Download - Economic Development Winnipeg
2012.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
APRIL 24, 2012 | SCRIPT AND PRESENTATION NOTES
GROW.
WINNIPEG
Higher Farther Greener Faster Stronger
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Welcome to Economic Development Winnipeg’s 2012 Annual
General Meeting. I am Marina James, President and CEO.
I would like to extend warm greetings and thanks to:
• Representing the Province of Manitoba, the Honourable Stan
Struthers, Minister of Finance
• His Worship Mayor Sam Katz
• City Councilors -- Ross Eadie, Scott Fielding, Jenny Gerbasi and
Paula Havixbeck
• Chair of EDW’s Board of Directors – Mary Jane Loustel – and Board
of Directors -- Lorne Perrin, Jenifer Bartman, Jim Kilgour, Nick
Logan, Paul Soubry, Michelle Gervais, Michael Scatliff, Michael
Pye, Jim August, Keith Sinclair Barry Rempel, Vince Barletta and
Bonnie Staples Lyon.
Welcome Distinguished Guests. Thank-you for taking time out of your
busy schedules to join us today.
I would like to acknowledge and thank the Province of Manitoba and
the City of Winnipeg for their ongoing support.
This year we had the Changing of the Chair. Many thanks to Nick
Logan, CEO of National Leasing for his valuable tenure as Chair of
EDW.
Nick’s passion and dedication in support of EDW and his positive
can do attitude are an inspiring example for us all to uphold in high
regard. Thank you Nick.
This past September we were delighted when Mary Jane Loustel
National Aboriginal Strategy Executive with IBM Canada accepted
the role of incoming Chair.
Mary Jane has worked in post secondary education - financial and
business services sectors - is a chartered accountant and holds a
master’s degree in native studies.
Her current role as a leader in IBM Canada’s Aboriginal Strategy is
to advance aboriginal participation in the technology sector and
economy.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Recently Money Sense magazine named Winnipeg one of the top
10 places to live in Canada. 190 cities and towns were scored in 22
categories.
Winnipeg ranked 10th overall due to its strong economic growth, low
unemployment, great weather, culture, – all of which tipped us in to
the tenth position.
Winnipeg also ranked 6th best place to raise children - 5th for
offering fair access to daycare and 7th for its favourable share of
students as a percentage of the population.
Winnipeg holds many definable rankings - including
The most cost effective city for aerospace manufacturing in Western
US and Canadian Cities
The lowest cost of electricity of major metro areas in the US and
Canada
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
One of three Facilities on the continent that offers a centre for
aerospace technology training
The Lowest Average Wages for manufacturing
Number 1 airport for scheduled freight flights
Most affordable residential real estate of any major city in Canada
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
One of the best R&D Tax regimes in the world
And among the most affordable cities in Canada to live and conduct
business
These rankings affirm what many of us already know —Winnipeg truly
is a city of opportunity.
Economic Development Winnipeg - responsible for fostering
economic growth and tourism in and around the city of Winnipeg
- leads efforts in communications - marketing and alliances with
government and corporate industry stakeholders.
Drilling down - EDW leads global business attraction, and local
business retention and expansion efforts with its Yes! Winnipeg
business development team.
And it’s division - Tourism Winnipeg - serves as the city’s official
destination marketing organization tasked with increasing visitation to
Winnipeg.
Simply put - EDW has 2 platforms – market and promote Winnipeg to
increase INVESTMENT and increase VISITATION.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
In January of 2011, we welcomed Yes! Winnipeg into our operations.
Economic development agencies around the world consider business
retention, expansion and attraction - to be a most important activity.
It was a busy year for Yes! Winnipeg - who handled over 115
investment leads and participated in over 1141 outreach calls –
working tirelessly to get businesses to say Yes to Winnipeg.
Led by Bill Morrissey – the ten member team’s efforts have paid off
with 18 success stories and 475 jobs.
Yes! Winnipeg is quick to point out that their success and job score
board are not accomplished in isolation - but rather are the outcome
of a collaborative effort.
Yes! Winnipeg also pitched Winnipeg to Target, 3M, and Siemens
– as well as working closely with Centreport Canada - travelling to
China to pursue business development opportunities.
