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Getting Here

As Western Canada’s transportation hub, Calgary is easy to get to and easy to get around in. Whether you’re catching a flight or hitting the road, we welcome you to Calgary.

Consistently ranked as one of the best airports in North America for overall passenger convenience, and as Canada’s third busiest airport, YYC is Alberta’s premier gateway.  The airport is currently undergoing a $2.1 Billion expansion, set to be completed in 2016. It includes the construction of a new International Terminal, which will double the airport’s size, adding 22 aircraft gates and two hotels (a Delta and a Westin). No more than one stop from every major city in the world, Calgary’s airport serves over 13 million passengers annually and sees over 1,800 flights weekly from Canadian, U.S. and major international locations.

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The Calgary Connection

We’re in the business of welcoming the world to Calgary. It’s more than a matter of tourism and civic pride. It’s also a powerful and effective way to showcase the city’s intellectual capital and to introduce visitors to the benefits of working, living and investing in our city.

Every major city and region around the world has its own distinct intellectual capital—a unique combination of its residents’ expertise and experience that shapes the local economy and personality.

With the knowledge economy on our doorstep, business and public sectors here and around the world are seeking specialized knowledge, information and high skill levels.

Recognizing this, we’re working to see that the people who come to Calgary for meetings and conventions leave with connections.

“Connections formed at the Calgary TELUS Convention Centre (CTCC) are immediate and often outlast the events themselves––by years,” says Marcia Lyons, general manager.

For example, she says, in 2000 the World Petroleum Congress connected an entire Canadian industry to its counterparts around the world, making it part of a global community.

Calgary’s people (the bedrock of intellectual capital) have a number of highly desirable characteristics: they’re young, well educated and driven.

“Calgary has a 100-year history of being entrepreneurial—of having a can-do spirit,” says Peter Garrett, the president of Innovate Calgary. “The words ‘can’t be done’ don’t exist in Calgary. As a result, when researchers, entrepreneurs and investors approach new market opportunities, they come at it with a spirit of success.”

That spirit is exactly what many of today’s international companies, organizations and businesses are looking for.

“People represent opportunities,” says Jim Gray, chair of the Energy Group of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. “People don’t come here and look at an oilfield. . . .They look for relationships. They look for people.”

By linking Calgarians and visitors through congresses, conventions, meetings and events, Lyons says the CTCC “will leverage economic activities that go beyond the tourism and hospitality sector”.

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Sustainable Sell

When Climate Reality Leadership Corps Canada was looking for a venue to host its two-day conference for 600 people, they had a very long sustainability list for their event.

The Canadian division of the Climate Reality Project is a non-profit educational and advocacy organization about climate change and the winning host facility is chosen for its sustainable and certifiable green cred.
The International Centre had it in spades.

Sandra Martin, director of sales for the Centre, says “even though we have won a number of sustainable awards over the years, we still had to prove that we were tracking and auditing our waste streams, our power generation and our sustainable sourcing.”

She adds, “It helps that our facility was an early adopter of green certification and has a strong sense of corporate social responsibility.”  In fact, The International Centre is one of the few venues that employs a full-time sustainability officer in Sonya Poorter.

For the conference, the Centre’s executive chef  Tawfik Shehata was tasked with creating a totally vegetarian menu. Luckily, with his affiliation as a spokesperson with Foodland Ontario, he was able to reach out to over 20 local growers and producers to fully source the produce necessary. In addition, bulk items such as yogurt, sugar and milk were served in large containers to avoid waste.

For this conference, the Centre was able to track 100 per cent of the food waste, which the client also audited. After the lunch service, one of the Centre’s coordinators weighed each individual waste stream. The Centre was able to boast a 95.4 per cent diversion rate for the event.

In an additional twist, the Centre was also asked to source electric buses to transport delegates from area hotels.  “Sourcing this action item was actually quite a feat,” says Martin, “there just weren’t any electric buses available.” In collaboration with Tourism Toronto, the Centre worked with Mississauga Transit to source biodiesel hybrid buses to transport attendees.

And to wrap it all up, The International Centre sponsored trees on behalf of the Climate Reality Project. In the future, 30 tree saplings in the GTA will grow into mature trees, courtesy of the event, casting a long shadow on green initiatives.

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UP Express and away

This fall, the UP Express and CIBC officially opened the CIBC UPSTAIRS lounge, featuring local brews from Mill Street Brewery. Located on the second floor of the UP Express Union Station, it’s easy to access from Skywalk and central to many iconic downtown attractions.

The lounge is open to the public and a great spot for impromptu meetings with clients or relaxing before taking the UP Express to the airport.

The UP Express stops at two stations, Weston and Bloor, between the airport and Union. The airport terminus is in Terminal 1, adjacent to the Link Train service for the terminals.  Fares are calculated by distance. A return fare from the airport and back is just $44.  Trains depart every 15 minutes from both the airport and Union Station.

Trains are equipped with Wi-Fi, power outlets and flight status information.

YYZ

• Canada’s busiest terminal and handles over 38.6 million passengers per year (2014)
• Pearson is a 90-minute or less flight for over 100 million Americans
• Scheduled and charter flights provide service to passengers in the Toronto region to more than 174 countries around the world
• In addition to catching a flight, you can visit the GoodLife Fitness gym, get a ten-minute manicure, shop at luxury retailers and get some last-minute banking done at Pearson
• Pearson handles over 45 per cent of Canada’s air cargo
•  The airport provides jobs to more than 40,000 people