Worst PR Team:
Tourism Toronto
"This is a media call." "Communications Person, please." "PR Office?" These are the typical phrases one uses to make that all important first contact to research an article. Working in the art world and now the current events field it's common to contact the
Communications Office. Some are fantastic to deal with others leave a lot to be desired but in our four
years in this industry one team stood out for it's constant poor performance: Tourism Toronto.
Only in Canada could the team that is supposed to be the best at working with the media
is actually the worst. This story is one IAT has wanted to tell for years. Given it's aim is to
positively showcase the art world it didn't fit in that magazine.
IAT initially called Tourism Toronto in January 2004 to discuss an article to promote
Toronto's first WinterCity festival beginning January 30, 2004.
The Tourism Toronto response was there was 'no such event'. That was how our 'relationship' began. It hasn't
become worse but it hasn't improved either. It's unchanged in four years.
Indifference on the part of Tourism Toronto and unwillingness on our part to
waste our time dealing with Tourism Toronto.
In over four years of attending various openings, exhibits and events across Toronto not once has
IAT ever met a representative from Tourism Toronto. When we attend Toronto based events
such as Eternal Egypt at the Royal Ontario Museum,
it's not uncommon to meet tourism officials, in that case we met a Canadian
representative for Egyptian Tourism.
Tourism Toronto's indifference to promotion of the city that pays their bills doesn't extend only to Toronto publications.
While attending an event for journalists, including many from prestigious American publications, IAT
was asked to provided their contact at Tourism Toronto because as one American
travel writer said, 'Tourism Toronto won't return my calls'. IAT's response,
after we stopped laughing, was 'Tourism Toronto doesn't return our calls and we're local, they'll never call you back'.
That opened up a conversation among the journalists, all had similar stories regarding the lack of response
from the team of individuals hired solely to promote the city for tourists:
Tourism Toronto. Speaking with art and travel writers isn't on their agenda neither is attending art receptions
celebrating the city, at least none that IAT has attended.
Curious IAT asked
several private gallery owners if Tourism Toronto brought visiting journalists to them.
The answer from everyone asked was no. That's odd to IAT given whenever we visit
locales outside of Toronto we are always taken to private as well as public galleries.
IAT decided to test whether there had been any changes at Tourism Toronto, the week prior to the
first Nuit Blanche. That is an all-night art extravaganza held across the city of Toronto. The weekend prior to the event, held September 30, 2006
at every event IAT attended we asked gallery owners, artists, art fans, etc about Nuit Blanche. With one exception
no one knew what we were talking about. Great publicity machine at Toronto Tourism. The one man who had heard of the event had seen it advertised on a
poster at a bus shelter. He told IAT as much as when he asked, "so who's in the movie?" Not quite a resounding
success with the promotional efforts. Thanks to a weekly giveaway newspaper and one of the main Toronto dailies announcing the event a few
days beforehand the event was a success, locally, despite Tourism Toronto's pathetic job. IAT planned
a feature article given we weren't able to get information or images from Tourism Toronto, they ended up with one paragraph in
2006
and nothing in 2007.
The only thing Tourism Toronto does that is slightly useful is to provide an image bank, which we have used on
rare occasions including in the lead article of this edition of The Toronto Tribune. We thought that someone ought to find a use for Tourism Toronto. From the
city of Toronto's website "Tourism Toronto's primary role is to promote, market and attract visitors and conventions to the Greater Toronto area." Apparently responding to emails or answering a telephone with accurate information is not
part of the methodology employed to meet their own mandate.
Normally it is our practice to contact individuals or entities that are part of an IAT
or Toronto Tribune feature
article prior to publication. We didn't bother to contact Tourism Toronto for
this article, it's not like they'd return the call.
After this article was published Toronto Tribune forwarded it to Tourism Toronto on November 9th. To date, nothing has changed at Tourism Toronto, in other words a reply has not been received. We expected nothing less and certainly nothing more from Tourism Toronto except perhaps value for the dollars they receive to do their 'job'.
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