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Toronto Tourism

LOL...Robson St (and by extension Vancouver) has more of an urban vibe than anywhere in Toronto?? Vancouver is a beautiful city when it comes to natural beauty, but Toronto doesn't take second place to Vancouver when it comes to street life whatsoever.
 
lokyin said:
we just need to be known for something. which we are not (and don't tell me multiculturalism). beauty: give it up with scenery cuz we just don't have it. the toronto culture: really nothing special to tourists unless you pick at it real bad. we can't even be thought of as a shopping mecca. we're really just another city.
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I find this is a major problem with Torontonians; many tend to devalue their city far too much.

I've been chatting with people recently on the issue and they had similar sentiments. Anything you could bring up, for example, the Bata Shoe Museum, Gardiner Museum, etc. was countered with "you can find small unique galleries in any city".

Using this logic, why travel anywhere? We need to realize we have some great neighbourhoods, galleries, etc. and let people know. If we can't find value in our city, why should we expect tourists to?

gotta have something people can do/see here that's kinda special. perhaps toronto is the place where you can taste the best of the world.


and we need a lot more people living downtown.. create a much more bustling image of toronto and much better pedestrian presence. for one, we don't have anything like robson street in vancouver (hope queen st west will turn into something tourist-ly nice tho, and whenever dundas square decides to complete with metropolis). we need to look livelier in the city core.
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Is Robson really more vibrant than anything in Toronto?

I've had some interesting discussions with people recently who feel Toronto is just a bland tourist destination (these are people who live in the city) that really has nothing to entice tourists. They feel we should be building huge monuments/projects that will gain international attention.
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The people I was talking to said almost the exact same thing.

I think Toronto should invest in such monumental projects (and there are projects like that in the pipeline)...but then the novelty will invariably wear off. International attention is fleeting, except for major world cities which have many streams for generating international attention.

Creativity and innovation in design would be a great thing to build upon though. I think Toronto could have the most unique Waterfront in NA as far as design is concerned and it still wouldn't be a huge tourist draw.

I would also add that too many people look at things with a "grass is greener" attitude. If you live here, you obviously won't find it as interesting as a tourist. It's like people who are attracted to Europe for the history and architecture - for a lot the people who actually live there, that isn't a big deal - they're used to it.
 
vancouver street vibe and nightlife doesn't match Toronto's. Its actually one of the areas dragging in the city. That don't have the big festivals at all.

There been a million polls from the internet about that.
 
Toronto has one of the best entertainment districts around the world! Toronto should build on that! When I was at the Caribana festival on Saturday while selling water I talked to many people and asked what they liked about the city and if they would come back etc. Many peop;e said the LOVED! Toronto, they said the club scene is really really good! They loved it and said they are already planning nexy years trip to come back. Another thing I was told by many is that they loved our waterfront near the lakeshore with all the restaurants and they loved the Harborfront centre and the parks on the centreal waterfront! When i told them that Toronto is actually now starting to revive their waterfront they told me why its already nice and enjoyable! The thing that many would like to see is Toronto do more things in the winter! They tell me that in the Summer Toronto is one of the best cities to be in, in all of NA but in the winter it's like the city is dead! So i think that's our answer we need to bring Toronto out of the dead in the winter! In the Summer hotels are always booked Toronto is a REALLY busy city in the summer! But it's the winter months that's driving the hotel's average vacacy rates down! We need to try and think of ideas of ways to make Toronto fun in the winter that will draw tourists all around the world! So let's hear it what should Toronto do???? any ideas?
 
TrickyRicky said:
Fine English is not as exotic as French but our British colonial heritage is certainly not developed as an asset. etc.
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The difference is that the Quebecois have tried to preserve their French heritage. At the current rate of immigration, English will be a second language for the majority of Torontonians soon. The fact that Toronto was once a British outpost is hardly evident today.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Personally, I am always pleased when I drive along the GEW (is that the correct accronym) and see the towering condos near [SkyDome]. To me it signifies that monied people are taking up residence in the city, living where they work and partaking in what the city has to offer. I'd rather have thousands of new permament residents living in the city and supporting the local restaurants and businesses than pandering to the tourist trade.

