Savour Ottawa brings farmers, chefs and retailers together Nov. 7
Sixth annual Networking Summit builds business and celebrates successes
[Source: Savour Ottawa press release]
OTTAWA, November 1, 2011—Local farmers, chefs, retailers and organizations will gather at the sixth annual Savour Ottawa Networking Summit on Monday, November 7 starting at 1:00 p.m. at the Restaurant International at Algonquin College’s School of Hospitality and Tourism.
This free event will kick off with a one-hour meet & greet event showcasing local farm products to chefs and retailers. The goal of this culinary speed dating is for chefs and retailers to order products for late 2011 and early 2012 at the event. A similar Meet & Greet event has been held in late winter for the past 5 years—participants asked for a second yearly event.
Attendees at this business-to-business event (not open to the public) will review Savour Ottawa’s 2011 successes, including
- The integration of seven retailer members into the program
- The opening of the Savour Ottawa Field House at the Parkdale Market, a cooperative of 10 Savour Ottawa farmers
- The Savour Ottawa promotions campaign, including videos, ads and @SavourOttawa Twitter feed
- Savour Ottawa’s first-ever public event, the Harvest Table, held on August 28, 2011.
- The inclusion of Savour Ottawa programming in the upcoming Ottawa Wine and Food Festival including a farm tour
- Significant media coverage of the initiative at home and around theworld
Mark Sutcliffe: Serve well in tourism, and Ottawa can lead
Mark Sutcliffe, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — What makes Ottawa a great tourist destination? The sights are spectacular and there are many unique things to do. But ultimately it’s the people of this city that define whether or not visitors have great experiences and lasting positive memories that make them want to return.
And which people have the greatest interaction with visitors? Those who work in the tourism and hospitality industry and serve them throughout their visit.
It’s as simple as this: Terrible customer service can ruin a visit to the most beautiful destination on the planet. Excellent service can enhance a great vacation or even turn a nightmare into a positive memory that lasts decades.
That’s why the Stars of the City gala, at which I had the honour of presenting the awards on Wednesday, is one of the most important events in Ottawa. It doesn’t get as much attention as many other events, but it honours the people who go above and beyond the call of duty in the tourism sector.
Stars of the City shine at annual celebration of customer service excellence
[Source: Ottawa Tourism press release]
Over 400 tourism industry insiders will gather tonight at an event at the Algonquin College School of Hospitality & Tourism to celebrate the achievements of front-line staff during the 16th annual Ottawa Tourism Stars of the City Recognition Evening.
DETAILS
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Main Dining Room, Building D, Algonquin College, 1385 Woodroffe Avenue
6:30 p.m. — Reception
7:00 p.m. — Dinner
8:30 p.m. — Awards presentation begins
Approx. 9:50 p.m. — Star of the City 2011 announced
A total of 1,052 nominations were received from residents and visitors to the region over the past year, nominating front-line staff from 89 businesses for their real-life examples of excellence in customer service. Everyone who is nominated as a Star of the City will receive a gold “star” lapel pin, a symbol of customer service excellence here in Ottawa and Canada’s Capital Region.
An independent panel of judges comprised of industry leaders decided among 22 finalists to award the ultimate “Star of the City 2011” as well as winners in the following 8 categories.
Five Ottawa-area activities added to Signature Experiences Collection
OttawaStart
The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) has named five Ottawa Tourism member organizations to the prestigious Signature Experiences Collection:
- Stimulating the Senses! – National Gallery of Canada
- Aboriginal Voyageur – Aboriginal Experiences
- Exploring Canada’s flavours in a unique culinary destination – Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa
- Lost Ships of the 1000 Islands Cruise – Gananoque Boat Line Ltd.
- The Grand Hall Tour – Canadian Museum of Civilization
The Signature Experiences Collection currently lists 115 activities that are authentic, that represent Canada’s nature, people and/or culture and that are immersive and engage a variety of senses. The Collection is used by the CTC to promote travel to Canada from its key foreign markets, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, the United States, Mexico, Brazil and India. The next round of applications will begin November 15 and end December 15, 2011.
Read more on the OttawaStart website: Five Ottawa-area activities added to Signature Experience Collection
Ottawa Tourism and partners win again at provincial marketing summit
OttawaStart
Ottawa Tourism and the National Capital Commission were victorious in two categories at the Ontario Tourism Awards gala held at the Hamilton Convention Centre on October 4. Ottawa Tourism accepted the award for Best Tourism Advertising and the National Capital Commission accepted the Tourism Innovator of the Year Award for their popular Mosaika Sound and Light Show.
“It is extremely gratifying to have the work of our Ottawa Tourism team and that of our agency of record, Mediaplus Advertising, recognized by the province in front of our peers,” says Noel Buckley, President and CEO of Ottawa Tourism. “Similarly, the accolades for Mosaika—a spectacular summer attraction in Canada’s capital that we heavily promote—are well-deserved.”
This is not the first success for Ottawa Tourism with these awards. In 2008 and 2010, they took home the gold award in the Best Tourism Advertising category, and silver in the same category in both 2006 and 2007. In 2009, they were a finalist for Best Interactive Marketing. In 2010, Savour Ottawa won the Culinary Tourism Leadership Award, and was a finalist in 2009, the category’s inaugural year.
