Business Tourism: Montréal once again crowned North America's number one destination Français
Thanks to its expertise and sustained commitment to innovation and excellence in business tourism, Montréal once again outranked major North American metropolises like Toronto, Washington, DC, Vancouver and Chicago. The city also maintained its second position in the Americas, behind Buenos Aires, and preserved its enviable position in the global Top 30 (28th in the world), surpassing cities like Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Dubai and Munich.
This renewed leadership is the fruit of an effective collaboration between the Palais des congrès de Montréal and Tourisme Montréal, and the exceptional synergy of the sector's key players—hotels, restaurants, universities and event partners. Together, these dynamic forces have contributed to positioning and maintaining Montréal as a first-rate destination for major international gatherings.
Among the key events in 2024 was the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology, with 2,138 participants, the One Young World Summit 2024, which drew 1,900 young leaders from around the world, and the 32nd Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB), with its 1,600 delegates. In all, 70 international events were held in Montréal, enabling it to maintain first place on the podium in 2024. Above all, these events were wonderful opportunities to share knowledge and build collaborations with experts the world over: a precious contribution to Montréal research in key sectors such as life sciences, health and information technologies.
This ninth triumph for Montréal in the ICCA rankings is not simply a record of achievement, it's a tangible reflection of Montréal's dynamic business tourism and its capacity to attract large-scale international events. An ecosystem whose strategic vision and collective creativity showcase our metropolis on the international scene.
Quotes
"Montréal's ranking as the top destination in North America for nine years in a row is the fruit of a strategic collaboration between the Palais des congrès, Tourisme Montréal, and leading researchers in Montréal, whose expertise and commitment make all the difference. By choosing our metropolis, international associations are not simply selecting a place, they're allying with an ecosystem that enriches their event and amplifies their participants' experience." – Emmanuelle Legault, President and CEO of the Palais des congrès de Montréal
"Each year, our teams work hard to process hundreds of files, organize site inspections and confirm thousands of overnight stays. Business tourism constitutes a major lever for the metropolis, both economically and in terms of promoting academic excellence and research. The ICCA's multiple recognitions are an honour, and I commend the exceptional work of our teams, who contribute tirelessly to making Montréal shine on the international stage." – Yves Lalumière, President and CEO of Tourisme Montréal
About the Palais des congrès de Montréal
A creative solutions centre and a showcase for the city's spirit and expertise, the Palais des congrès de Montréal has been promoting and hosting large-scale events since 1983. Generating significant economic, social and intellectual benefits, it encourages innovation and acts as a force for progress for both Montréal and Québec. The Palais is firmly committed to sustainability and takes numerous innovative, concrete steps to make it a central component of its business development. With one of the highest customer satisfaction rates in the world, the Palais actively contributes to the international reputation of Montréal, the top host city for international events in America for eight years in a row. congresmtl.com
About Tourisme Montréal
Tourisme Montréal is a 100-year-old private, non-profit organization that works to position Montréal as an international-calibre leisure and business travel destination. To this end, the organization is piloting innovative hospitality strategies with a two-fold objective: ensuring that visitors enjoy a memorable experience and maximizing tourism economic spin-offs in a sustainable way with long-term impacts for the city. Uniting nearly 1,000 businesses and organizations working directly or indirectly in tourism, Tourisme Montréal plays a leading role in the management and development of Montréal's tourism business, and makes recommendations on issues surrounding the city's economic, urban and cultural development. For more information, go to mtl.org.
SOURCE Palais des congrès de Montréal
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Allianz Life confirms data breach affecting majority of 1.4M US customers
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hackers gained access to personal data on the majority of the 1.4 million customers of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, the company confirmed Saturday. Minneapolis-based Allianz Life, a subsidiary of Munich, Germany-based Allianz SE, said the data breach happened on July 16 when a 'malicious threat actor' gained access to a third-party, cloud-based system used by the company. 'The threat actor was able to obtain personally identifiable data related to the majority of Allianz Life's customers, financial professionals, and select Allianz Life employees, using a social engineering technique,' Allianz Life said in a statement. 'We took immediate action to contain and mitigate the issue and notified the FBI.' The company said its own systems were not accessed, just the third-party's platform. Allianz Life said its investigation is ongoing and that the company has begun reaching out to the impacted individuals. It said the incident involves only Allianz Life in the U.S., not other Allianz corporate entities. In the case of data breaches, a 'social engineering technique' usually involves using trickery to gain access. Spokesman Brett Weinberg said he couldn't provide details because they are still investigating. Allianz Life also reported the breach to multiple other authorities, including the Maine Attorney General's Office. A filing on the agency's website said the company discovered the breach the day after it happened, and that it will be offering those affected 24 months of identity theft protection and credit monitoring. Allianz Life was known as North American Life and Casualty until it was acquired by German conglomerate Allianz SE in 1979 and changed its name to Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America. It has nearly 2,000 employees in U.S., with the majority working in Minnesota, according to its website. It is one of five North American subsidiaries of the Munich-based global financial services group Allianz SE, which says it serves more than 125 million customers worldwide.
Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Warpath to profitability?
Opinion The defence industry is often overlooked by investors. It's perceived as boring compared with technology or worse, it's just an unethical way to put profit in the portfolio. Since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia, however, the defence industry has drawn significant investor interest. Notably, the perception has changed. That includes some of those who might have felt investing in defence was distasteful; they now see it as a needed buttress against rising authoritarianism. Of course, another shift is financial — based on the forecast injection of hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending by NATO members. Pexels NATO members (including Canada) are forecast to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in additional annual spending in defence in the years to come. Canada alone is expected to increase military spending about $70 billion annually to meet its most recent defence commitment of five per cent of gross domestic product. The big question for many intrigued investors is whether they've already missed the warship. 'Our view is that type of information gets incorporated into market prices really quickly,' says Ben Felix, chief investment officer with PWL Capital in Ottawa. 'The implication of that is by the time you read about it in a Free Press article, any advantage that you may have got by investing in that theme is already gone.' That said, the defence industry landscape and recent performance are still of interest to inquisitive investors who might consider putting their money to work when prices pull back periodically. For the time being, however, many defence company share prices have hit lofty heights, including a handful of Canadian firms such as satellite technology company MDA Space Ltd. Its share price is up more than 50 per cent year to date. As well, aerospace company Bombardier's share price 'has almost doubled in recent months, so obviously, all of the talk that has been going on is certainly helping,' says Brian Donovan, New Brunswick-based president of provider of valuation models for investors. 'It tells you that there is an interest shift into this space.' StockCalc tracks performance of thousands of North American equities, including about eight Canadian firms with defence industry revenues. One even has a footprint in Winnipeg: Magellan Aerospace Corp., which makes components for military aircraft. Its share price is up more than 80 per cent YTD. If those gains sound lofty, consider some firms listed in the United States and Europe. Notably, artificial intelligence firm Palantir is up 106 per cent this year. Even more impressive, its share price is up nearly 1,600 per cent over the last five years. A key driver is its defence contracts with the U.S. and partnerships with other technology and manufacturing companies involved in defence. That includes L3 Harris Technology, which, like Palantir, operates in many industries. Its drone technology business is a big defence revenue driver. (That said, its share price growth YTD is much less than other defence stocks.) In Europe, the most notable defence growth story is manufacturing conglomerate Rheinmetall AG. Among the many defence technologies it manufactures are Challenger and Leopard tanks. Its share price is up about 200 per cent YTD, and more than 2,000 per cent in the last five years. The big driver is Germany planning to spend more than a trillion dollars on defence in the next five years. That investors are now turning onto the defence sector is understandable (given the headlines) and somewhat ironic at the same time because it has not been a lacklustre industry for long-term performance. Publicly traded companies involved in the U.S. defence industry have collectively provided returns on an annual basis that have outpaced the S&P 500, says Scott Sacknoff, manager of the SPADE Defense Index in Washington, D.C. 'There is a long history of defence outperforming.' And it very well could continue to outperform, given the U.S. defence budget is expected to surpass US$1 trillion annually for the first time in history, he adds. If anyone has deep knowledge of the defence sector, it's Sacknoff. The SPADE Index, which he manages, consists of leading U.S.-based defence companies and has outperformed the S&P 500 by roughly more than 1,000 basis points (or 100 percentage points) over the last 25 years. Yet until Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine in 2022, defence was a profitable but sleepy market corner. The explosion in defence spending has changed that, leading to greater investment and even a rush of new investment products, notably exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Prior to 2022, investors largely had three ETFs to choose from, including one of the longest running: Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF. For investors looking for exposure, the Invesco product is worth a look. Since launching in 2005, it has had steady growth. Investment data firm Morningstar data shows US$10,000 invested in 2005 would be worth nearly US$120,000 today. In turn, the ETF has Morningstar's highest rating. Sacknoff notes the ETF's performance is driven by the underlying SPADE index, which uses a modified market cap weighting to address the downsides of passive investing that lead to over-concentration in overvalued stocks. 'In simplest terms, this involves ensuring that large companies aren't too large, and small companies aren't too small.' He adds the index's annualized return over 15 years is 17 per cent. 