Montreal shown to be magical

Pick a city for your meetings event.

Any city.

But Tourisme Montréal says if you’re looking for a particularly creative metropolis as a venue, Montreal should be at the top of your list.

Tourisme Montréal held a virtual event last week on the eve of Global Meetings Industry Day that had senior officials from that tourism promotion body touting their city as a great meetings venue and also featured Quebec illusionist Luc Langevin dazzling viewers with his sleight-of-hand routines that involved cards and other items.

And, says Tourisme Montreal CEO Yves Lalumiere, Langevin’s creativity underscores the city’s penchant for wowing people.

“We have a lot of activities every season,” he said.

Mylène Gagnon, Tourisme Montréal’s vice-president of sales and convention services, in turn praised Montreal as “one of the world’s great destinations for meetings and events.”

Montreal’s tourist trade has taken a hit from the coronavirus pandemic but Lalumiere noted vaccinations are progressing, building confidence there will be signs of recovery in late summer and early fall.

Tourisme Montreal has continued assisting clients with rebooking their upcoming conferences to future years to ensure that those conferences will remain in Montréal. It’s also supporting associations and organizations looking for solutions for their events in 2021 and beyond. It has been able to rebook more than 50% of its bookings for future years, which it calls a great achievement.

“We know that meeting planners are looking for flexibility in their group’s agreement, security for their participant and help with the new technology,” it says. “To make sure we can help them with their new reality, we recently launched a new initiative called the Guaranteed Worry-Free Pledge which helps planners with the new challenges in the planning of a meeting in a post-pandemic world. It includes extremely flexible cancellation policies, enhance safety measures and protocols during events, complimentary consultation with Montréal hybrid event experts and financial assistance for planners. Furthermore, we have been receiving more and more leads in the past weeks and are confident that it will be a good year for conventions, as well as for future years.

“In this sense, we are still very optimistic about the future.”

Montreal has over 24,000 hotel rooms and different meetings facilities, with webinar narration stating, “No matter what size of meetings, we have an option for you.”

Viewers were also told different districts offer attractive areas for those attending meetings and events in the city. Among them is downtown’s Golden Square Mile, home to the city’s Museum of Fine Arts and numerous boutique hotels.

Another suggested district is Old Montreal, a cornerstone of the city’s tourist trade.

Viewers were also told Montreal is a walkable city.

“When you’re ready, get in touch,” the webinar added. “We look forward to seeing you soon.”