Torontoist has had a long history of critiquing Tourism Toronto's lackluster ad campaigns. Remember Toronto Unlimited? We had a field day with that one. And those awful Live With Culture ads? Yuck. But it seems like the appointment of David Whitaker as Tourism Toronto's president back in March injected a little spirit into the agency. Earlier this week, they announced a new campaign targeting gay tourists from the States. The tagline? Toronto: As Gay......

Just like Will Smith circa 1998, Tourism Toronto is going to Miami. In the latest in a series of weird decisions (like that weird-looking Toronto Unlimited logo or that utterly crappy "Live With Culture" ad campaign), the organization has hired David Whitaker as their President. The Financial Post reports that Whitaker, an American citizen, has been working for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau since the early 90s, and is currently the Bureau's Executive......

Yesterday's Star had an interesting article that shed some light on the inner workings of Tourism Toronto, now famous for its embarrassing (and perhaps plagiarized) Toronto Unlimited campaign. Especially of interest to us was the contrast between New York's and Toronto's approaches to attracting visitors with external offices:NYC & Company spokesperson Chris Heywood said the Toronto office will mainly promote leisure travel. But Andrew Weir, vice-president of Tourism Toronto, said his agency finds external......

Tourism Toronto is ecstatic at the success of the AIDS conference. The 25,000 delegates will be injecting forty million dollars into the local economy. Organizers have also noticed that most delegates have given the city very positive reviews. Sadly, many more couldn't attend the conference because of visa problems. A company that runs duty free stores is going to ask for compensation for sales lost because of strict security. The McGuinty government is going......

An observant reader let us know that The New York Times Travel section has a piece on Toronto's revitalization as a travel destination, which means somebody at Tourism Toronto has been doing their job. The piece talks about the ROM, the AGO and other major construction projects. But its focus happens to be those singing, dancing, Mirvish produced Hobbits! The headline reads "A Revitalized Toronto Pins Its Hopes on the Hobbits." We're going to......

Tourism and hospitality can be a tough business in this city. The SARS crisis thankfully never exploded into a full blown public outbreak but scared away enough visitors to the city that it might as well have been. Tourism Toronto, an agency controlled by tourism stakeholders like hotels, has been lacklustre in its marketing efforts. It seems that for every Lord of the Rings musical we're getting a Toronto Unlimited, a pretty poor track......

Observant readers of the Urban Toronto forum pointed out this Aussie ad campaign that asks tourists "Where the bloody hell are you?" We're not sure how the "strong language" will translate in China, Japan, India and Europe where these ads will be translated but in the English speaking world the reception seem to be quite positive. The fact that it piqued the curiousity of foreign journalists is a step in the right direction. And as......

The spectre of Tourism Toronto's bungled Toronto Unlimited Campaign reared its ugly head again today. The city can't seem to make up its mind on just what its brand identity should be and has added "InfoTOgo" as yet another registered trademark. The slogan can be seen on info pillars located around the city (like this one here outside Queen's Park). Torontoist, along with just about every other media commentator in this city has whined about......

Slow news weeks mean the press has to synthesize, to take the story of the day and make it new by microwaving it, adding some special sauce and informing the dining public why we should eat the same meal for the third day in the row. And so, in this week of drizzle and fizzle, it should come as no surprise that gay marriage is being reheated like a Morrison's Cafeteria Special. CP talks about......