Yee-Haw! Alberta Comes To Toronto

with Martha Chapman

I can’t remember the last time I saw a bull in a ballroom.

OK, so this wasn’t a real bull. It was one of those mechanical ones you can ride to show how brave (or crazy!) you are, but it was still a huge draw at a recent event hosted by Travel Alberta for Toronto-area meeting planners.

“This is a great market for us and all of our partners,” said Brian Slot, Travel Alberta’s Director of Meetings, Conventions & Incentive Travel. “This is the 6th year we’ve come here and this is the best ever response we’ve had, with some 200 meeting planners RSVPing.” According to Brian, many facilities across the province are upgrading and improving their offerings (such as ever wider bandwidth) and taking advantage of the current “buy Canadian” mentality many meeting planners are seeing.

Take Brewster, that icon of a company which never rests on its laurels. They now have 80 coaches, they own Banff Gondola and other attractions, 3 hotels and have a division in Alaska. Next up, according to Brewster’s Kevin Whitefield, they are building a cantilevered glacier skywalk (similar to the Grand Canyon Skywalk).

One big Alberta fan in the room was Bill Graham of Golden Rule Marketing in Burlington. “Why Alberta? For a bunch of reasons. Accessibility and the mountains – There’s no one who doesn’t enjoy Jasper and Banff.”

The bull wasn’t the only draw in the ballroom at the downtown Sheraton Centre. To showcase how innovative and fun a meeting can be in Alberta, attendees could also play virtual golf, decorate cowboy hats with bling including loonie-sized ‘precious gems,’ or experience a very cool virtual graffiti wall (and then e-mail their final work of art). There were even palm and Tarot card readers.

And lots of enthusiastic partners clearly happy and proud to be promoting Alberta - even to those of us who kept our feet firmly on the ground (and off the mechanical bull).