Toronto, New York to co-promote both cities as tourism destinations in new partnership

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Toronto and New York have struck a two-year marketing partnership to co-promote both cities as tourism destinations.

The partnership, to be announced on Wednesday morning, will involve an exchange of roughly $500,000 worth of ad space in each city for the other's campaigns; sharing information; and a plan to encourage tour operators and business conference planners to include both cities on their itineraries.

NYC & Company, New York's official tourism organization, has signed other such partnerships over the past decade, including with London, Madrid and, most recently, Cape Town. This is the first time it has partnered with a Canadian destination. Such arrangements have taken on new-found importance however, with the political climate in the United States.

"Given all the talk about travel bans this year, and whether or not people are welcome in the U.S., we wanted it to be clear that this doesn't represent us," said Fred Dixon, president and chief executive of NYC & Company. "It's important that we reach across borders with these kinds of relationships, particularly at times when there are questions – it's important to put a stake in the ground."

In the spring, New York launched a new campaign entitled "All are welcome," in order to reinforce that message. In April, it also renewed its tourism marketing partnership with Mexico City.

Its ads in Toronto, which launch in late November, will be much less focused on that broader messaging, emphasizing instead events and other reasons to visit the city during the winter, a low season for travel there. While some Canadians may have cancelled U.S. travel plans in recent months in response to the political climate, Canadian traffic to New York has grown slightly, Mr. Dixon said. Roughly 938,000 Canadians are forecast to have visited the city by the end of this year, 10,000 more than did so last year.

Travel to Toronto from the U.S. was up last year for the eighth year in a row. Of the city's 2.8-million American visitors, roughly 637,000 were from New York State, its biggest market, and more than 300,000 were from New York City.

Toronto's marketing has emphasized the city's diversity as well, including in a springtime campaign the city launched with messages such as "love is love is love," and "in this city, it's okay to let your guard down."

"We are very tolerant, very welcoming. Even before this [U.S.] administration, that has been our messaging.… That's very much what new York is about as well," said Johanne Bélanger, president and chief executive of Tourism Toronto. "Affiliating ourselves with a city that espouses the same values, the same type of messages, is really a perfect fit."

Unlike NYC & Company, which owns outdoor ads in bus shelters in the city's five boroughs, Toronto did not have its own media to exchange as part of the partnership. It has partnered with Pattison Outdoor to buy outdoor space and radio spots at a negotiated price that is "affordable," and has brought in Air Canada as a partner as well; the airline will be promoting discounted fares between the cities.

New York signed a partnership with Shanghai last summer, and says it's on track for visits from China to grow this year by roughly 50,000 visitors to break the 1-million mark for the first time. It has also had a partnership with Seoul since 2011, and forecasts that this year it will draw 398,000 visitors from South Korea, putting the country in its top ten overseas markets for the first time.

With Toronto, the idea is not simply to increase travel between the cities by residents who might see the ads; the partnership also plans to explore ways to convince tour operators and international leisure visitors to combine the cities in one itinerary and to sell both markets to business travellers as well. That could include offering a two-year package to an international convention, for example, to host events in one city each year.

"We don't know yet what that looks like, but we're bouncing ideas around," Ms. Bélanger said.

The organizations also plan to share more information: For example, New York is hosting WorldPride in 2019, and will gather information from both Toronto and another partner, Madrid, which have hosted in the past.

"It's an opportunity to collaborate with a peer city," Ms. Bélanger said. "The global competition [for tourism] is so fierce.… A lot of cities compete against each other. We want to see ourselves as partners, bounce ideas off each other, share resources and best practices for our cities."