everyone. Sound check 1 2 3. Sound check 1 2 3 We have quorum present. I'd like to call this meeting of the Hamilton Tourism Development Corporation Board of Directors to order. Please remember that all electronic device are be switched to a non-audible function during committee meetings. Uh we're going to move to approval of the agenda. Mover and second to approve the agenda as presented. Councelor Wang, Councelor Casar. No amendments. Show of hands to approve. That carries. Declaration of interest. Any declarations? Seeing none, we'll move on to the approval of the minutes. 4.1 HTDB26-001 from February 27th, 2026. Mover and second to adopt the minutes. Councelor Casar and Councelor Wang and I will go to councelor Casar uh for discussion on the approval. >> Yeah, thanks chair. I just noted uh in the minutes that there was uh I don't think you were here last time and it had your name as present calling the meeting to order. So just administrative uh fix. >> Yep. So we'll adopt the minutes as amended. >> Perfect. So uh show of hands to in favor or opposed to adopt the amendments as amended. That carries. Thank you. Items for information 5.1 HTDC 26003 Hamilton Tourism Development Corporation spring update citywide. Um, Director Abbott, go ahead. >> Good morning. Thank you through the chair. I am Lisa Abbott, uh, director of tourism and culture for the city of Hamilton, and I'm joined today by Ryan McHugh, manager of tourism and events. Duncan Robinson, who will be our soontobe um, voted in uh, new treasurer. Um Pam uh Holland who is our senior project manager and Hildigard Snellgrove also our senior project manager from tourism and events. U we're presenting two reports today um I'm going to hand it over to uh Ryan uh to walk you through the spring update. But before I did um I would be remiss um if I didn't also mention um although the spring update um has a lot of positive good news in it uh a lot of good news stories and we have a lot of um great things coming down the pipe. Um I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we do we are getting um consistent uh communication uh from our partners uh Jackson Square, the Sheridan uh the convention center and particularly Homewood Suites. Um regular communication just indicating that they are struggling in terms of losing dance competitions. Um uh their uh their um patrons uh are feeling a level of insecurity um and and feelings of unsafess in the downtown. Um, and I say this uh just for awareness. Uh, these are things that we do respond to. Um, um, but it is something that uh that we are actively monitoring and I needed to uh to raise it here for your attention. Um, but I will turn it over to uh Ryan McHugh. Thank you. >> Thank you, Lisa. Uh and uh despite uh those challenges in our core and uh construction at our convention center uh we have had as this report indicated a great deal of success. Uh this shows what we events we've either won uh both sports and conventions for 2026 and 2027 and some of the bigger items which we currently have bid on or will be bidding on. Uh and since this report was published, we've had a number of other large opportunities present themselves at the September meeting. uh we intend to bring some requests forward for some hockey related events which uh we hope will draw some interest. Um just to kind of touch on a few uh successes. Uh so with the PW sorry PWL takeover tour uh we did provide um a small uh sponsorship to help make us competitive when they were looking for host cities. uh and uh we will be making requests to recover those costs from uh HTDC uh through the block of event attraction funds. Uh so that just kind of shows that when you do have a group like the PWL take a look at your market um a small grant that gets them over the finish line can really lead to a bigger outcome like us landing a PWL team. And a lot of times you just have to get these groups to experience your city. And we have so many positives, the arena being one of them that leads to, you know, a professional sports tenant which hopefully will provide to enjoyment and economic impact for decades to come. Another one that I will touch on is the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence cities initiative. Uh so not one for uh spectators like the PWHL, but uh really just showcased uh Hamilton as just a powerhouse, economic powerhouse on the Great Lakes. As you're aware, we are the largest inland port on the Great Lakes. We uh produce half Canada steel. That all happens right on our waterfront. And that was a great opportunity for dignitaries and economic leaders from across the world to come to Hamilton and and learn from each other and share experiences. And so that was a number of delegates staying uh in the city. Uh but also it's something where as an economic development group we can get a lot of lessons learned uh and sharpen our pencils on strategy that brings more business to Hamilton. So the benefits uh sometimes go beyond just a spectator staying in a hotel going to a game uh especially on the meetings and convention side. That's business during the week for hotels, restaurants which is generally slower uh and there's economic benefit beyond