Toronto Tourism spreading the Palabra about Toronto and the U-20 World Cup

I had the pleasure to have dinner with specialty media from Mexico who were in Toronto to write about the city in the context of the upcoming FIFA U-20 World Cup. I joined the group as a guest of Toronto Tourism, the DMO hosting the visit, and we had a very good time chatting about the great city of Toronto and the party atmosphere people experience when a World Cup takes place anywhere in the world, let alone if it takes place here, albeit a junior World Cup. We talked about the new stadium, Toronto's festivals, our Hispanic communities, cultural life in the city (concerts, night life). What became clear is that there is a lot of curiosity about Toronto and Canada in Mexico. It also became clear that there's a need for more specific information in our destination marketing communications. People (trade and the public) want to know more specifically what there is to do, to see, where to eat, where to dance, etcetera. I was pleased to hear from Jaime Orizaga, President of InverTour - a travel trade publication, that Canada could very well receive one million Mexican tourists annually given the number that visit the United States. My own calculation gives me a figure of 750,000 Mexican visitors (doable by 2012), but we're both in agreement that our current levels around 210,000 are still low given the great potential. The other visitors were Brenda Liz Nuñez of trade publication Turistampa and Omar Abrego, a fantastic photographer/reporter of national Mexican newspaper El Universal. They were accompanied by Magdalena Bermea, Manager Public Relations, CTC Mexico and Michele Simpson of Tourism Toronto. Dinner at the CN Tower's 360 restaurant was delicious and the view, well, the view on a clear evening, nothing short of spectacular.

Jaime