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Toronto Tourism

Back in the tourism realm: the current issue of Oprah's magazine 'O' has a full-page feature on the Film Festival, but which spends most of its space on talking about fun things to do in Toronto, especially architecture-related. Doesn't appear to be online. The profile rises, I suppose...

Also, did anyone catch the huge pullout on Canada in last month's Conde Nast Traveller? It was actually quite wonderful; four glossy pages on TO, including a guide to spending a continuous 24 hours in "the city that would prefer not to tell you it never sleeps." Again, heavy on architecure...
 
The Toronto Film Festival will not have any remarkable movies that have famous movie actors. It is sad to see the Festival dying down, in addition it is unfortunate to see famous athletes withdrawing from local venues such as Rogers Cup and Canadian Open. Hopefully it will change soon.

In regards to the Film Festival I dont understand why don't they try to get big name movies and movie stars. You can check the films being featured in the festival, they are not very remarkable.

World Class Aquarium is a great idea, but first we must make the water front pretty and connect the Airport to downtown. The Pearson airport is privately owned and the owner is putting a lot of money into it and I believe it is world class.

My dream is to have an NFL franchise here with a modern stadium built where the airport currently is.
 
Uhhh....no offense FT, but have you been paying any attention to the TIFF run-up? This is going to be as big a fest as ever....see the link: http://www.tiffg.ca/

By the way, those press releases only account for the (small) proportion of the line-up already announced. The full list doesn't appear until the end of August.

TIFF is huge, huge, huge, and will be for the foreseeable future. It is an absolute must on the Hollywood calendar, and increasingly, I think, one of the top social events on the planet for the 'A' list. It is Toronto's single best brand, no doubt about it, and only getting better.
 
FunkyTechnician said:
The Toronto Film Festival will not have any remarkable movies that have famous movie actors. It is sad to see the Festival dying down ... Hopefully it will change soon. In regards to the Film Festival I dont understand why don't they try to get big name movies and movie stars.
Click to expand...

TIFF is second in size only to Cannes, and is now widely regarded as the most important industry/market festival (as opposed to competitive festival) in the world, a status it's only recently solidified, and shows no signs whatsoever of losing any time soon. It is nothing less than a truly astonishing success story in every way, and is probably the only thing in town other than the CN tower that is indisputably top-o'-the-heap on a global scale.

Where did you get the completely false idea that it's somehow slipping? Just by casting your own eye over this year's sched, or what? What constitutes "remarkable movies" for you?
 
Not to mention that GTAA is not really privately owned. It's an arm's-length crown corporation.
 
I checked their website for the list of movies. And those movies might be good but won't make a lot of money nor do they have famous actors. However the list was updated and there are more movies that I wasn't aware of. I'm glad to hear that there will be more films announced. Also, I believe the Festival Center currently U/C will only take TIFF to new heights, which is good.
 
TIFF is not dieing , last years was the biggest one ever by a landslide...

there were so many actor last year i couldn't remeber.

Atleast a good 15 A-list stars.
 
If overall tourism is up, why is it so important that there are less American tourists? Do Americans spend more than international tourists or something?
 
i would say there are more European and Asian visitors.
 
How long can we keep blaming SARS? Good god, with a colective attention span of about 5 minutes I highly doubt Americans even remember what SARS was, never mind that it happened in Toronto. Border issues and confusing passport requirements, insecurity abroad, the rising loonie, and a sluggish economy south of the border are what is keeping the yanks away, and as far as I understand it Americans are also staying away from overseas travel.

That said, as has already been mentioned here time and time again Toronto does a ridiculously inept and ineffectual job at promoting itself, within Canada and to the US. We are competing with Vancouver and Montreal who have far clearer images to market. Toronto requires a bit more imagination to do so, which clearly is in short supply among those responsible for this sort of thing. Also, our city has not adequatly been addressing or investing in its public transport, the decrepit and ugly public infrastructure, uninspired streetscapes, a lack of fresh new and exciting tourist attractions, and a visible problem with the homeless and panhandlers (as discussed in other threads), all of which probably result in more unfavourable word of mouth than SARS!
 
My dream is to have an NFL franchise here with a modern stadium built where the airport currently is.

Personally, I hope that we never get the NFL. If the mods feel this is overly offensive please delete it.
 
Ahh...another article on "declining" tourism and tired attractions that manages to completely ignore reality. Only in a city with a press as self-hating as Toronto's could a story that reveals, several grafs in, that overall tourist visits are actually up be headlined, "Where have all the tourists gone?"

And new attractions? Has that guy looked around lately? A complete revamp of the waterfront....yeah, hmmm, I guess that would be a good idea....maybe someone should look into that.

I mean, really, do these people leave their homes or read the newspaper? And do reporters, when met with this rank uninformed-ness, try to ask questions that point out the flood of new or revamped attractions and massive waterfront renewal?

The ability of the TO press, and the people it chooses to quote, to ignore reality on local issues is astounding. Tourist numbers up, but Americans down? Tourism is in decline! A clearly-not-what-it-might-seem fight that results in a death on a stretch of Queen West that is among the most vibrant areas in the country? Queen Street is in decline! Some people on St Clair or Spadina not happy about streetcar ROWs? Both are in decline!

But yeah, I agree, we need a Universal Studios. That will bring in millions of tourists, and all the city needs to solve its budget problems is a casino. Clearly.
 
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