that. So, uh, I won't speak to the report more than that. Certainly happy to answer any questions, but, um, over 30 million in economic impact in our pipeline and 2028 and 2029 are also shaping up to be very great years and we'll share at the next board meeting uh, some of the opportunities that may require some funding. >> Thank you for that, director and manager. Any questions currently before we move on? Tammy, go ahead. Sorry, Councelor Wang. Thank you. Just a question on what's happening at the convention center. I do know that a lot of that work on Summers Lane is being almost done, but the parking garage is still a big challenge. We still own that, right? Um, and I wanted to understand where Carmen's was going to participate in building out the convention center to make it into a bigger sort of histo venue or sorry, bigger meeting and convention venue. manager. >> Uh so through the chair to councelor Wang. Uh so certainly that was the vision of HUPEG when they put forward the master agreement. Um just based on some technical due diligence uh structurally that was a challenge uh because of there's the cup under there the art gallery. Uh one thing they are coordinating closely with the art gallery as they explore their expansion plans. So that's something where uh we have you know assurances that if there is an expansion of the art gallery's footprint they'd coordinate with the convention center to maximize the amount of meeting space. Uh but what is taking place in the convention center is uh it's a $10 million renovation mostly a cosmetic refresh within the existing footprint. Already in the lobby you'll see um it looks much much fresher much more modern. Uh they will in phase two be putting in a wine bar that'll have street access on Summer's Lane. Uh and in the meantime, they've kept the building operational. So it's not like we've lost uh any downtime. Uh so we still have the benefits of meetings and conventions, but during this transition period, we really have to uh do what we can to make sure it's looking good. For example, the Junos, we worked with uh public works to to stop construction on Summers Lane. uh the the walkway was halfway done, had it cleaned up just because there was a lot of industry events there. So, uh working closely with our colleagues in public works to see what we can do to minimize those impacts, but there are impacts with which is the case for any construction project. >> Councelor Wayne, >> so given that there are structural issues happening um at that location, what is the plan for growth and expansion for meetings and conventions? because at this point all of we're kind of hand tied to what 1500 attendee type conferences. So what is the opportunity like if that is the roadblock then what is the solution manager? >> Uh that's a great question. So through the chair uh so there are those large large convention centers with continuous footprints and we are not that and and we won't be that tomorrow but in the marketplace we're finding uh those like the great lakes St. initiatives. There's a lot of international conferences that you know don't require the 2,000 uh you know seated continuous space. So we do feel there is a market which uh we are increasingly competitive in uh and we are seeing that building is uh busy and is looking to be uh very busy. So it's something where um you know if if if we had an expanded floor plate that would be ideal. Uh but given we don't uh there is still a lot of room to grow businesses and it's something from all our hotels specifically the downtown hotels they really benefit from that economically uh and they're seeing an uptick in bookings in the coming years especially coinciding with the completion of those renovations. >> My last question for you chair is a question around this summer. This summer is going to be the summer of cray cray um in Toronto because we have the World Cup coming. We also have significant just largecale events that are happening in Toronto. Clearly, there should be a spillover in terms of accommodations coming into Hamilton. Um so what is how are we how are we um anticipating or how are we moving um those opportunities forward given that Toronto is such a close market proximity >> uh through the chair uh so we've been working closely with our uh provincial regional tourism office RTO3 uh because that's something where we're seeing through the research that uh even at national level a lot of people when they're visiting for World Cup games. They do have intentions after to go do day trips, see other sites and uh being positioned between Toronto and Niagara Falls, clearly we have a very advantageous geographical advantage. Uh so really working with our provincial partners to put Hamilton itineraries uh in consideration so that visitors to Toronto will come and enjoy Hamilton perhaps on their way to Niagara Falls, perhaps as a lone day trip. Uh so we are working to see how we can get those visitors who are looking to explore Canada who you know may not have been here before, may not come back for a while. Uh so we're making sure our offerings are listed right beside them. Also uh as a city of Hamilton, we'll be providing a communication update