Wins, Kudos, Updates and more
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REMINDER: REGISTER FOR THE BUSINESS OUTLOOK FORUM
All staff are welcome to join us on Wednesday, November 9th for the Business Outlook Forum at The Omni King Edward Hotel for an overview of Destination Toronto's 2023 business plans and the latest insights shaping the future of the visitor economy.
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Networking Lunch: 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Presentations: 12:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
Please register if you plan to attend in-person or virtually.
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DESTINATION TORONTO WINS GOLD STELLA AWARD!
Destination Toronto has been awarded the GOLD Stella Award as the Best CVB/DMO in the International and US Territories Category by Northstar Meetings Group. Finalists were determined by meeting and event planners during an open voting period and winners were chosen by an expert panel of judges selected by the editors of Northstar Meetings Group. Winners will officially be announced by Northstar on November 3rd and will be featured in a special supplement in the November/December 2022 issue of Meetings & Conventions. While we are thrilled by the news, we ask that the DT team celebrate amongst ourselves until the official announcement.
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As part of the HHOF Friends Offer, staff can receive 25% off the 2022 Hyundai Hockey Hall of Fame Legends Classic taking place Sunday, November 13th at Scotiabank Arena.
To purchase tickets, please use the Promo Code: HHOFFRIENDS
Note: this offer is only extended to DT employees and is not to be shared with anyone outside of our organization.
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GREAT TASTE OF ONTARIO
Great Taste of Ontario is a new partnership with the Culinary Tourism Alliance to help promote the restaurant scene in Ontario.
While there are 40 passports to download in the province, there are three passports in Toronto:
- Caribbean Passport
- Latin America Passport
- Southeast Asia Passport
How can you participate and engage?
- Download a digital passport and explore
- Post and Use the #greatasteofontario on your own social media platforms
- Hit the road and check-in along the way for a chance to win a $25.00
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DID YOU CATCH THE MOST RECENT CONTENT HUB ARTICLES?
Research & Insights Terminal:
Business Events:
Consumer Articles:
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WELCOME
Welcoming our newest Destination Toronto team members:
Annie Ewing, Community Engagement Manager, (she/her) Annie comes to DT from CrowdRiff, where she was the Business Development Representative, and before that TTI Travel Canada as a Luxury Travel Advisor. With an impressive list of accomplishments and a champion of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the travel industry, Annie is the co-founder of Let's Get Uncomfortable, a platform dedicated to offering a safe space for travel industry professionals to effect positive change, and is co-founder and board member of PropelTO - Toronto, a program for Toronto travel industry members to connect and learn.
Dean D’souza, Business Analyst, Sales Insights & CRM, (he/him) Dean will be taking ownership of our CRM technology & data. In previous roles, Dean worked on creating and implementing processes and systems for CRM reporting. He has over 4 years of working experience as a BI and CRM Analyst at e-commerce companies like Wayfair, and TripAdvisor in Boston where he worked with the Salesforce CRM and a plethora of big data technologies. Rebecca Koole, Corporate Communications Coordinator, (she/her) Rebecca recently graduated from the University of Waterloo Arts and Business program, and has experience working in both communications and marketing through the school's co-op program. Rebecca will be supporting the execution of our Pulse and Terminal 2 newsletters, as well as managing the CMS for the Terminal.
If you've not done so yet, feel free to send a note to say hi and introduce yourself!
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CONGRATULATIONS!
Congratulations to Monique Holmes for completing the Insights Discovery Accreditation!
Having an Insights Discovery practitioner at Destination Toronto means being able to support new hires with their insights early, and to easily apply the learned tools into day-to-day operations and communications.
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Do you have a win or kudos you want included in next month's newsletter? Email us with your shout out!
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An at-a-glance look at the month ahead for the DT teams.