IMO, Toronto, much like most American cities in the 1.5-2.5 million population range is not a tourism city, but is instead built to serve its resident population and the surrounding suburbs. When was the last time you thought of visiting Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, or San Antonio?
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The correct acronym would actually be FGE or FGGE - Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway.

I'd like to visit Philly. But Chicago only has 2.8 million in its city limits, not much more than Toronto's 2.5 million.
 
The difference is that the Quebecois have tried to preserve their French heritage.
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Actually, I'd say that they are preserving their Quebecois heritage, and are a member of the francophonie.
 
The problem is one of perception, not reality. Although we certainly have some major challenges (decrepit infrastructure, a preponderance of ugly streetscapes, etc.) Toronto has everything and more than many other places, no question. The reality is probably not the problem - to which many who visit here would attest - it's the fact that there is no perception outside the city of any of this. We don't register much beyond the Canadian border, and within it we register very negatively (boring, arrogant, blah blah blah). What Toronto needs is a good PR plan, one that can do for us what 'Cool Britanina' did for London for example, which is to say totally reinvigorate the image and perception of the place. Mounties, moose, and multiculturalism will only take us so far. People want sexy, exotic and fun if they are going to want to come here and drop their hard-earned cash.
 
If you want to attract Americans, you need to offer them something that they'll never be able to get at home. My suggestion is Legalized Pot.
 
I actually want to target the natural scenery issue head on. Toronto is certainly not endowed with much of a base but again my point is that what we have is not used to advantage. Cities use their natural setting to advantage by creating visual appeal between natural features and man-made structures. Tourists visit the beaches in Barcelona for instance but much of their beach environment was artificially created and the water is more polluted then lake Ontario. By contrast Toronto largely ignores it's beaches and there is just no appealing interface between the city built environment and the beach. In terms of topography look at how the built environment in many cities complement the changing elevation, Paris, Boston, Montreal, San Francisco, Sydney etc. Speaking of in the city (not surrounding hills or mountain ranges) the actual changes in elevation are not that great but the built form complements the change with vistas of buildings and accents them with monuments. Now stand and look across the Don Valley, a feature that is not insignificant by the standards of say the cities listed above. What have we done with it? We are endowed with an intricate shoreline and network of islands in the central waterfront. Compare other cities, who use this type of feature to advantage, Venice, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Amsterdam. Compared to Cape Town, Hong Kong or Rio Toronto doesn't have much in thew way of natural beauty but to dismiss our natural enviroment as irrelevent or of no consequence is I would argue to dismiss most of the top tourist drawing cities in the world as having no natural assets. We just don't work ours.
 
Hmm... how about combining our historic reputation for efficiency and safety with our current social open-mindedness? Something like...
"Toronto: Sin City Meets Sim City"?
"What Happens In Toronto Stays In Toronto- If That's What You Want"?
Or we could twist the late Peter Ustinov's well known quote, to "Toronto is like New York if it was run by the Dutch"- which, ironically, New York once was, but I digress.
How about a new flag, featuring a mosaic incorporating a cannabis leaf and the Pride triangle?
Or we can play up the fact that this is the only non-abandoned city between Manhattan and Chicago, with an active, vibrant downtown that is completely walkable.
"Toronto- We're Still Kickin' It Downtown" or "Toronto- We Never Left"!
Just messing around. On a serious note, there are millions of Americans, within driving distance, living in the suburbs of once thriving downtowns; surely some of them miss the 'downtown' experience? Having seen Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit on a Saturday afternoon during warm weather, I can't help but think that having the nearest active city core to western New York, most of Ohio and almost half of Michigan shouldn't be overlooked as a potential tourist draw, in my opinion.
 
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