'You have never lost money in any product tracking our index if you invested and held onto it for at least three years.' Yet one might ask, would that still hold true today? 'The big question is whether earnings and revenues will catch up to the high valuations,' Sacknoff says. Only time will tell. Yet not all companies on the index are surging in price, including Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-35 fighter that Canada and other NATO countries have contracts to buy. Its share price is actually down slightly this year. Wednesdays A weekly dispatch from the head of the Free Press newsroom. What's more, U.S. President Donald Trump's scattershot economic policy is likely to lead to downside market volatility, presenting buying opportunities for defence companies. Yet their long-term tailwind is likely not going away soon. For the time being, however, this high-flying sector seems more of a minefield than a warpath to profitability. Joel Schlesinger is a Winnipeg-based freelance journalist joelschles@
Global News
2 days ago
- Global News
Is now the time to buy or sell a used car? As new sales dip, what to know
Canadians are buying fewer new cars as the economic pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs mounts. It may leave consumers wondering: should they try their luck on the used car market? Consumers in Canada spent less money in May, with retail sales in Canada falling 1.1 per cent in May to $69.2 billion, Statistics Canada said. Canada's auto industry seems to have taken the brunt of falling retail sales, with motor vehicles and parts dealers recording a drop of 3.6 per cent in retail sales in May. The integrated nature of the North American auto supply chain means tariffs also hit car prices. 'We heard stories about people going running out to the dealer to buy a car or a part for their car before those tariffs started to kick in. We really started to see that in April. So we did expect a pullback (in auto sales) as those tariffs actually came into play starting in May,' BMO economist Shelly Kaushik said. Story continues below advertisement Specifically, new car dealerships saw sales fall by 4.6 per cent. This was the first time since February that Canada saw sales at new car dealerships decline, Statistics Canada said. But as new car sales plummeted, some used car platforms and dealerships say they saw sales go up. 'We saw a massive spike in May. We saw — I think this was true for both of ourselves and for dealerships — significant demand for (used) cars in May,' said Dan Park, CEO of used car e-commerce platform Clutch. 'We were about 10 per cent up month over month, which was pretty substantial,' he said. Park said his platform expects sales to go up in the months ahead, with July on track to be a 'record' month. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy This comes as economists expect new car sales to continue falling as trade war pressures continue. Park expects demand for new cars to go down with higher prices. 'That demand will likely shift over into used cars. But as demand increases for used cars, you'll see prices go up because there's more demand for used cars with a fixed amount of supply,' he said. Many Canadians have been thinking about moving to used vehicles for the last four months, said Baris Akyurek, vice-president at Story continues below advertisement 2:01 Some small auto businesses suffering under U.S. Tariff threats In February, Autotrader conducted a survey of its customers, asking them if Trump's trade war would affect how they buy their next car. '(Forty-seven) per cent of them said that yes, it would, and within that 47 per cent, 38 per cent of them said that instead of buying a new vehicle, I would buy a used vehicle,' he said. However, used car dealers are finding that they simply don't have enough cars to satisfy customer demand. 'Since the middle of last year, the overall used car inventory has been slowly going down,' Akyurek said. Some of these production issues go back all the way to the supply chain disruptions the industry faced during the start of the pandemic, Park said. Story continues below advertisement 'From the spring of 2020 to early 2021, there was a massive production shortage. About 10 million cars in North America didn't get produced. Roll forward a couple years, there's just fewer used cars on the road and available for sale,' he said. However, one segment where prices seem to be coming down is battery electric vehicles. 'EV prices are actually doing pretty well for consumers. They have been coming down both for new and used,' Akyurek said, adding that the average price for a used battery-powered EV is just over $44,000 in the current market. There is particularly low demand for Tesla's EVs, Park said. 'Given some of the Tesla political backlash, you can find really great Tesla prices right now. If you're looking for an EV like a Tesla, now is a pretty good time to buy a (used) Tesla,' he said. 0:47 Carney meets with auto sector CEOs as concerns mount over tariff impacts While buyers of cars, both used and new, could face affordability challenges, this is a really good time for anyone looking to sell their car, Akyurek said, given the low inventory. Story continues below advertisement 'The market is hot,' he said. For a two-car household, offloading that extra car might be a good way to make a few extra bucks, Park said. 'It's a better time (to sell your car) than it was this time last year, with prices going up right now. It means that the value of your car hasn't gone down as much. So it's not a terrible time to come to sell your car,' he said.
