Just last week, Tourism Toronto was all up in everybody’s face, like, “dude, you’ve got to be more friendly to tourists! Now that the dollar is down, they hate us.” It’s a civic duty, they say, for each Torontonian to provide “good customer service” to the nice people who come by to visit.
That got cranky old Royson James out to drum up ideas for making the city more attractive (How about Euro day at the CNE!) and other Star warriors fretting at the lack of big new attractions and even going undercover to see how hard it is out there for a tourist. (A whole 30 seconds of faux-quizzical map-staring before someone offers to help at Yonge and St. Clair.)
And with even worse news coming yesterday and today, our old dear friend the New York Times is here to help. In an article that ran on Sunday, the Frugal Traveler made the case to Americans that even with the dollar at par, Hogtown can still be a bargain. Especially if you start with (gasp!) a Porter Air flight into the Island Airport. (The ever-present protesters at the ferry dock make a none-too-flattering cameo in the video below.)
His $500 (including airfare) budget made him act more like a local than a tourist, jogging past the tourist traps rather than wandering in, chilling in Kensington, record shopping at Soundscapes, streetcar watching, checking out a show at the Tranzac.
He even hits the local cultural notes, throwing in shout-outs to Jane Jacobs and Margaret Atwood and, in the video, gets all Shawn Micallef on everyone: remarking on the “surprising moments of beauty” in the urban environment over a shot of a woman with a potted plant passing a graffiti mural.
One appreciates his appreciation of our hot dog vendors:
As a New Yorker, I am loath to admit this, but I think Toronto has a better handle on street dogs: grilled, not steamed, with a panoply of toppings unavailable in the five boroughs — corn relish, pepperoncini, bacon bits, green olives, pickle slices, sriracha sauce. At 2.50 dollars, they do, however, cost more than my hometown tube steaks.
The verdict: “Very muliticulti.” And it’s in a Sandro Perri show that he divines the soul of the city:
“As he played, I closed my eyes and tried, for the first time in a weekend of incessant walking, to really relax. The music was unhurried, soulful and inventive, with just enough futuristic techno-tricks to elevate it beyond simple folk.
A metaphor for Toronto? Possibly. The ideal way to finish the weekend? Absolutely.”
Tourism Toronto: there’s yer new slogan. T.O.: Just enough futuristic techno tricks to elevate us beyond simple folk. Wouldn’t be worse than some we’ve had before.