TABIA - Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas

 April 2008 Tourism Committee Report

To have been presented at the TABIA AGM

This is view point by the V-P not official policy of TABIA

This is the time of year to think about house guests visiting you and Toronto this summer. Hopefully these are planned visits by old friends and family that you love to see. Of all the city slogans kicked around "The City of Neighbourhoods" is the best for me. Your visitors should see the City sites and certainly your neighbourhood, and a couple of others. Take the folks out, or send them to Harbourfront and the Islands, eat in Chinatown or Little India, Church-Wellesley Village, Little Italy, or Old Town Toronto, stroll Yorkville and more.

I know there will be a lot of us entertaining visitors because 80% of Toronto’s visitors are from the "VFR Market". That is the tourism business’s acronym for Visiting Friends and Relatives. With 19 million annual visitors, the hotels simply can not put that many people up. The vast majority are VFR, over 80%!

The second big number is that over 65% of the visitors to Toronto come from the local region. That is defined by both the provincial Ministry of Tourism and The Hotel and Convention Association (known as Tourism Toronto), as people coming from inside the 100 kilometre radius of downtown Toronto. The 100 kilometre circle of the region looks like this: Eastward along the Lake to about Coburg, then up to Peterborough, Fenlon Falls, northerly to Orillia, Collingwood almost, and Mount Forest, Kitchener-Waterloo to the west, Brantford and all of Hamilton and the to the south, the Niagara Peninsula, Buffalo and New York.

There are too few of these regional visitors staying in hotels (maybe 10-15 %) and zero convention business, so the Hotel and Convention Association ignores the regional market, and the VFR market. This summer the Provincial Ministry of Tourism sent applications for summer festival grants for groups in the city, with the express direction against advertising within 80 kilometres of Toronto. Grants to develop local events would be great and help some of the neighbourhoods. It seems illogical not to advertise to the regional market and to all of our visiting friends and relatives.

In order to improve tourism in Toronto, advertising to this large regional market of visitors should be obvious. But we don’t see any. The biggest market is being missed. The spill over of such advertising back in to Toronto would have a positive affect on ourselves, showing us what a great city we have. And you know Toronto could use a cheer leader these days. No one exhibits a real strong image of joy of heart, for this town.

Another place to look for support for the neighbourhoods is the City’s Tourism office. Just like the strongly needed, yet half-funded Planning Department, the City’s Tourism Department has been reduced to a handful of people with few dollars, with the expectation that the job is being done by Tourism Toronto money. Tourism is very beneficial in the economy creating entry level jobs in the hotels and restaurants and spending money at the neighbourhood festivals and shops. It would be great to see Toronto and its varied and interesting neighbourhoods be represented as the reason to visit the City. We are not just the city next to Niagara Falls, or next to wine Country, nor are we the cottage, moose and Mounties. We are the City of Neighbourhoods. And that those Neighbourhoods are the "WOW factor" in enjoying Toronto.

Our shopkeepers will tell you that many of the once-or-twice-a-year customers from the out-lying suburbs and towns are just not coming in as often any more. They hear mostly negative news about Toronto. The Downtown core needs to have a positive public voice to counter the negative images in the media. "If it bleeds it leads" is the media’s mantra. Aggressive parking

police, traffic chaos, shootings and people sleeping on the streets in the Financial District are the current media fodder.

We need to refresh the visitor’s memory on using taxis and TTC passes, etc. to party around the neighbourhoods and downtown with ease. To shop, dine and tour several of our neighbourhoods, not just the CN Tower, Science Centre and the Zoo. We can draw a crowd with the vibrancy of life, the arts and culture we offer. We need to concentrate on entertaining the regional market first. When we get that right, when we are making them happy, then the distant travelers will find a reason to visit.

Michael Comstock

For pdf version of report tourismcommreport_ agm_08