Association Meetings: Conference Canada - Site file

WHAT'S NEW Officials were telling people to start traveling again, but the world was still stunned by the events of September 11 when Niagara Falls, Ontario, broke ground October 22 on a second casino, currently referred to as Niagara Falls Casino/Gateway Project. "It has been a tough time for travel and hotels, but I'm confident that the start of construction will serve as a catalyst for getting this region back on its feet again," said Nick Pritzker, CEO and Chairman of Hyatt Development, which will build a Hyatt hotel in the casino complex.

Ice Hotel Canada, a hotel literally built out of ice, opened last January and melted with the spring thaw, but in 2002 will be rebuilt outside Quebec City. In its first year the Ice Hotel quickly attracted group events, with such companies as Canadian operations of Eli Lilly, which found the ice bar--complete with vodka shooters served up in ice glasses--and ice gallery, which could hold up to 225 guests for a reception, made a cool retreat. The new Ice Hotel will have 35 to 40 guest rooms, a bar, a theater, an art gallery, a chapel, and many, many goose down sleeping bags spread on its icy beds.

Canadian Pacific Ltd. shareholders meeting at the 1914 Palliser Hotel in Calgary, Alberta, in October reversed a strategy that stretches back 115 years: They divided venerable CP Ltd., the springboard for the chain of Canadian Pacific hotels modeled on French chateaux that remain landmarks today, into five public companies. The hotel arm is Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Inc.

I WAS THERE The International Association of Assessing Officers, based in Chicago, attracted 1,200 delegates from all over North America to Edmonton, Alberta, in September 2000 for "an excellent meeting of people who gathered to share expertise on property assessment despite the untimely departure of the group's meeting manager just before the conference," says Annie Aubrey, director of publications and marketing. After an initial period of confusion and frayed nerves, the organizing team settled into Edmonton's Shaw Conference Center; and, using on-site staff, put the conference into capable hands. "It was a really great venue overlooking the North Saskatchewan River," she says. A key attraction for the delegates was the proximity of the Rockies. Aubrey notes that a many took off for Jasper and the mountains afterward.