Tourism Winnipeg

Winnipeg Tourism Innovation of the Year Award of Distinction

Sponsored by

Presented to an individual, organization, business or marketing consortium in recognition of a new tourism product/service/process or approach that increased tourism to Winnipeg during 2011.

Winner: The Forks

Category Finalists

• The Forks
  When famed architect Frank Gehry designs and installs a one-of-a-kind warming hut in Winnipeg especially for your competition, you must be doing something right. That’s exactly what happened during the Warming Huts 2012: An Art + Architecture Competition on Ice. The competition, organized by The Forks and endorsed by the Manitoba Association of Architects, attracted submissions from around the world. The innovative huts, which were erected on the Assiniboine Credit Union River Trail, pushed the envelope of design. An estimated 200,000 people visited The Forks during January and February. International media picked up the story, enhancing the city’s reputation as a centre for world-class architecture.
• Assiniboine Park Conservancy
  Assiniboine Park Conservancy had a very busy year. In 2011, the Nature Playground, a children’s playground with rolling greens and large play structures, debuted to rave reviews from kids and their parents. The Qualico Family Centre and Park Café, the park’s new restaurant and event venue also opened. The Duck Pond grew to twice its size, making it a perfect spot for winter ice skating and summer waterfowl watching. The new venues marked the completion of phase I of a $200 million development plan for the park and zoo. If that weren’t enough, outdoor Friday night movies screened throughout August at the Lyric, among other new programming.
• Culture Days
  Culture Days/ Fete de la Culture 2011 brought together English and French arts and cultural communities in a massive, province-and-Canada-wide celebration of the arts. At free, interactive and behind-the-scenes events held three days in September, artists and architects, curators and designers opened their doors to the public. In Manitoba, 30,000 people attended more than 250 events celebrating visual arts, heritage, theatre, dance and music, new media and spoken word. Culture Days 2011 saw a significant increase in public and group participation in Winnipeg and set the stage for the development of more cultural tourism packages.