And has recently began a process to connect with American site
selector’s and location advisors to place Winnipeg on their radar.
The Yes! Winnipeg initiative was made possible by the contributions
of over 122 private sector investors – as well as public sector
contributions from Western Economic Diversification, the Province of
Manitoba and EDW on behalf of the City of Winnipeg.
Last year - Greg Dandewich, Senior Vice President of EDW worked
in collaboration with the Mayor, senior executives at the City of
Winnipeg, the province of Manitoba - MAFRI, Manitoba Pork Council
and many other stakeholders on a 90 million dollar investment at the
Maple Leaf Foods processing plant.
This 70,000 square foot expansion will lead to the creation of more
than 300 jobs in Winnipeg.
EDW continued its involvement and commitment to attract direct
foreign investment and trade to Winnipeg.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
As a member of the C-11 coalition of Canada’s largest cities –
Consider works closely with the Department of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade Canada.
Cities are undeniably significant engines of regional, provincial and
national economic growth.
Consider Canada allows us one song sheet to communicate the
benefits of Canada’s financial stability - highly educated population
- and favourable research and development tax treatment to attract
revenue - investment and jobs.
The 11 cities – represented by their economic development agencies
are Vancouver, Edmonton. Calgary, Saskatoon, Waterloo, Ottawa,
Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto and Halifax – and Winnipeg.
A key activity of Consider Canada was a presentation to 64 Canadian
trade offices from around the world. The presentation detailed
Winnipeg’s diverse economy and the benefits of locating a business here.
EDW also developed a webinar to educate Canadian Consulates in
Buffalo, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston and Minneapolis about
Winnipeg.
For the second year in a row - Winnipeg was awarded a coveted spot
on the Intelligent Community Forum’s list of Smart 21 Communities.
ICF is a think tank that studies the economic and social development
of the 21st century.
The award recognizes communities for their use of broadband
technology to facilitate social and economic development. ICF
praised Winnipeg for boosting the digital inclusion of its aboriginal
and First Nations population.
A focus of the submission was The University of Winnipeg’s
development of a diploma program designed to prepare aboriginal
students for entry-level jobs in IT - while an association of IT
companies brought ICT education to aboriginal youth in urban and
rural secondary schools.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
One of the purposes of this project was to develop a “Financing
Roadmap.”
The road map encompasses financing options available to Manitoba
firms – and a tool kit is available to service providers who support
entrepreneurs through their business and capital planning process.
In order to build investment and export opportunities - EDW also
established an agri-business working group with a cross-section of
stakeholders.
As part of our foreign direct investment efforts - research carried out
by RDA Global resulted in the development and distribution of 10
industry sector profiles.
The development of the sector profiles was a tightly focused
community effort and the resulting documents act as an information
guide on Winnipeg’s key sectors.
Along with these profiles - briefs for eight sectors were developed. All
of which are available for download from our website.
To further broaden sector knowledge - 16 key Winnipeg companies
were profiled, highlighting their important influence within each
sector.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Another major project was the completion of an internal information
and data audit.
The review identified key components of our information
management system – and helped set direction on a new market
intelligence system in an effort to meet both internal and external
client needs.
2011 was also a year of laying the foundation for growth our
marketing and communication efforts.
DCI a specialist in place marketing completed market research used
to establish an economic development marketing blueprint for
Winnipeg.
The blueprint is designed to elevate Winnipeg’s profile as one of the
top locations by promoting three key features:
-The city’s stable and growing economy
-It’s capacity to attract and retain talent
-And its diversity—a key asset in a global economy.
In efforts to raise Winnipeg’s profile - a Grow in Winnipeg video series
has been developed – hosted by Peter Jordan.
You can view the Grow in Winnipeg video series on our website.
EDW receives many requests for media - some of which contributed
to the 122 published stories about Winnipeg’s economy resulting in
an earned media value of $820,000.
The city received substantial coverage about the effect of the NHL’s
return in publications such as USA Today and the Globe & Mail.
Media relations also resulted in reporting on Winnipeg being named
a Smart21 Community - the global value of Centreport Canada - and
Yes! Winnipeg’s role in the creation of 475 jobs.
