled to open in December 2010. The LEED-certified facility will combine contemporary high-tech amenities with a variety of spaces, including a 12,500-square-foot ballroom. It will be located next to the Fredericton Playhouse, a 700-seat theater that can be used for events, as well as restaurants, art galleries and heritage sites.
Wendy Bradley, destination sales coordinator for Fredericton Tourism, says Fredericton has the ideal meetings package.
“We have all the amenities of a large city and all the charm of a small town, plus our maritime hospitality,” she says. “With the opening of the convention center in late 2010, we will have everything conference delegates require.”
New Brunswick’s charming northern bayside city of Bathurst is completing the first phase of its La Promenade Waterfront project. The new community gathering spot offers live entertainment in summer, art boutiques and eateries to enhance the visitor experience around this historic city, where beaches and seafood are a major visitor draw.
As the largest city in the Maritime Provinces, Halifax, located in Nova Scotia, is a port city replete with heritage and excitement in its nightlife, museums, restaurants and surrounding coastal area. The city is planning a new convention center complex, to include a facility with about 150,000 square feet of meeting space and a 500-room hotel, as well as a 14-story office tower and retail space. Completion of the center is projected for 2013.
“Halifax is the perfect meetings and event destination,” says Helene Moberg, executive director of sales for Destination Halifax. “We have the amenities of a major city plus stunning nature and rugged seacoasts within minutes of downtown. Also, it’s easy for delegates to get here with close to 700 weekly flights and direct air access from most major cities in Canada and the U.S. Frequently, we hear meetings delegates comment on the hospitality and genuine welcome they receive here.”
New hotels include Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Halifax-Dartmouth, while the Westin Nova Scotian recently completed a renovation.
Seaside lures and an enviable golf course inventory are among the reasons groups like to convene on Prince Edward Island. As the nation’s smallest province, it offers small-town charm and stellar outdoor recreation, as well as city diversions in Charlottetown.
Jo-Ann Thomsen, director of sales for PEI Convention Partnership, reports that Charlottetown is getting a new 82-room hotel with naturally lit meeting space in fall 2010.
“The hotel will be located within the Confederation Court Mall in the city center, directly across from the Confederation Centre of the Arts,” she says.
As one of Canada’s best-known golf destinations, Prince Edward Island is hosting Big Break 2009, a Golf Channel TV realty show that brings in contestants from across North America to the island’s Mill River Golf Course to test their physical and mental toughness.
Ireland is closer geographically and culturally to Newfoundland and Labrador than western Canada, and Newfies bask in their cultural diversity. St. John’s is the province’s commercial center, with Delta St. John’s Hotel and Convention Centre as its major meetings property. The province is holding its own with meetings business in the current economy, says Brenda Walsh, the province’s marketing specialist for meetings, conventions and incentive travel.
“Newfoundland and Labrador is bucking the trend in the market this year,” Walsh says. “Most major conventions book their events many years in advance, and 2009 was scheduled to be a banner year before the global economic climate went into decline. [Determining] whether or not the conference attendance will be affected will have to wait for the ‘year in review,’ but as of June we are performing on pace. Our direct air access through Toronto, Montreal, Halifax and Newark, N.J., makes the journey to the ‘Far East of the Western World’ well worth the trip.”
The Sheraton Newfoundland Hotel, formerly The Fairmont Newfoundland Hotel, is a newly rebranded landmark property overlooking St. John’s waterfront, and major renovations are under way.
