Top travel delegates ‘have ton of fun’ in snowstorm

As disgruntled Calgarians dug out from the snowstorm that hit Calgary on Tuesday, out-of-town guests at a major tourism event downtown were relishing the weather.

In fact, Tourism Calgary CEO Cindy Ady said attendees at GoMedia Marketplace 2018 seemed to be “having a ton of fun” with the snowfall.

“They went out to the zoo this morning and the pandas were making snowballs,” she said. “A lot of (attendees) don’t live in snow and so they think they’re having this fantastic experience — and so it’s a great attitude.”

The event, which started Sunday and runs until Thursday, is presented by Destination Canada and hosted by Tourism Calgary and Travel Alberta. Tourism Calgary said GoMedia connects tourism industry partners with more than 150 travel media and influencers from 10 countries.

“We kind of get to show them what we have … it’s a great opportunity to showcase,” Ady said.

Event participants come from all over the world, she said. Attendees were scheduled to take in Calgary cuisine at downtown restaurants Tuesday evening.

“They’re going to go out to supper and they were talking about a late-night snowman contest, so they’re enjoying it,” Ady said.

She added that since the guests are staying downtown, the snowstorm has been “more inconvenient for Calgarians” than for the visitors. “But I have to give high marks to the transportation folks that got folks to the zoo and back today,” she said.

“They’ve just done yeoman’s work in making sure that these delegates really get to have the full measure of the experience.”

This was the first year Calgary hosted the GoMedia event.