Although 2008 was a challeng-ing year for the tourism industry, Tourism Burlington is pleased with our overall performance. Factors such as high gas prices reducing travel, a high Canadian dollar making trips abroad more attractive and Americans still not travelling outside of the U.S., all contributed to visitation and website visits being down. This downturn was also seen in Ontario and global statistics. Considering these factors we did well to maintain occupancy rates year over year. Throughout 2008 Tourism Burlington developed strategic new programs and initiatives to create awareness and encourage visitors to come to our destination. Here are just a few of our 2008 accomplishments. We completed a Visitor Services Review which rec-ommended implementing a

visitor kiosk program, continuing to provide summer travel counsel-lors at Discovery Landing and at major festivals and developing a local public relations campaign to market visitor services. Former Tourism Minister Peter Fonseca was the key-note speaker at our May AGM. At this event we also an-nounced several green ini-tiatives. Working with the Burlington Hotel Association (BHA), we developed a new marketing campaign - Burlington Hotel Deals We continued to experience significant partner growth over the year with 380 businesses and individuals now being tourism partners. As recommended by the Premier Ranked project a Halton Tourism Advisory Committee was formed and

developed an ambitious work plan. Burlington is well-represented on this commit-tee with Mayor Cam Jackson as Chair, Dave Miller from Sound of Music, Alison Rath from RBG and myself all being

members. The new Stats Canada figures show that tourism is an impor-tant economic driver in Halton with 2.9m visitors in 2007 generating $258m in total tourism receipts, resulting in over 4,000 people being employed in tourism jobs. With Burlington now being recognized as the 4th best place to live in Canada, let’s invite visitors to see what our residents are so proud of...Beautiful Burlington!

Up to the Challenge!

May 2009

2008 Key Accomplishments

Visitor Services Review Board Evaluation Tourism Minister

AGM Keynote DMF Program

Expansion 29% Partner

growth Halton Tourism Advisory

Revenue $408,682

Expenses $399,766

R. Surplus $8,906

Surplus $61,342

Reserve Fund

$66,395

Capital Fund

$49,765

DMF Funds (Rev/Exp)

$ 418,505

Financial Highlights 2008

2008 Annual Report

Message from the Chair Susan Morrissey

The tourism industry continues to be tested with many global influences impacting our business in

2008.

Burlington experienced some of these challenges, but with the hard work of our team and BHA partners occupancy numbers were

comparable to ‘07. With many new events and activities planned, the global issues easing, and some of our attraction partners seeing record attendance numbers we are extremely positive about

2009.

The success of Tourism Burlington is our great staff, volunteers, partnerships, and Board. I congratulate all of you for your hard work and achieve-ments. Without your in-volvement and support, we would not continue to

2007 Halton Tourism Profile

$2.9m visitors

64% visited family & friends

$258m total tourism receipts

4,000 jobs in tourism

Tourism Board included:

Visitor Guides expanded distribu-tion to Niagara area attractions, hotels, events, and 400 Highways centres

2 million more impressions in various advertising publications and websites

New Summer/Fall marketing campaign (see article below)

Website redesign

New Coupon Book—50,000 copies distributed

$78,000 in grants awarded to events and sport groups

Travel Counsellors provided at Discovery Landing from mid-June until Labour Day

New meeting marketing campaign Bring it Home conceived focusing on local market hosting meetings and conferences at home.

2008 was the first full year that we had the DMF funding along with a full comple-ment of staff re-

sources in place. Through an agree-ment with the BHA, Tourism is leverag-ing these funds to increase awareness of Burlington as a destination. Our marketing plan, developed with the Marketing Committee, BHA and the

―After the festivals, the fun,

the vining and the

dining, The Rest is Easy with

Burlington Hotel Deals.”

Tag line, Tourism Marketing

John Duff—Duff Advertising

Destination Marketing Fee

Measuring 2008 Tourism Performance

New Marketing Campaign

PAGE 2 2008 ANNUAL REPORT

Service 2008 Information Centre visits 12,844 - 11% decrease

Discovery Landing visits 7821 - 29% decrease

Website Visits 207,934 - 15% decrease

Website Hits 4,411,868 - 17% decrease

Volunteer Hours 830.5

Souvenir requests groups/individuals 210 groups

Out of Country requests 26,073 participants 60- out of country

Pins distributed 9643 City, 4842 Canada/Burlington

Advocacy–support letters 3

Public Relations - Displays/Presentations/Events

10 Displays, 4 FAM tours, 10 Presentations, 90 Events

Partnership contributions – DMF - coop ads, sponsorships, in kind, grants

$526,500

Working with our partners, we have been tracking performance in a number of areas and due to industry challenges report de-creases in some segments: Our Centre visitation was down compared to 2007 as well as our stats at Discovery Landing. Our website has seen a 15% decrease in visits. We distributed on behalf of the City over 13,000 pins. We represented tourism at 90 community/regional events. With the DMF, our partner contributions have increased from $320,000 to $526,000 Continued bottom of page 3

Working with Duff Advertising a new cam-paign was created in the spring of ‘08 pro-moting Burlington Hotel Deals to south-western Ontario, north-western New York and locally targeted to visiting friends and family. The packages included a special room rate plus $20 gift cards for local at-tractions and shopping areas. Momentum is building for this program and it is offered throughout ‘09. The REST IS EASY!!

