Montreal and Quebec City Quintessential Canada by Jeff Heilman A three-hour drive apart, Quebec’s two main cities, Montreal and Quebec City, are among the world’s most alluring destinations. Both are convincing substitutes for Paris in francophonic Quebec, the Canadian province where French roots and allegiances run deepest, and both share a profound love of food, culture and festivals. Well-supported by meeting venues, hotels, off-site attractions and all that nature has to offer, both are ideally structured for mixing business and pleasure—and offer U.S. delegates the chance to “go abroad” at a fraction of the distance and cost.
Montreal
In Montreal, the pink trees and multicolored glass walls of its Palais des Congres (convention center) speak for the city’s exuberant spirit. History and culture are immersive and inescapable here, in the Vieux Port and Vieux Montreal, in the inspiring museum and church collection, in the concrete curvatures of the 1976 Olympiad complex, and underneath the striking Pointe-a-Calliere, Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History, in the excavations of the original city. But this creative metropolis is also Canada’s old-school Gotham—not so much in the corporate way of Toronto—but in its unapologetic pursuit of good times. Cheerfully wearing his alien costume, an attendee at the 67th World Science Fiction Convention held at the Palais des Congres this August celebrated the fact that, “You can totally be yourself in Montreal.”
Overall, the recession has not dampened the Montreal meetings party, which typically draws large-scale association gatherings.
“Attendance was down, as everywhere, but all of our association bookings showed up, and we did not lose room nights,” says Luc Charbonneau, Tourism Montreal’s director of business and convention sales for the business market.
In response to the downturn’s pinch on future bookings, the city is taking aggressive measures to keep business moving.
“Planners booking 800 or more rooms on peak nights in 2011 and 2012 get complimentary use of the convention center, plus frozen hotel rates and attrition removed from their contracts,” Charbonneau says. A second incentive is good anytime: groups of any size can get hotel rooms for $10 per night reserved and used, provided they consider using one of four member hotels. “We recognize that planners face long, complicated decision timelines,” Charbonneau says.
“Our offers are less incentives than they are investments—my department strives to partner with our clients on creating successful meetings.”
All hotel brands are present, with most of the convention properties newly renovated; of the 8,000 deluxe rooms in downtown, half enjoy weather-protected access to the Palais de Congres. “Our hotel park shows very well, with a consistency in service and quality that makes planners’ jobs easier,” Charbonneau says.
Montreal hotels run the gamut, from the venerable Queen Elizabeth to a dynamic meetings-capable boutique collection that includes the stylish Montreal Opus. Celebs, travelers and locals mingle at this hip joining of a landmark with a modern building, which features multiple meeting spaces, including the patio outside of hot spot Koko Restaurant + Bar.
Montreal at-leisure choices are endless. Visitors can join the locals for the steep walk up Mont Royal to the open-air esplanade overlooking the city, while on the 1976 Olympiad complex, easily reached by Metro, the city’s Nature Museums (Biodome, Insectarium and Botanical Gardens) just announced its bold “Life Plan” project promising to be an unprecedented showcase of humankind and nature.
Quebec City
Thanks in large part to the success of Quebec City's quadricentennial celebration and promotions geared toward the U.S. market last year, “La Vieille Capitale” was voted North America’s third best tourist destination in 2009 by readers of Travel + Leisure magazine. With an area hotel capacity of 12,000 rooms, Quebec’s historic, romantic Old World capital city welcomed nearly 4.3 million tourists in 2007, roughly a quarter coming from 75 countries other than Canada. The setting is magical. Charles Dickens, visiting in 1842, saw in Quebec City a Gibraltar, “its giddy heights, its citadel suspended, as it were, in the air.”
Captivating, too, are the headline legacy projects—Cirque du Soleil and Image Mill, the unprecedented multi-media show projected onto harbor grain silos—that will feature as an international double-bills for the next five summers.
“Our new marketing campaign is based on the ‘Here and Now’ theme,” says Quebec City Tourism’s Paule Bergeron, which translates into ‘time being of the essence, now is the best time to be in Quebec City.’”
With the message to customers promising to deliver on experiences including “Business,” “Snow” and “Lifestyle,” Quebec City is building on its strong history and heritage reputation to be even more attractive to visitors.
A thousand church steeples rise in this cradle of North American French civilization; many are “changing vocations” via modern reuses, reception venues included. Two commonly used for gala events are La Chapel du Petit Seminaire and the Palais des Arts. Soon to be expanded are the Expo Cite exhibition center and the University Laval sports pavilion, to attract international sports events.
Clean—the electric Ecolobus loops Old Quebec and also serves the convention center—and eminently safe— Quebec City, as Twain wrote, is “unique and lasting.”
