For immediate release

November 22, 2005

GREATER TORONTO LEADERS JOIN FORCES TO BRING
TOP RESEARCHERS AND PROFESSIONALS TO TORONTO

New international conventions announced for Toronto

TORONTO - Scientific and business leaders from Toronto are coming together in a new effort to attract major international conferences and conventions to Toronto. Joining forces with the tourism industry, prominent local scientists, doctors, academics and business leaders announced the formation of the Toronto Leaders Circle.

Major conferences are vital to the city’s economic development by bringing hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city every year, and by entrenching Toronto as a leading global centre of knowledge and research.

“By engaging Greater Toronto’s leaders we can leverage their powerful voices among their global peers to make the case for Toronto,” said Bruce MacMillan, president and CEO of Tourism Toronto.”

The Toronto Leaders Circle is an ever-growing group of scientists, doctors, professionals and business leaders who have stepped forward and are actively involved in attracting major conferences to Toronto.

“Toronto has many individuals known in their fields as leaders on the world stage, but through highly visible international meetings we can increase the leadership profile of Toronto as a whole,” said Dr. Susan Richardson, Head of Microbiology at the Hospital for Sick Children and President of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (AMMI) Canada, which is hosting the 2009 Meeting of the International Society of Chemotherapy in Toronto.

In 2004, nearly 700,000 people visited Toronto for conferences and conventions, according to Statistics Canada. They contributed some $500 million in direct spending on hotels, restaurants, meeting facilities and transportation.

“Beyond the direct spending, major international meetings are true city-building events. They bring profile to our scientists, professionals and business leaders, and they enable us to build and constantly upgrade our civic infrastructure,” said Barry Smith, president of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Information about the Toronto Leaders Circle is available at its new web site: www.torontoleaderscircle.com.

Three new conferences announced for Toronto

Tourism Toronto also announced that three prominent international organizations have selected Toronto for upcoming meetings. The World Wind Energy Association annual conference in 2008 will bring 1,500 delegates to Toronto. In 2011, the International Health Economics Association will meet in Toronto with more than 3,000 delegates.

Last month, Tourism Toronto announced that the National Society of Black Engineers has chosen Toronto for its 2010 conference. This will be the first time in its 35-year history that the organization will hold its 10,000-member meeting outside of the U.S.

The competition to host major international conventions is intense. With the introduction of new self-contained venues and expansions to convention centres throughout North America, it takes considerable resources to successfully bring conventions to Toronto. Thanks to the sustainable funding generated by the Destination Marketing Fee and the Convention Development Fund, Tourism Toronto and its members are able to directly market Toronto to meeting and convention planners internationally, as well as to offer financial and services incentives to secure major convention wins.

About Tourism Toronto

Tourism Toronto, Toronto’s Convention and Visitors Association, is an industry association of almost 1,000 members established to strategically market the Greater Toronto Region as a remarkable destination for tourists, convention delegates and business travelers around the globe. Tourism Toronto generates the vast majority of its funding from the three-per-cent Destination Marketing Fee collected from hotels within the Greater Toronto Region. www.torontotourism.com

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Full list of members of the Toronto Leaders’ Circle is available

For more information contact:

Andrew Weir

Tourism Toronto

(416) 203-2600 x117

aweir@torcvb.com