Tourism Burlington is thrilled to have a new website with a more appealing look and expanded functionality . Some of the new features include:

Feature boxes -highlighting events

Tourism Video

One click to target audiences: Residents, Meeting Planners, Sports Organizers, Group Travel, Media and Partners

Send an e-postcard option

Sign guest book option New content includes:

Travel tips -customs, parking, pet friendly facilities, special needs visitors, weather etc.

Famous Burlingtonians

Frequently Asked Questions

Moving to Burlington

Arts & Culture

Farms & Markets

Culinary Experiences

Gardens & Parks

History & Museums

Spas

Sports & Recreation Partner information has been expanded to include events, training, resources, archived Enews etc. Future web additions will include google map links for our partners, and new content on birding, geocaching, places of worship, gravesite tourism and more. Visit often, bookmark and link to our site!

Total attraction attendance 823,147 (not all provided)

Major Event/festival attendance 441,000.

Group tour attendance 17,594.

Hotel occupancy was 57% (same as 2007) and average daily room rate (ADR) was $116.65

175,000 copies of print materials (total # of public pieces)

226 Welcome to Burlington New Resident Packages

8 media stories/interviews

15 ads in publications

33 photo requests from partners

380 partners (up from 294)

NOTE: Not all partner information provided on a consistent basis.

2008 Tourism Events

New Tourism Burlington Website

Performance Measures cont. pg 2

of Burlington Art Centre and long-time volunteer at the Chamber Business Awards Gala in May. Through DMF funding, we provided visitor information booths at 7 major festivals and events during the summer season, greeting over 4,000 visitors. Last summer we developed a life-size postcard to use for photo opportunities at the booths. Welcome booths were also placed at selected events through-

out the year. We hosted a Celebrate Ontario workshop in December where over 20 industry partners received tips on how to complete applications with the goal of obtaining grant funding for their events in 2009.

In 2008, Tourism hosted or partici-pated in numerous events. At the Tourism Ambassa-dor Training, 47

front-line hotel,, attraction and ser-vice industry staff and volunteers were trained as Burlington ambassadors. We presented the Tourism Builder Award to Louise Cooke former Chair

www.tourismburlington.com

PAGE 3 2008 ANNUAL REPORT

Louise Cook

Lifesize postcard Events

Tourism Burlington Team

Pam Belgrade Executive Director belgradep@burlington.ca

Simone Babineau Marketing Coordinator - babineaus@burlington.ca

-Leisure, Media, Events

Linda Olimer Marketing Coordinator - olimerl@burlington.ca

Sport, Meetings, Group Travel

Sally Fitz-Gibbon Administration & Visitors fitzgibbons@burlington.ca

Services Coordinator

Linda Cvetanovic Administrative Assistant cvetanovicl@burlington.ca

414 Locust St. Burlington Ontario L7S 1T7

CONTACT US

bid later in 2009. We are researching a number of areas in order to expand our product offerings. This includes working with Hamilton on a possible Scenic Beach Drive, researching Birding in Burling-ton, with a number of local partners and determining if our city should develop a Busker program. Once again we plan on celebrating National Tourism Week June 1-7 by increasing public awareness about our local attractions and driving traffic to our website. We will be updating our tourism DVD with more winter/fall shots and our Virtual Tour so stay tuned for more information on partner opportunities. We will continue to offer Event Funding, and hosting Time Out Sport networking sessions. Hotel Deals pro-motion continues with local and

For 2009 we have many exciting mar-keting and partner activities planned. In February, we hosted a Go Green Workshop where 24 partners learned how to develop green policies and be more sustainable. The Halton Tourism Advisory Commit-tee hosted the first annual Halton Tourism Summit in March with over 70 people attending and presented their ambitious work plan. Tourism has developed a page on Facebook - Discover Burlington Ontario and also are keeping people updated via Twitter—BurlingtonTour. Become a fan or follow us!! We have been working closely with the City on the Pan Am Games bid now that Sherwood Forest Park has been identified as a site for soccer (football). A decision will be made on whether Canada is successful with the

Ontario exposure. We are also pleased to be working with partners to host a number of major conferences and tournaments this year which are featured on our website and in our annual report presentation. We will continue to provide updates on these activities via our Tourism ENews.

Marketing & Partner

Initiatives in 2009

Phone: 905 634-5594 Fax: 905 634-7220 Email: info@tourismburlington.com

Congratulations

to 2008 Tourism Builder

Award Recipients

CEO Mark Runciman & Past Chair Terry Yates

from the

Royal Botanical Gardens

Visitor Survey Summer ‘08

Some interesting information has been gathered June-August from the survey boxes located at hotels attractions, etc. Here are some of the highlights:

71% female

48% married

42% from Halton/Hamilton

5.3% from GTA

15% North & Central Ontario

28% were on day trip

43% were visiting friends/family

11% were on business or vacation

14 % was their 1st visit

81% travelled by car

35% stayed in hotel

19% spent over $500

14% spent $250-500 Top activities during visit:

64% enjoying arts/culture

60% visiting Waterfront

57% dining

50% visiting RBG NOTE: Fall-Spr. Stats also avail-