Ensuring that your delegates are provided with the best accommodations is an important function of a successful conference. Destination Winnipeg will contact the properties of your choice requesting that they submit proposals, to your attention, for housing your delegates.
As well, Destination Winnipeg can arrange tentative guest room blocks at the hotels/motels that meet with your approval.
If you will be utilizing three or more properties, we can also operate a housing bureau on your behalf through our computerized housing system. We would handle all requests for reservations in a professional manner ensuring that everyone is looked after on a first-come-first-served basis. As required, various reports can be prepared to keep you, the planner, informed.
Meeting and Planning Guides
We have prepared a comprehensive planning guide outlining the recommended tasks for each of your committee members from the Chair on down. Whether you are planning a small meeting or a large conference, this guide will put you in the right direction.
Also available for the asking:
- A facilities guide, detailing each of Winnipeg’s convention facilities, meeting room sizes, capacities and amenities.
- A resource guide, listing companies, products and services available to you.
- Social planning guide, designed to help with all your social functions.
- Our visitor’s guide, featuring all of Winnipeg’s excellent attractions.
- Our restaurant guide, categorized by the type of fare you are hungry for, such as fine dining, ethnic, nightclubs, etc.
These are valuable tools available from our office to assist you in planning the best meeting or conference ever!
Theme Functions
Our goal is to ensure an unrivaled experience from conference beginning to end and, after a long day, your delegates deserve to unwind. Destination Winnipeg has assembled a collection of suggested themes around which you can build fun and interesting social events. With famous festivals and unique cultural and historical attractions, we can help make the evenings more memorable.
Renowned for our festivals, Winnipeg hosts over 130 days of festivals a year. Why not provide your delegates with a their own festival, whatever time of year.
For two weeks every summer, Winnipeg plays host to the largest multicultural festival in Canada – Folklorama. It’s the event that the World Tourism Organization voted the festival that best depicts Canadian culture.
How about your own mini-Folklorama? Your delegates will be wowed when they celebrate the ethnic diversity of Winnipeg in this colourful and entertaining evening. Pick from forty different countries and enjoy the music, dance and unique cuisine of the region you select.
With the largest French speaking population west of the Great Lakes, your delegates will love celebrating the city’s French Canadian culture. Every year Winnipeg is host to the largest winter festival in Western Canada, Festival du Voyageur. Bring the voyageur activities to your delegates anytime of year. An evening at Fort Gibraltar, a replica of a celebrated fur trading fort, is sure to wow your delegates, and make for a memorable evening. Celebrate the “joie de vivre” of the French Canadian community as you enjoy traditional dishes in this extraordinary setting. Participate in voyageur games and enjoy the revelry of this unique time and culture.
How about your own train to a themed prairie evening? Hop on the Prairie Dog Central and head out for an evening of prairie big sky hospitality. There’s nothing like an evening spent under the stars, enjoying a great meal and the wide open prairie sunset.
Social Programs
Nobody knows the city like Destination Winnipeg! Whether you’re looking for informal ideas or scheduled social programs for companions and children, let Destination Winnipeg help by providing you with a variety of activities for your traveling companions.
Whether it’s the arts, history, shopping or outdoor adventure they seek, we’ve got all the answers.
Why not…
- Get behind the scenes and up to the barre with a backstage tour of our world-renowned Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
- Take a guided tour of some of Canada’s best turn-of-the-last-century architecture with one of the trained guides from the Exchange District.
- Spend a day exploring Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg’s French Quarter, including a unique performance of In Riel’s Footsteps, a tour of the famous Saint-Boniface Cathedral Cemetary. The performance features actors in a period dress playing the roles of some of Manitoba’s most interesting historical characters.
- Spend the day shopping in one of the many independent boutiques dotting the avenues of our neighborhoods or go big and take a shopping trip to one of the city’s malls or retail outlet stores.
