If you have ever spent any time in Toronto, you’ll know that the city has a multitude of wonderful things to offer. From Kensington Market to the Eaton Centre, from Nathan Phillips Square to Ashbridges Bay, there are endless possibilities of how to spend your time in Toronto.

The challenge of how to communicate with the world all that Toronto and the surrounding areas have to offer was what led to the creation of a new website: www.torontoescapes.com.

Launched in May 2008, this new site is the result of much collaboration between the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), Tourism Toronto, the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation and Air Canada. It was clear that this coalition could have much more impact working as a team to drive tourism to Toronto and Ontario than each could working alone.

This user-friendly new site allows visitors to book flights on Air Canada, find hotel information in the city, and search for a variety of entertainment and tourist ideas in Toronto as well as all of Ontario. On this site visitors are one click away from information on art galleries, museums, spas, wineries, amusement parks and a variety of other suggestions of great things to do in the region.

It is the goal of this coalition to use this new site to reach potential travelers from the US and convince them that Toronto is the destination for them. By packaging all the tourist information and booking options in one easy to use website, the hope is that the doors to Toronto will be opened to new and returning visitors to this great region.

The value of this site is already paying off. With ads on Yahoo, TripAdvisor, and Priceline.com for example, traffic to all of the coalition partners’ websites have increased, bookings on Air Canada are up and bookings at area hotels have also increased. The total revenue generated from this site so far has reached nearly $8.5 million.

“This marketing alliance is one of a kind in Canada and has delivered a strong return on investment,” stated Ron Caughlin, Director of Marketing for the GTAA.

During this time of economic uncertainty, increasing tourism in this region is of even more importance. The coalition intends to continue to work together to increase tourism and to focus during these challenging times on being a strong catalyst for economic growth when the economy improves.

Please visit www.torontoescapes.com for more information.