The Independent Meeting Planners Association of Canada (IMPAC) has chosen a location for its October 16 to 19 conference.
IMPAC will be holding its annual conference for professional meeting and event planners at Algoma’s Water Tower Inn in Sault Ste. Marie.
The organization was formed in 1996 to provide a forum for people in the professional meeting and event planning profession to meet and share ideas about the meeting planning industry. A key goal is to promote professionalism and create awareness of the many resources entrepreneurial professional planners can provide.
“IMPAC is an influential group of meeting professionals and each member has the ability to potentially bring hundreds of thousands of dollars in meetings and event business to our city,” says Susan Myers, manager of marketing and tourism for the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corporation. “Convincing this highly respected association to bring their annual conference here has been a key strategy in our plan to grow the meetings market segment of tourism for Sault Ste. Marie.”
“Conference co-chair Gale Gingrich flew to Sault Ste. Marie for the day on Oct. 16 to conduct a site visit and to determine whether or not we could do the job. She was truly impressed and following her visit she advised me within 24 hours that we were selected and that Algoma’s Water Tower Inn would be the host hotel.”
Sault Ste. Marie has been working with this group for over three years in order to convince the membership to come to town, she says.
IMPAC produces a quarterly newsletter and an annual membership directory. It also has a Web site at www.impaccanada.com. The organization also hosts a supplier’s showcase and golf tournament each year.
IMPAC has over 100 members, each one a professional meeting/event planner with their individual client base numbering collectively in the hundreds.
