Ottawa: Where Great Minds Flow into Canada!

Located in the province of Ontario, Ottawa is Canada’s most educated city and a centre for knowledgebased industries, with over 1,900 companies employing more than 75,000 people. The advantages of hosting large conferences and business events here are, therefore, numerous, converging specialisation and centrality. HQ's Magazine Manager, Manuel Fernandes, was at the beautiful Gleneagles Hotel and Resort in Scotland last Summer, where he spoke to the Ottawa Tourism team.

With a million English and French-speaking inhabitants and hundreds of international embassies, Ottawa has more people working in Engineering, ICT, Health and Life Sciences, Clean Technology and Aerospace, Defence and Security per capita than any other city in Canada. It is only natural then that it regularly rolls out the red carpet to associations and event organisers, competing with more popular cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. The Shaw Centre, Ottawa’s convention space of excellence, recognised with the AIPC APEX Award in 2020, hosts prestigious international events as well as important local and national gatherings that help support the local economy. Last June, HQ travelled to the Scottish Lowlands to take part in a fun get-together with planners and event managers, which, according to Lesley Pincombe, Vice-President of Meetings and Major Events at Ottawa Tourism, was quite intentional: “We see this as a bit of a first date. We want them to have an idea of what they might find that might be suitable for their conference. We do not choose people at random – we know which organisations they represent or whether they want to collaborate with a Canadian association or a centre of excellence like the Ottawa Heart Institute.” And as with the first date, it is best not to be too bold: “What we have experienced are lifelong ambassadors and the engagement with these guests has been very positive. Especially in the UK and EU countries, where the image of Ottawa is based very loosely on the assumption of the capital and little else!’

Ottawa carries the weight of most government offices, so all policies are informed and decided here by parliamentarians. From the National Defence Headquarters to the National Research Council, from Health Canada to Statistics Canada, this political representation makes it an attractive location for conferences and conventions of all kinds. In addition, there are also more than 600 Canadian associations based in Ottawa, which facilitate international collaborations or congresses mediated by a national partner. Ottawa Tourism also has very deep ties with the economic development team, Invest Ottawa. “They are the ones who drive start-ups and a lot of foreign investment, so they act as valuable bridges to reach this network of high-level individuals who can become keynote speakers and help promote certain areas.” The city also has universities and hospitals that are well integrated into the Ottawa ecosystem: “We have Carleton, Ottawa U, Algonquin College, as well as the French college La Cité, all of which have good research and development departments collaborating closely with the university hospitals.” There is a great deal of expertise here to attract vast investment in these ecosystems: “Right now, we are building a super hospital (The Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus), and if we want the best talent and professionals to come here, their families have to see themselves in this community. It is not just about coming to work in a new hospital, we have to build a city where people want to pursue their lives,” adds Pincombe.

Since the pandemic, Ottawa has seen a decline in individual business travel, which has led to a greater focus on organising conferences. “We know that the return on investment for international MICE travellers is great because they arrive early and stay late and end up combining their conference with leisure.” When it comes to the legacy of events, Pincombe does not see it as a competition or a commercial strategy. Rather, they are complementary. When discerning the consequences of these conferences, they start by doing an initial impact analysis, looking at which is the best bid. “It is not just about calculating the dollars we think we can profit. We are really starting to think, ‘What is the social impact?’ ‘What is being left behind?’ So, the stronger our ecosystems are, the more significant activity there will be to create more jobs, investment, and a greater influence on people’s lives.”

Ottawa is occasionally referred to as the Silicon Valley of the North, and technology is the third-largest industry in the region. “We have a high concentration of highly qualified people in the fields of engineering and technology. When we look at the latter, especially with regard to autonomous vehicles, I highlight a truck testing facility called Area X.O, a research and development complex that aims to accelerate the commercial adoption of next-generation technology. We also have a huge experimental farm in our region run by the federal government, where tests are carried out on certain crops,” says Pincombe. In recent years, Ottawa Tourism has made a concerted effort to outline a DEI strategic plan aimed at tourism businesses that needed guidance for their conferences. “We have partnered with a college to launch an indigenous entrepreneurship programme (...) From a meetings and conventions perspective, what we have done is start to lift the veil on this story of reconciliation. We are on unceded land, a meeting place for Indigenous Peoples long before we built a convention centre. This year, we hosted the International Indigenous Tourism Conference in February, and we will be hosting many other indigenous conferences,” explains our Canadian interlocutor.

While Canada continues to welcome tens of thousands of immigrants – accounting for 210,865 new residents by May 2024 – these communities are becoming increasingly diverse, as are the needs and aspirations of their residents. Ottawa’s events also reflect this part of the population, and the DMO has endeavoured to create a MICE sector that respects this multiculturalism. One of these changes concerns women’s sport, with several competitions taking place in the city. “In the past, ice hockey events were quite dominant, but now cricket has gained prominence due to the thousands of people coming from countries where that sport is king. We have to constantly look at the make-up of our community and allow these newcomers to see themselves at these events. We will also be organising the National Conference on Ending Homelessness in October, as this is a global issue about affordable housing and the social degradation of highrisk groups.”

As part of this indigenous liaison, the DMO has been working on how to link sporting events in the city with indigenous communities. “The World Junior Ice Hockey Championship is set to happen in 2025 and we will be working with the three large indigenous communities in our region. We also organised the Pacific Four Series of women’s rugby last year, launching a series of community events in Ottawa, which included Let’s Play Rugby, a programme developed to offer girls aged 13 to 17 the opportunity to play a non-contact version of the game.” As a result of this event’s community activity, more than 3,000 balls were delivered to 230 schools and 12 clubs, “we know that this can create a social impact in these communities,” she says. Other success stories include the Masters Indigenous Games, the Wheelchair Basketball Championship and the OFSAA Wrestling Championship. Moreover, Ottawa Tourism is currently carrying out an audit of the destination’s accessibility in order to produce a report file on solutions at this level. “When we hosted the 18th Deafblind International World Conference at the Shaw Centre last year, we were essentially concerned that all standards were met. It turned out to be one of the best conferences ever because all the physical platforms and user solutions were integrated into the building,” concludes Pincombe.