And we remain committed to transparency keeping the community
informed on our activities with the distribution of our new quarterly
community report on progress to support our quarterly economic
highlights and fast fact publications.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Now let’s turn to the other side of our business - TOURISM.
Tourism is a key economic driver for Winnipeg generating more than
40,000 jobs and representing approximately 2.8 million visitors to our
progressive city each year.
Those visits result in an estimated $508-million in annual direct
expenditures.
Tourism Winnipeg leads efforts to attract meetings and conventions,
sports and special events, travel trade and leisure travelers to
Winnipeg - increasing visitation through a variety of sales and
marketing activities.
Led by Chantal Sturk Nadeau, Senior Vice President - Tourism
Winnipeg had another busy year.
This past January, was the launch of a comprehensive 5 year Master
Tourism Plan for Winnipeg.
The plan guides the development of Winnipeg’s tourism efforts and
aims to create unprecedented synergies in establishing Winnipeg as a
desirable location to visit.
The following activities to advance the Plan occurred in 2011:
TW completed the development of a Tourism Research Plan.
The research plan supports the local tourism sector by providing
intelligence to support visitation growth.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
TW developed and released the first edition of the Barometer Report.
This report featured information on Winnipeg’s economic highlights
- lodging trends - national and Western Canadian hotel occupancy
rates and future tourism forecasts.
Visitor profiles for 2008 and 2009 were developed and presented
to tourism stakeholders. These profiles detail valuable data and
information about Winnipeg’s visitor.
The 2010 visitor profile – on your table - indicates strong overall
growth - direct visitor expenditures increased five per cent,
generating an estimated $508 million as well as recording that 2.8
million people visited Winnipeg - a solid year over year increase of 7
per cent.
This past September - TW held its annual Industry Presentation at the
Winnipeg Convention Centre.
The presentation highlighted the value of tourism to Winnipeg’s
economy - shared an overview of our visitor demographic and
geographic and gave a review of our tourism sales and marketing
activities.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
In efforts to grow the meetings and conventions market – TW and
partners secured 195 new conferences in 2011.
The dates span into 2018 and total approximately 52,485 delegates
and associated direct spending was estimated at $49.8 million,
compared to $47.7 million in 2010.
Meetings and conventions staff conducted more than 1,100 direct
sales calls and 1,200 service calls.
TW also presented 52 proposals and bids to prospective clients to
attract their meetings to Winnipeg.
Working with supportive industry partners, TW hosted more than 30
clients on the Team Winnipeg FAM tour and on individual site tours
of the city.
Team Winnipeg – comprised of 57 partners - hoteliers, attractions,
facilities, and event services - work together to increase meetings and
conventions business to Winnipeg.
Team Winnipeg led 11 initiatives - including trade shows, client
events, FAM tours, sponsorship events, and an Ottawa sales blitz
with more than 68 client meetings.
There were 32 tracked sports and special events in 2011 with
approximately 16,684 participants and a direct spending estimate of
$15.4 million.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
These included the Taekwondo National – juniors, seniors and
colour belts with 15,000 participants - the Melvin Fontaine Memorial
Aboriginal Hockey Tournament with 7,000 participants and the
Bantam and Midget Girls Canadian Fast Pitch Championships with
1,125 participants.
TW manages the City of Winnipeg’s Special Event Tourism Fund.
The SETF fund was created to stimulate increased tourism revenues
and the attraction of major national and international conventions,
sporting and special events.
This SETF supported seven winning bids with a combined
contribution of $560,000.
To date - the SETF has committed more than two million dollars to
46 meetings and events from 2009 to 2017. These events represent
more than $30 million in direct expenditures for Winnipeg.
Turning to Travel Trade - TW attended five travel trade marketplaces
in North America and conducted 180 client appointments.
TW led a Saison Voyageur FAM tour during Festival du Voyageur.
The FAM tour - developed in partnership with Travel Manitoba,
Festival du Voyageur and Saison Voyageur – hosted six tour operators
and travel agencies from Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Dakota
- along with travel trade media.
As a result - Winnipeg received coverage in three articles by two
travel media writers.