DEPARTMENT NEWS: WHAT'S ON THIS MONTH
GLOBAL SALES AND SERVICES
GSS Activities:
- Sports Events Congress 2022, Nov 2-4, Edmonton
- ICCA Annual Congress 2022, Nov 6-9, Krakow, Poland
- Conference Direct CDX, Nov 7-10, Puerto Rico
- Toronto Sales Mission, Nov 8-10, DC Market
- Marriott Israel FAM, Nov 10-13, Toronto
- FICP Annual Conference, Nov 13-16 Boston, MA
- HPN Partner Conference, Nov 14-17, Denver, CO
- Connect Texas, Nov 17, Northern Virginia
- PCMA Canada East Innovation Conference, Nov 19-22, Niagara Falls
- UIA Roundtable- Europe Nov 24-25, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
- IT& CM China and CTW China (In-Person) Nov 28-30 Shanghai, China
- IBTM World Nov 29-Dec 1, Barcelona, Spain
DESTINATION SERVICES
Year Prior Activations:
- 2022 American Anthropological Association in Seattle
Planning Sites:
- Sibos
- American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC)
- ULI
TRAVEL TRADE
- NTA Travel Exchange (National Tour Association), Nov 13-16, Reno, Nevada.
- OMCA Marketplace (Ontario Motorcoach Association), Nov 13-16, 2022, Niagara Falls, Ontario.
- Focus Canada Mexico, Nov 23-24, 2022, Mexico City.
In partnership with the Gold Medal Travel Group in the U.K. and Air Canada,
Travel Trade is hosting a Product Testing Tour over the dates of Nov 4-7.
GLOBAL MARKETING
- 6ix Weeks of Celebrations domestic market Holiday Campaign launching Nov 8.
- You Gotta See What We See U.S. consumer campaign being extended through early Dec.
- Media Relations Team hosting two Canadian Influencer visits with Kayla Short and Praveeni Perera.
- U.S. & CAN Cross Market Arts Toronto Press Trip Nov 8-13.
- Holiday media activation launching Nov 18 at Stackt Market to help kick off the 6ix Weeks of Celebration holiday campaign.
- Working with the London Free Press for holiday/winter content and a broadcast segment with CHCH for holiday content.
- Hosting Buffalo-based media for a day-trip experience in Toronto on Nov 18.
- Hosting a Holidays in Toronto Mexico media group, Nov 23-27.
- Hosting a What's Hot in Toronto UK media group, Nov 21-25.
- BE Marketing: Continuing work on the creative refresh of the Cultures Evolve Here campaign.
- New Toronto Inc booth design on display at WebSummit 2022 in Lisbon.
- Working with Northstar Meetings Group on a Toronto-focused campaign for the U.S. market.
- Extension of Smart Meetings campaign featuring curated Toronto feature, email deployment, social media and display ads.
- Top 6 in the 6ix enews deployed October 27 featuring new BE blog content.
DESTINATION DEVELOPMENT
- Looking forward to hosting our second annual Business Outlook Forum on Nov 9. This is an important opportunity to share key insights with businesses in our community and highlight ways they can engage with DT and the visitor economy. Staff are encouraged to attend the event in person to connect with our stakeholders. Please register here.
- The new VIP Pass to attractions for clients and media will be available as of next week. The pass has been reimagined in digital form, making it easier to share with the user and also enabling full tracking and communications with attractions. A detailed email will be sent next week explaining how to use it.
- The Toronto Inc team is attending WebSummit, the largest global tech conference and the European edition of Collision, hosted annually in Toronto. The Canadian delegation is nearly 300 people including the Toronto Inc partners, who are delivering a strong, combined Toronto presence on site for more than 70,000 delegates.
- Look for an elevated sense of arrival and of Toronto at Toronto Pearson Airport later this month, as a major new photographic installation is completed in Terminals 1 and 3 arrivals areas. Featuring 24 large-format photographs - some more than 40 feet across and also including sliding doors that every traveler passes through - the installation will create a more impactful arrival for visitors and immediately invite them to explore and experience more of the destination. This project was initiated by DT in partnership with RTO partners in Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton, and of course with close collaboration with the GTAA.
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NEW PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT TOOL COMING IN DECEMBER
More information about our new performance appraisal and feedback tool Culture Amp, will be available this December. You can learn more about Culture Amp by watching the short video in this article. The goal of Culture Amp is to help you feel more engaged within your role, your team and our organization.
Our annual review period will start in the next few months, and we will send out more instructions and self-directed learning tools in the next month.
