OTTAWA — The Meetings Mean Business Canada (MMBC) board recently travelled to Ottawa for Lobby Day 2020 to continue its mission to advocate the importance of business events to the Canadian economy.
MMBC chair Clark Grue, vice-chair Laura Pallotta, past chair Heidi Welker and coalition supporter and Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) board member Nina Kessler, all attended the event, which was led by TIAC.
Grue, Pallotta, Welker and Kessler participated in a number of one-to-one meetings with various Ministers to talk about the economic and social value of business events in Canada. They also attended presentations by Destination Canada; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; Innovation, Science and Economic Development; the Frontier Duty Free Association; and Tourism HR Canada to learn more about their 2020 mandates.
In addition to the one-to-one meetings with MPs, Grue presented the importance of meetings and business events during a TIAC board of directors and stakeholders luncheon.
“We had a great few days in Ottawa,” says Grue. “We were also delighted the Honourable Minister Joly, Minister of Economic Development (including Tourism) and Official Languages, as well as multiple cross-party MPs, attended the “Hill Day” reception as well as the Parliamentary Tourism Caucus presentation. Considering business travellers contribute four times the spend than that of a leisure traveller, and that meetings stimulate over one-third of tourism in Canada, everyone we spoke with received the message that meetings and business events are an enormous opportunity for the Canadian economy and communities.”
