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Downtown in Toronto relaunched postrenovation – with 26,000sqft of event space, two pillar-less ballrooms and a Topgolf Swing Suite for good measure. Montréal has a $ 150m, 200-room hotel opening in 2026 adjacent to the Casino de Montréal.
As well as the mainstream venues, Canada is also expanding its portfolio of unorthodox meeting spaces. Fort Gibraltar in Winnipeg is a reconstructed 1800s fur trade fort with authentic timber buildings and costumed interpreters. Dakota Dunes Resort, meanwhile, sits on traditional Whitecap Dakota Territory in Saskatchewan, surrounded by natural sand dunes 20 minutes from Saskatoon.
Pitching the wilderness Few developed countries can claim a wilderness as rugged and impressive as Canada’ s. And unlike its equally geographically-blessed neighbour, the United States, many of Canada’ s cities are nestled right inside its best landscapes.
Vancouver actually has mountains and old-growth forests within the city limits. In the time it takes to commute in many cities you can be on a ski slope or a hiking trail. In Alberta, Calgary sits on the edge of the Canadian Rockies, about an hour’ s drive from the alpine forests of Banff National Park.
This wealth of scenery is fertile ground for incentive travel. In 2023, a CMW reporter visited Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge on Vancouver Island. The general manager proudly recounted taking the delegates’ phones away and holding their meetings on the top of mountains or in views of glacial lakes –“ anywhere but a boardroom”.
These retreats can be found all over Canada. To the east in Nova Scotia, a wilderness resort called Trout Point Lodge offers the kind of getaway that many associate with the traditional northern frontier. Log cabins, glacial lakes and fir trees. In the far northern territory of Yukon, there is an Indigenous-owned conference and
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cultural centre called Kwanlin Dün that displays old artefacts and histories of the Kwanlin Dun tribe, as well as locallycrafted honeys and bits of regalia on sale.
Expertise in digital sciences? While the cities of Canada each have their own specialisations, there is one field that unites many of them – digital sciences. Destination Canada tells CMW that Canada’ s digital ecosystem is well-connected and spans Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver. In particular, the three cities combine to form“ one AI powerhouse”.
The country now hosts 10 % of the world’ s elite AI researchers and leads G7 nations in AI talent growth at 38 % annually. The federal government is investing heavily in AI, betting on Canada becoming a leading source of AI tech.
Canada’ s resumé for tech is growing more impressive. In 2024, Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics
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Above: An outdoor retreat in British Columbia
Left: Trout Point Lodge, Nova Scotia
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for his neural network research at the University of Toronto. In Quebec, Montréal houses Yoshua Bengio ' s Mila AI institute, while Vancouver completes the triangle of Canada ' s AI powerhouse cities. The federal government was first globally to launch a national AI strategy in 2017, and has since attracted over $ 2bn in investment. Major companies like Telus, Arctic Wolf and MindBridge operate from Canadian bases.
Strong government support Capital city Ottawa has put cash behind its event ambitions. The federal government has allocated $ 60m through the International Convention Attraction Programme to help cities bid for major conferences. So far, the subvention fund has supported 69 events, generating $ 546m in direct economic impact and attracting 213,000 delegates.
Recent wins include Toronto securing the 2025 Alzheimer ' s Association International Conference and Montréal landing the 2028 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. In 2027, Vancouver will host the World Road Congress.
Of course, like every destination, Canada faces its challenges. De Visscher says that international organisers sometimes come with their own“ misconceptions”. They believe Canada is“ too cold, too far, too homogenous, lesser-known, or even challenging to enter due to visas”. The reality, she explains, is not so. Certainly, the Great White North must contend with being deep in the north of the planet. But that location is also what consistently lands Canada among top spots in rankings of the world’ s most beautiful countries. Vancouver has been consistently voted among the 10 most livable cities and there are even wine-growing valleys in this beautiful country, which also boasts a welcoming culture and an events experience that few destinations could hope to replicate. n
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