Virginie De Visscher, executive director, business events, Destination Canada, discusses the country’s bold new brand, sustainability commitments, and collaborative approach to hosting international events
Destination Canada recently unveiled ‘Canada, Naturally’ – a ground-breaking unified brand bringing together leisure and business events under one banner for the first time. I had the opportunity to sat down with Virginie De Visscher recently to explore what this means for the business events sector and how Canada is positioning itself as a leader in sustainability, accessibility, and innovation.
Iain Stirling – Can you explain the thinking behind the ‘Canada, Naturally’ brand and what it means for the business events sector?
Virginie De Visscher – For the first time ever, both leisure and business events are united under the same brand. Canada Naturally is really now our flagship brand, and what it represents is the foundation that Canada’s radically open to all. We say ‘open’ represents open hearts, where everybody feels welcome. We have open minds, which encompasses all that diversity of thought – from our thought leadership in business events. And then open spaces, which represents not just the leisure spaces, but where ideas have space to grow.
You’ll notice it comes out everywhere – in our taglines, in our booth design, as you saw at PCMA. This booth is so open, and it really comes alive in that way. It’s more about the feeling that we want people to experience when they come and meet in Canada. And it translates to Canada as a natural choice for business events. It’s authentic. It’s real. And in this world of AI, where so much is fake and we’re all bombarded from everywhere with so much disruption, that openness – where you can be who you are – is what we stand for.
IS – That authenticity seems particularly important in an age of AI-generated content. How does that feed into your marketing approach?
VDV – We’re very data-driven, and we have the Canadian Tourism Data Collective pushing our innovation in that sense. But in our content, you will never find anything that’s AI-generated. Our imagery is based on realness – our people are real. That’s important, because who knows what content out there is fake? You have to see it in person, meet the person in the place, to actually get the real value of that.
IS – Can you walk me through Canada’s collaborative national approach to business events? How do you work with your regional partners to create a seamless experience?
VDV – I think that openness comes through our DNA. It’s because we’re so collaborative by nature. We’ve built what we call the Team Canada concept over the years. When you see us at events like PCMA, IMEX, etc. we always have great support from our partners. At PCMA we had 40 representatives on our booth. We all come under the Canada umbrella, the Canada brand, and then each destination has their own identity, but we all stand for the same thing.
Montreal had a unique activation, but they have representation on our booth too. Toronto and Calgary, same thing. They have something that’s unique to them, but they’re still Canadian. That collaboration is important – it takes time to build with trust.
We launched a new video that you might have seen on the main stage. It’s a brand-new video that represents all of Canada, but rather than focusing on the infrastructure or the hard sell, it focuses on the feeling of who we are. It showcases all of Canada – from the vibrant urban centres to the resort cities, to the tier ones and tier threes. That’s not an easy feat for the second-largest country in the world, but through that spirit of openness and collaboration, from a business events perspective, we have partnerships under our economic sector strategy with over 20 destinations across the country.
IS – Sustainability is clearly a key pillar for Destination Canada. Can you tell me about your work with the Global Destination Sustainability movement and Convene 4 Climate?
VDV – In 2023, when we launched the GDS across Canada, we had 16 destinations that participated. We were the spark to start it, and now individually, they’re all continuing their own journey. Last year, we hosted a sustainability roundtable – a very intimate event to create discussion between the heads of sustainability of mega-agencies around the world. We had the head of sustainability from American Express Travel, Kuoni Tumlare, all those organisations. The people who are behind the scenes working on sustainability – it’s often lonely work, pushing all the movements within an organisation.
We got some great concepts that came out of there, and there’s more news coming – big announcements and endorsements coming through the industry. We’re going to repeat that sustainability roundtable in Ottawa in June. The idea is: how do you help accelerate something that’s very important to us? This aligns very much with the legacy and impact study that we’re doing. We’re in the final year now – year three results will be released in May. The catalytic effect of business events is critical, and sustainability is part of that.
IS – You mentioned being a founding member of Convene 4 Climate. What drove that decision?
VDV – I always say sustainability is not a competitive advantage, it’s a collaborative advantage. We can go very fast if we go on our own, but if we want to actually change how the business events world functions around sustainability, we have to do it together. You can’t host an event in one city where there’s a high bar for sustainability, and then they move to another city in the world and it breaks down. You want to keep those learnings flowing.