Read more on the OttawaStart website: Ottawa Tourism and partners win again at provincial marketing summit
Finalists for the 2011 Stars of the City Recognition Evening!
[Source: Ottawa Tourism press release]
Between September 1st, 2010 and August 31st 2011, 1052 nominations were submitted to Ottawa Tourism, citing real-life examples of excellence in customer service. From these nominations finalists have been chosen in several categories. The complete list of finalists is attached and can also be found at http://www.starsofthecity.ca/recognition.htm or http://www.starsofthecity.ca/recognition_f.htm
Join the tourism industry in celebrating all the nominees, finalists and award winners at this year’s Recognition Evening on Wednesday, October 26th at Algonquin College.
STARS RECOGNITION EVENING TICKETS will go on sale early next week.
Thank you to all of the front-line staff for making sure that Ottawa and Canada’s Capital Region shines as a destination.
City ‘missing’ out on staycation market
Elizabeth Howell, Ottawa Business Journal
Operators targeting local residents lack assistance from tourism officials
A local tour boat operator says the city’s tourism marketing agency is missing out on an opportunity to tap into the growing “staycation” market. Kurt Huck, a co-owner of Capital Cruises, says area residents represent a increasing percentage of his four-year-old business, which takes passengers on tours of the Ottawa River.
Fuelled by rising gas prices and the high Canadian dollar, several tourism operators and hoteliers say they are observing more local residents choosing to spend their vacation in Ottawa, and are adjusting their marketing efforts as a result.
But with a focus on selling packaged tours that include hotel rooms, Ottawa Tourism is not oriented to promote individual attractions, says Mr. Huck.
“Their mandate … is (hotel) room nights. Unfortunately, they’re missing the drive-in people and the regional people,” he says.
Read more on the Ottawa Business Journal website: City ‘missing’ out on staycation market
Bhangra beat boy back to boost capital
David Reevely, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — So-serious-he’s-silly YouTube star Wilbur Sargunaraj has made another video praising the delights of Ottawa,
Sargunaraj burst into Ottawa last winter with his first local video, to go with The Canada Song, featuring him praising the capital and clumsily experiencing some of its winter delights, including chowing down on a Beavertail and trying desperately to stay upright on skates on the Rideau Canal. The Indo-Canadian Internet sensation (he was born in Calgary, raised in India, and splits his time between Toronto and Tamil Nadhu) was hired by Ottawa Tourism to make Ottawa look awesome.
A hundred thousand hits later, now it’s Bhangra in the Capital.
The song lyrics don’t say much about Ottawa — they mostly praise bhangra music as a genre — but the video is pure city. Sargunaraj leads a group dance at Nepean Point featuring young men in Sikh turbans and parliament in the background, cavorts with breakdancers on Sparks Street and teens by the Rideau Canal, leads a female dancer in a chase around a ByWard Market fountain, takes to Victoria Island to caper with aboriginals in full costume, and peers around the base of the metallic sculpture One Hundred Foot Line by the National Gallery.
Savour Ottawa hosts local harvest lunch: its first public event
Harvest Table features locally grown and raised food prepared by committed chefs
[Source: Ottawa Tourism press release]
OTTAWA, August 2, 2011—Savour Ottawa will host its first ever public event, the Savour Ottawa Harvest Table, at the Parkdale Market on Sunday, August 28. Two seatings of locally grown and raised food will take place, at 12:00noon and 2:00pm, prepared by chefs who have shown a commitment to using local food. The cost is $50 (plus HST) per person for a three-course meal plus two samples of beer and/or wine and tickets are available online as of today through www.savourottawa.ca (the direct link is www.savourottawa.eventbrite.com).
“Joining Savour Ottawa has been good for my business,” says local farmer Hans Lindenmann of Trillium Meadows Red Deer & Wild Boar Farm in Vankleek Hill. “This event is another great opportunity to showcase our meats to a wider audience.”
Farmers who are contributing to the meal include:
- Trillium Meadows Red Deer & Wild Boar Farm
- Bryson Farms
- Upper Canada Heritage Meat
- Fitzroy Beef Farmers Cooperative
- Clarmell Farms
- Hall’s Apple Market
- Acer Farms
- Major Craig’s Chutneys
- …and more yet to be confirmed
Festival City
Amen Jafri, Canada Arts Connect Magazine
If you flipped through the average Ottawa tourism brochure, you would be hard-pressed to find anything mentioning the burlesque performances and poetry slams that regularly sell-out in the city. You might learn, however, that in 2010 Ottawa was named the IFEA World Festival & Event City. Ottawa takes pride in its year-round festivals. Approximately 50 exist to-date, with new ones springing up every few years.
Why so many? According to Barbara Stacey, Executive Director at Ottawa Festivals, it’s because Ottawa’s unique environment – its diverse culture, its many partners (federal/provincial/municipal, NGOs, corporate, etc.) – simply opens up the opportunity. Loretto Beninger, an Ottawa researcher and academic who has extensively studied the city’s arts policy, offers an alternative perspective. She says the city uses an antiquated 1950s model to support local arts, narrowly defining what “culture” means: it’s either “people pirouetting in tutus or people throwing paint on a canvas.” Under this model, festivals are prized because “[they’re] temporary, [they’re] intense and [they’re] for a limited time period…a bit like the circus.”
Read more on the Canada Arts Connect Magazine website: Festival City