- Do a tour of the city’s gallery scene. From Western Canada’s oldest public art gallery, the Winnipeg Art Gallery to the city’s fine collection of independent, contemporary and artist-run galleries, a day spent touring the local art scene is a day well spent.
- Spend a day feeding your kids’ imagination and your own by visiting the Manitoba Children’s Museum, Manitoba Museum, Planetarium or Manitoba Theatre for Young People.
From quaint antique locomotive rides to a tour through our aviation history (including Canada’s own flying saucer!) to whooshing down Fun Mountain on a waterslide, the only challenge will be finding enough time to do it all!
Collatoral Materials and Promotional Tools
Rely on Destination Winnipeg when it comes to providing everything you’ll need to promote your upcoming convention. We have all the material you need for your pre-mailings, registration, programs and delegate packages.
Need images? Go directly to the Resource Gallery in our Media Centre. Just fill in a submission form, providing us with some information about your event, and we will provide access to our image gallery where you can download both 72 and 300 DPI resolution files. These images are perfect for your brochure, newsletter, website or other event promotion pieces.
Need to draw some attention? Book one of our tabletop display units that are available for loan. These units is six feet wide and stand approximately three feet high and are perfect when set atop a standard table. Featuring an outstanding scene of Winnipeg, this display is sure to draw attention to your booth! It comes with set-up and take-down instructions and is provided in its own carrying case for easy transport. If you are interested, Destination Winnipeg can provide a volunteer to staff the booth and provide information services to your attendees.
Want to let your participants know all Winnipeg has to offer? We can provide you with our 3½ minute video for loan. This upbeat video showcases Winnipeg’s facilities and attractions, festivals and arts as well as its people. It is available in regular VHS VHS Loop, DVD, BETA and PAL formats. . . the choice is yours!
To check out our video right now go to our vignettes.
Perhaps you need flags for your opening or closing ceremonies or other special functions? These flags are available on loan from our office. We have 3ft. x 5 ft. flags of the City of Winnipeg, all the provinces, and the Canadian and U.S. flags.
During the event, you may want to utilize some of our brochure display racks. We will loan them to you filled with a wide variety of brochures featuring Winnipeg’s attractions. You may want to put them in your hospitality suite or at the competition venue for spectators and participants to browse through the various brochures and help themselves to those of interest to them.
Sightseeing Itineraries
If you’re interesting in spending the day seeing the sights of the city, Destination Winnipeg can provide you with great suggestions for half-day itineraries. From history to architecture to art and food, there’s something for everyone. Though suggested as half-day itineraries, depending on your interest, all of these suggestions can happily take you through a full day. You can find more detailed itineraries in the Play section of the website. However, to whet your appetite may be suggest:
- A tour of the stunning historic Exchange District, either on your own or, depending on the season, with one of the knowledgeable Exchange District Guides
- A morning or afternoon spent strolling about the many galleries in both the downtown and Exchange District areas of the city, many featuring the works of renowned local artists
- Whether on your own or by guided tour, The Forks is not to be missed. The number one tourist attraction in the city has been a meeting place for over 6,000 years and continues to be a location of great historic relevance. Stroll on your own or again, season permitting, take in a guided tour
- Like The Forks, Old Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg’s French Quarter has a special place in the hearts of locals as it represents the historic settlement of the Franco Manitobans in the Province and is the heart of the largest French community west of the Great Lakes. Take a tour in or discover the area’s “joie de vivre” on your own.
- Stroll amid one of Winnipeg’s established neighbourhoods and spend your day shopping the unique upscale retailers of Academy Road. You’ll need sustenance so don’t forget to stop at one of the plentiful selection of great restarants along the way.
If you’d like to find out more about these areas or about Winnipeg in general, download a copy of the Visitor’s Guide. Go to the Publications section of the website where you’ll find this along with other valuable planning material.
There are also a number of local tour and destination management companies who provide guided tours for groups of ten or more. If you are interested in guided tours, a list of step-on tour guides can be found in the Receptive Operators area of the website.