Taking Care Of Business

Discover America Canada held its annual general meeting at Toronto’s fashionable Spoke Club this week, welcoming close to 50 members as it reviewed its activities in 2014 and looked ahead to a busy 2015.

In her report, Discover America Canada president, Sana Keller told members that outbound activity to the US from Canada had been steady, pointing out that even with the dropping Canadian dollar, the industry has been through this before and it is cyclical.

On the bright side, Keller pointed out that the drop in fuel prices will put more discretionary dollars in the pockets of Canadians, which should be good for business.

She also encouraged Discover America Canada’s US partners to offer Canadian travellers special deals to give them a little extra incentive to visit the US in 2015.

As for the coming year, the association is gearing up for International Pow Wow 2015 (IPW 2015) in Orlando, Florida, encouraging members to sign up quickly as that event is fast approaching and appointment scheduling is about to get underway.

Looking a little further ahead, IPW 2016 will take place in New Orleans and that’s generating lots of excitement.

One of the big initiatives for 2015 will be to increase Discover America Canada’s membership numbers, with Susan Webb, who handles membership duties for the organization, telling those on hand at the AGM, that while 2014 was a good year, with membership now totalling 62, she believed that Discover America Canada can do better and would be putting a big membership push on in 2015.

The AGM also featured a presentation on the outlook for tourism between Canada and the US by Jennifer Hendry, senior research association for the Conference Board of Canada’s Canadian Tourism Research Institute. Hendry looked back at 2014, along with offering a look ahead at 2015 and beyond.

For more, go to http://discoveramericacanada.org .