Coming in as a founding member of Convene 4 Climate, together with Tourism Ireland, Marina Bay Sands and Singapore, and United Airlines, it showcased our commitment to go together collaboratively. It brings in other voices, other ideas. We share our best practices, we learn from them. If we can bring in more people, this movement can grow. If it was easy, it would already have been done!
IS – How are you building sustainability into your booth activations and partnerships?
VDV – We had Full of Truth on our booth with our partners, with slides showing everything we’re doing with sustainability, so the partners have the speaking points. This leather bar that we have – it’s not swag. It’s a B Corp out of Calgary. The concept is ‘bookmark your next event in Canada,’ using real, authentic leather that you can customise. The woman who founded it is a B Corp, and all the leftover leather that’s not being used, she donates to schools where they practise the art of leather-making and stamping. It’s a beautiful story, and it’s all incorporated in what we do.
IS – There’s often a perception that Canada can be difficult to access, particularly around visas. What are you doing to address this?
VDV – We’ve had a partnership for years with IRCC – Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. They have a special events unit embedded within the immigration department. When you host a meeting in Canada, you register your event with them, and you get an event code. Your delegates that need to apply for visas can integrate that code into their application, so the visa officer knows it’s a legitimate event and it helps fast-track the process.
But that’s fine for the planners – delegates are sometimes left to their own devices. We hear the perception: ‘Oh, all these visas were denied.’ So, we created, together with IRCC, a very fun educational video that takes a delegate all through the visa process. Do you need an ETA, or do you actually need a visa? It explains it to you, takes you through the form, so we don’t get incomplete applications or the frustrating mistakes that can happen when you don’t know what to do.
We’ve done extensive training with our partners so they can put it in their bid proposals and share it with their customers. At IMEX America, we actually brought a representative from IRCC who was giving presentations on the booth and meeting with clients. We had one of our partners talk about a success story – just at IMEX America, because of the help of the IRCC representative, they converted three clients that had pieces of business that would not consider Canada because of accessibility. They’ve now been able to bid, and these are big city-wide events.
Incentive Canada Victoria, BC, at Bilston Creek Farm. Credit to Destination Canada
IS – Can you share how you’re integrating indigenous partnerships into Canada’s business events strategy?
VDV – Reconciliation and partnerships with indigenous nations is extremely important, and it’s also part of regenerative tourism. When I say we’re looking at sustainability, it’s more regenerative tourism, and the indigenous component is absolutely part of that.
Our ICAS funding programme – the International Convention Attraction Fund – has specific criteria designed to attract events that we want to see. First, you have to be within our six economic sectors. You get extra funds if you’re aligned with the UN SDGs and aligned with our partners. Two, do you have a legacy plan in place? And three, is there an indigenous impact piece?
We’re now tracking all of the wins – which SDGs have they been aligned to, which had legacy plans, and what are the indigenous impacts and how have they been integrated. We’re really seeing a change and a push to not just have a checkbox about adding an indigenous component, but really working with our indigenous partners in adding content to the conferences.
The major industry association for indigenous tourism is ITAC – the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada. They’re more and more involved in what we’re doing and collaborating. Connections are being made at national and local levels about how to incorporate indigenous talent within conferences – including gifting, speakers, ceremonies, entertainment. But it takes time to educate the international clients and the cities on how to do it correctly. It has to be done well.
IS – What are your top three strategic priorities for 2026?
VDV – Well, we’ll continue to innovate. Canada is well known for being at the forefront of continuing to reinvent itself and push boundaries – whether it’s sustainability, legacy, or our sector strategy. So, continuing to innovate and stay at the forefront is one of the priorities.
We want to really double down on that spirit of openness and collaboration, externally and internally. We are at the service of all of our partners, being an umbrella organisation to support them. And then we have our key pillars that we will continue to push forward.
IS – Looking at the bigger picture, how do you see Canada’s position in the global business events landscape over the next five to ten years?
Canada’s having a moment. If you look at the numbers for 2025, it was an extremely good year. Domestic travel is high. In the second half of the year, the numbers are starting to show that international associations have definitely increased in terms of interest in Canada. We’re seeing more proposals come through, more bookings, as well as US associations coming into the country.
The numbers are very positive, and I think that will continue. Our values are resonating really well with our audiences. We’re true to who we are and what we stand for, and I think people are starting to pay attention to that. So, we’re cautiously optimistic always, but it’s been a good year, and I think our outlook for this year is looking very strong as well.