TW also led the efforts of the Winnipeg Tour Connection —a
collection of 20 group travel professionals.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
A major project in 2011 were changes to our visitor services platform.
A new collateral distribution system was set up to ensure materials
are always at hand.
And TW implemented an outreach program to front-line hotel staff
- conducting over 50 presentations to those involved in enhancing
Winnipeg’s visitor experience.
A live chat and online visitor counseling module was also launched.
In 2011 tourismwinnipeg.com was redesigned. Website changes
included enhanced social media capabilities as well as the launch of a
mobile site.
The launch of neighbourhoods project - highlighted top places to
shop, dine and visit in each area of the city - this unique portal offers
visitors a handy guide to Winnipeg’s diverse neighbourhoods.
TW’s attractive new website holds a wealth of information including
itineraries for niche markets and 101 Things to Do in Winnipeg.
Another major activity for TW was the “Visit Winnipeg” video series
- featuring 11 exciting event-based videos produced and posted on
TW’s YouTube channel.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
A meetings and conventions lure video was also completed and is
in use to showcase Winnipeg and generate buzz amongst decision
makers.
To support the attraction of meetings and conventions - TW also
developed a marketing brochure supplement.
This publication was distributed to more than 20,000 Canadian
association executives and corporate meeting planners.
To attract increased leisure visitation – TW launched its Small Town
Friendly, Big Town Fun advertising campaign.
The campaign ran from April to November - with print adverts and a
supporting radio campaign running throughout rural Manitoba and
North Western Ontario.
To further connect with potential visitors – TW launched a monthly
e-newsletter targeted at industry stakeholders and the leisure visitor
databases.
TW also responded to 95 media requests and tracked 391 media
stories. The earned media is valued at more than $4.1 million.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The first-ever media stories brochure called Legends and Tales was
developed.
The booklet features fascinating stories to entice travel writers to
write about Winnipeg.
TW hosted several travel writers from the Toronto Star, the Metro
News the Cambridge News and Cambridge Style.
In terms of coverage, Winnipeg was featured in Brisbane’s largest
newspaper with an article on the mysteries of Winnipeg featuring the
Hermetic Code tour.
Hosted travel writer’s also wrote about St. Boniface in Air Canada’s
En Route magazine - Winnipeg’s James Bond connection in WestJet’s
Up! Magazine.
Tourism Winnipeg works closely with industry partners to increase
visitation to Winnipeg. Our thanks to Travel Manitoba, the CMHR,
and many others – from hotels to attractions and events –
THANK YOU for supporting Tourism Winnipeg’s activities to increase
visitation to Winnipeg.
In closing - Just look to the expanding foot print at The Forks - and
the magnificent and iconic Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
We’re tipping the scales with significant change at the University of
Winnipeg – Assiniboine Park – Investor’s Field – IKEA - CentrePort
Canada – a new airport - an expanded convention centre - the
Exchange - A Cultural district – A world trade centre – Centrallia -
Centreventure’s real estate development activities including the SHED
- and the list goes on.
To increase investment IN Winnipeg and increase visitation TO
Winnipeg we must ANTICIPATE - searching beyond the boundaries
of our business - building WIDE external networks to help us achieve
our goals.
We must be customer centric – designing effective programs and
services that develop capacity - operating with strategic plans that
are grounded in the realities of our community.
We must hone our CRITICAL THINKING skills - challenging status quo
- facing up to and getting down to - business.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WINNIPEG INC. | 2012 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
We must be risk takers who are entrepreneurial and innovative -
delivering at the highest level while balancing speed to market - rigor
- quality and agility.
And finally we must be efficient, aligning activities and placing
resources where they create the greatest return and impact for
Winnipeg.
I would like to thank the staff at Economic Development Winnipeg,
the Yes! Winnipeg initiative and Tourism Winnipeg for their
Passionate - Innovative and Capable performance.
The quality of our people is our greatest asset.
Thank you for attending our Annual General Meeting.
This concludes the formalities.
Please stay and enjoy refreshments.
Thank you.
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© 2012 Economic Development Winnipeg Inc. n Promoting Winnipeg as an ideal place to live, work, invest and visit
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