If you have any questions please reach out to Monique in Chat.
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POCKET PILLS
A new service has been added to the Group Benefits called PocketPills.
PocketPills is an online pharmacy that helps you manage your prescriptions and medications for you or your dependents medications.
The service offers: free delivery, reduced dispensing fee of $7, access to a pharmacist 24x7, a mobile app to easily refill subscriptions, an easy process for transferring over prescriptions from your existing pharmacy, and more.
Additional information can be found in the below short videos:
Intro to PocketPills video (1 minute)
The plan member app video (3:44 minutes)
The Caregiver Feature - video (2 minutes)
If you have any questions please reach out to Monique directly.
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GET THE HEADSPACE APP FOR FREE
Headspace is a mental health/wellness app. It is designed to be "a personal guide to mindfulness, meditation, sleep, focus and movement". All staff are welcome to ask Tanya about how to register to get a paid subscription for free through the DT corporate license.
Although it is free to download, there are more offerings and enhanced features with a paid subscription. Check out the following documents to learn more:
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Each edition of PULSE, we’re asking 3 questions to 3 phenomenal DT team members. We’re willing to bet you’ll learn a few tidbits about some of our fave DT people.
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Sohee Maeng (she/her)
Marketing Specialist
What is your favourite WFH accessory?
My extremely oversized purple hoodie, if you’ve been in meetings with me, you’ve seen it. It’s become my snug uniform for WFH.
What’s your favourite travel hack?
Compression socks are a MUST, especially for flights. I have never been so relieved from being able to put my feet back into my shoes.
What’s something in Toronto that is at the top of your Never Have I Ever bucket list?
Visiting a speakeasy! I managed to find a few through work this summer and they have been on my list ever since.
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Heather Neale (she/her)
Managing Director of Sales
Do you prefer working from home or working at the office?
Both! I love coming to the office to engage with my peers, and our hotel & venue partners while using our fabulous new office space. However, my role involves a fair bit of business travel and evening/weekend client events that often take me away from home and my family. Consequently, I’m grateful for our flexible ‘work where you like program’, so when I am not travelling, I can have breakfast with my kids, walk them to the bus stop, and still be at my desk to work before 9 am.
Tell us about your most memorable trip?
Travelling to Sydney, Australia with my husband and our 8 month old identical twin boys. The looks from other passengers as we boarded and they realized there would be not one, but two infants on our 2 flights, flying over 21 hours! I came prepared, and proceeded to hand out ear plugs I brought myself for the 100 passengers or so around us. People laughed, but warmly accepted the ear plugs. Thankfully our boys slept almost 14 hrs over those two flights and were wonderfully polite (and quiet) passengers!
When someone tells you they’re visiting the 6ix, what’s the first thing you recommend experiencing?
Make sure you experience our live sports or theatre scenes, at least one of the two! Torontonians cheer loud, laugh with open hearts, and the genuine warmth is felt throughout the venue. It’s infectious. Most people exchange a few words about the show or the sports team, and it’s a moment of connection to another person in our destination. It’s authentic, and something I love doing (even when the Leafs lose!).
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Rebecca Koole (she/her)
Communications Coordinator
Do you prefer working from home or working at the office?
Don’t tell my gecko, Phil, but definitely the office! I can’t get these amazing views at my apartment.
What road trip can you simply not get enough of?
Driving to B.C. (twice) to go backcountry camping through the Rocky Mountains was surreal! My partner and I are both over 6 feet, so let’s just say it was a squishy few thousand km drive.
What’s something in Toronto that is at the top of your Never Have I Ever bucket list?
I just moved here a few weeks ago so my list is long. I think I am most excited to explore the art scene more and see all my favorite indie bands play live!
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CELEBRATING WORK ANNIVERSARIES!
Bonnie Roy - twenty seven year anniversary (November 6, 1995)
Paula Port - twenty three year anniversary (November 29, 1999)
Tanaz Divecha - twenty one year anniversary (November 20, 2001)
Yolanda Cheung - fifteen year anniversary (November 14, 2007)
Annie Hopewell - one year anniversary (November 1, 2021)
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ARE YOU FOLLOWING OUR SOCIAL CHANNELS?
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