Destination Toronto says the city is still 55% below pre-pandemic levels when it comes to the economic impact from hosting business events.
Toronto is looking at over $624 million in economic impact in 2023, but that’s well below the $1.1 billion back in 2019 before COVID.
From our newsroom to your inbox at noon, the latest headlines, stories, opinion and photos from the Toronto Sun.
Thanks for signing up!
A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.
The next issue of Your Midday Sun will soon be in your inbox.
“I think it’s important to look at this being well behind the recovery pace that’s important for the industry and the community as a whole,” said Andrew Weir, executive vice president at Destination Toronto.
“What we would call our pace — the future bookings for ‘24, ‘25, ‘26 — are well behind where they should be now. The key reason for that is because we lost two years of sales to our U.S. competitors. So in ‘20 and ‘21 when the U.S. cities were selling actively to the large U.S. groups, those groups were looking at Canadian destinations like Toronto and saying, ‘Well, it’s confusing. I don’t know if I can get across the U.S. border. We’re seeing issues at the airport. We’ll just stay in the U.S.’ So we lost two years. And because these meetings tend to book on a three to five year horizon, that’s why we find ourselves facing a significant shortfall and that’s what we’re looking to address right now with a very active sales program.”
Currently, 2024 is on pace to deliver only 21% of the pre-pandemic economic impact from meetings and events to Toronto.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
Weir also says the bookings of small-to-medium meetings are even further behind those of large meetings, and the latter is also affected by smaller attendance too.
Large groups may also need help with costs like customs brokers if equipment is being brought into Canada for conventions and visitor VISA application delays from countries that aren’t the U.S.
Some remedy, says Weir, may be found in the federal government’s budget earlier this week, which promised $50 million over three years through Destination Canada.
“There was some language about supporting meetings and events, which was very good, but we just don’t know what the framing of that will be,” he said. “That’ll come out in the weeks and months ahead, but the fact that it’s earmarked for that is very encouraging.”
This spring, Toronto will welcome approximately 130,000 attendees, including Collision this June bringing over 35,000 visitors to the city.