to council shortly, talking about some of the other things we're doing locally to make sure that Hamiltonians enjoy Gay Cup and our businesses feel the economic uplift that an event like that should entail. But I don't want to uh get let the cat out of the bag on that. >> Thank you, Councelor Wing. Councelor Casar, any questions? No. Uh just one comment for me picking up on the director's first comment and director or manager, you can um weigh in if you agree or disagree. But when we talk about maybe some of the challenges we have at the convention center, I would say that the comments you said at the beginning, director, are probably the biggest hurdle as opposed to the size of our convention. Um I'm just if there is something you can add for that. I think there's a there's conferences that our space is perfect for but is not looked at due to some other challenges that we have in our city and I don't know if you wanted to comment on that but I I would think the size is less of a issue as opposed to what we have currently down there uh with the safety concerns etc. >> Thank you to the respon to respond through the chair. You are correct. That is that is absolutely our biggest challenge. uh through the HTDC board, we have uh a um uh one of our our streams of of funding is for safety and security in the downtown, but it uh can only do so much and uh we are uh working with our partners um in trying to support efforts uh where we can see a small positive impact. Thanks. >> Thank you for that, director. Uh moving on to items for consideration. 6.1HTDC260001 Matt advisory committee recommendations is director is this you >> uh yes that is correct >> perfect go ahead >> thank you uh perfect uh thank you uh through the chair uh the the Hamilton tourism uh strategy recommends that uh we uh introduce an advisory committee um for HTDC. This advisory committee is made up of community partners um from all of our tourism industries. Uh we did a great deal of benchmarking to see uh what was happening in other cities and how this advisory committee was set up and we have landed on uh what you have before you today for consideration. So this it would be a body that would operate very similar to a community liaison group uh and uh would have an advisory capacity and we would bring information from that advisory group forward uh for the board's consideration. I'm happy to answer any questions on the report. Thank you. >> Thank you director. Looking to councelor Ring or councelor Casar any go ahead counselor. Yeah, thank you and through you chair read the report understand the recommendation and just want to understand at a high level I mean I understand the value of having advisory committee but has there been an identified gap in in decisions made up to this point without the advisory committee uh evaluation of decisions that maybe there wasn't enough information so I'm just looking like to just flesh out the you know the value that the committee is going to bring versus what we have today. >> Thank you for the question through the chair. Uh, absolutely. We we we don't make decisions without our community partners. I've got to say industry partners. Um, to reference back to uh Councelor Wang's question uh from a previous meeting regarding increasing the Matt tax, that is something that we went to our industry partners in in our hotels to vet whether they felt that the market could tolerate that. it would not be uh reasonable for us to make that decision uh without getting that kind of input from those partners. So this uh committee is set up to ensure that we have the appropriate engagement. We're making decisions that are informed and we're bringing forward recommendations that are going to benefit the broader tourism industry in Hamilton. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you very much for that on support of no further questions. >> Thank you. And just um one question for me, maybe I missed it in the report. The advisory committee is going to report through this committee and then up through I guess GIC >> uh to respond through the chair. It would report to this committee and uh these minutes then go up to GIC. >> Perfect. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilw. You're good. Okay. So, uh thank you for that, director. We don't have any motions or notices. We don't have private and confidential. So we'll move on to the board of directors resolutions which is oh >> I don't know do we need to receive that? I don't have that on my road map. I believe it's going to be done in the resolutions of the directors. >> The approval is done in the resolutions of the directors. >> Perfect. 10.1 resolutions of the board of directors. Mover and second put the resolutions of the board of directors on the floor. Councelor Casar. Councelor Wang. Discussions on the resolutions seeing none. This is a electronic the only electronic vote of the meeting. If you do have your escribe, please vote electronically. >> No robot issues this morning. It seems like might I might have just jinxed us. Awesome. That carries 3 to zero. Thank you. Um seeing that there's no further business of this meeting, we are adjourned at 9:46. Thanks everyone.