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The Meetings Mean Business Canada (MMBC) Board continued its mission to advocate the importance of business events to the Canadian economy, by travelling to Parliament Hill in Ottawa for Lobby Days 2020 held February 3rd and 4th.

This prestigious and important event was led by the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC).MMBC Chair Clark Grue, Vice Chair Laura Pallotta, Past Chair Heidi Welker and coalition supporter and TIAC board member Nina Kessler, all attended Lobby Days 2020 with the prime purpose to continue promoting and advocating the importance of meetings and business events to the Canadian economy.

Grue, Pallotta, Welker and Kessler participated in a number of one-to-one meetings with various Ministers to talk about the economic and social value of business events in Canada. They also attended presentations by Destination Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development, the Frontier Duty Free Association and Tourism HR Canada to learn more about their 2020 mandates.

In addition to the one-to-one meetings with MPs, MMBC Chair, Clark Grue presented the importance of meetings and business events during a TIAC Board of Directors and stakeholders luncheon.

Speaking about the success of being involved in “Hill Days”, Grue commented, “we had a great few days in Ottawa. We were also delighted that the Honourable Minister Joly, Minister of Economic Development (including Tourism) and Official Languages, as well as multiple cross-party MPs, attended the Hill Day reception as well as the Parliamentary Tourism Caucus presentation.  Considering that business travellers contribute four times the spend than that of a leisure traveller and that meetings stimulate over one-third of tourism in Canada, everyone we spoke with received the message that meetings and business events are an enormous opportunity for the Canadian economy and communities.”

A recent Global Economic Impact Study sited that in 2017, business events accounted for $33 billion direct spending, $19.4 direct GDP generated and accounted for 229,000 direct jobs.