March 7, 2016, (Ottawa, Ontario): The nine recipients of the 2016 Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance (CSTA) PRESTIGE Awards represent the wide spectrum of activities held during 2015, the Year of Sport in Canada. They include both major multi-sport, multi-city international events, as well as local events, volunteers and champions of the sport tourism industry.
“Once again we had a tremendous group of finalists for the PRESTIGE awards, and it was difficult to narrow it down to the final recipients,” said Rick Traer, CEO, Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance. “Congratulations to all those receiving PRESTIGE awards. Each one is an outstanding example of the dedication and excellence throughout the sport tourism industry in Canada. You have all made significant contributions to maintain Canada’s reputation as one of the world’s leading sport hosting nations.”
For the first time, there was a tie in one of the categories, the CSTA International Sport Event of the Year Award presented by Tourism Toronto. It will be jointly shared by the FIFA Women's World Cup Canada 2015 (Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, Moncton) and the Toronto 2015 Pan Am / Parapan American Games (Toronto, Ont.)
The 10th anniversary PRESTIGE Awards were presented on Monday, March 7, 2016 during the CSTA’s annual Sport Events Congress at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa at a gala luncheon, emceed by broadcast journalist Scott Russell, host of CBC Sports Road to the Olympic Games.
PHOTOS (low and high res) for editorial use are available at www.canadiansporttourism.com.
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2016 PRESTIGE Award Recipients
CSTA Canadian Sport Event of the Year Award (Group A: budget greater than $1 million) presented by Edmonton Events
- 2015 Canada Winter Games (Prince George, B.C.)
The largest multi-sport and cultural event ever held in northern British Columbia had many success stories. Attendance was tremendous with 124,750 people attending sport venues and 57,500 the Festival Site. With $2 million in upgrades to facilities, the legacy of the Games has provided Prince George with enhanced sport hosting capacity. The 2015 Canada Winter Games supported over $123.4 million in economic activity throughout B.C. as measured by CSTA’s STEAM PRO. The 76,000 person community of Prince George garnered $83.2 million of that activity.
CSTA Canadian Sport Event of the Year Award (Group B: budget less than $1 million) presented by Edmonton Events
- Tough Mudder Whistler 2015 (Whistler, B.C.)
In 2015, Tough Mudder returned to Whistler for the fifth time, with 16,360 participants in the 10-12 mile obstacle course run and 4,000 spectators. Tough Mudder benefits from extremely strong partnerships within the community across both the public and private sectors. In 2015, 341 volunteers were on hand and committed over 3,173 volunteer hours to the success of the event. Using the CSTA’s STEAM model, the Tough Mudder supported $3.6 million in economic activity for the Province of British Columbia with an event budget of $785,000.
CSTA International Sport Event of the Year Award presented by Tourism Toronto (two recipients)
- FIFA Women's World Cup Canada 2015 (Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, Moncton)
- Toronto 2015 Pan Am / Parapan American Games (Toronto, Ont.)
The FIFA Women's World Cup Canada 2015 was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for Canadians, hosted from coast-to-coast (Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montréal, Moncton) from June 6 – July 5, 2015. With a record-setting 1,353,506 spectators over 52 matches, it drew the largest attendance for a single-sport event in Canada as well as the highest attendance for a FIFA event outside the prestigious men's FIFA World Cup.
The Toronto 2015 Pan Am / Parapan American Games (Toronto, Ont.) hosted 10,000 athletes and officials from 41 Pan American nations, who competed in 51 sports over 28 days and drew more than 1.14 million spectators. It featured the largest post-war volunteer recruitment in Canada, with 23,000 volunteers selected from a pool of +60,000 applicants. Its legacy includes 25 new and upgraded accessible world-class sport and recreation facilities for Ontario communities.
CSTA Canadian Sport Event Sponsor of the Year Award presented by Adup Display
- CIBC (Toronto 2015 Pan Am / Parapan American Games) (Toronto, Ont.)
As Lead Partner of the Games, CIBC created a number of legacy programs, encouraged the volunteer spirit of its employees, helped finance landmark venues and engaged diverse communities while fusing sport with arts and culture. CIBC to helped bring to life the largest international multi-sport Games ever held here on home soil for its clients, its team, its communities and for visitors; and invested in up-and-coming athletes to help them achieve their dreams in sport and in life, while inspiring the next generation of Canada’s athletic champions.
CSTA Sport Event Volunteer of the Year presented by CBC Sports
- Bryan Kosteroski, 2015 ISF World Men's Softball Championship (Saskatoon, Sask.)
After serving as Chair of the 2009 ISF World Men’s Softball Championship in Saskatoon, Kosteroski returned to chair the 2015 event. He led an organizing committee of 42 members and 450 volunteers in all aspects of the planning and execution. His leadership was an integral part of the championship’s success and one of the main reasons SASA will be bidding on the event again in the future.
CSTA Sport Tourism Champion of the Year Award presented by RTO 4 (Regional Sport Tourism Office, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge-Guelph)
- Greg Krischke, (Mayor, City of Leduc, Leduc, Alta.)
A group led by Krischke convinced administration and members of City Council that a full-time Sport Tourism Coordinator should be hired to support and encourage events into the City of Leduc. They successfully adopted a Sport and Agricultural Tourism Position that coincided with the opening of the Leduc Recreation Center – and the rest is history. Now over 100 events are booked annually into the building and numerous not-for-profit organizations have been assisted with Sport Tourism.
Sport Tourism Organization of the Year presented by WestJet
- Edmonton Events
Edmonton Events is a unique strategic partnership between the City of Edmonton and Edmonton Tourism. In addition to event bid consultation and development, accommodation facilitation and communications support, this integrated model ensures seamless rights holder facilitation between City of Edmonton services (police, fire, traffic, transit, communications) and Edmonton Tourism Support (consumer marketing and communications).
CSTA Sustainable Sport Event of the Year presented by Elite Communication
- 2015 Canada Winter Games (Prince George, B.C.)
The 2015 Games Host Society created a sustainability strategy to address such core environmental impacts as: reducing the amount of waste and diverting waste from landfill; being energy efficient and reducing greenhouse gas emissions; using sustainable wood products as much as possible while being respectful of the landscapes and habitat upon which the Games competitions were being held; and promoting sustainable purchasing and being smart about the acquisition of products. Strategies also acted as environmental legacies, extending beyond the positive work of the 2015 Games.
Further information on each recipient and all 24 finalists can be found here.
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About the PRESTIGE Awards
PRESTIGE Awards are the CSTA’s marquis Program Recognizing Exceptional Sport Tourism Initiatives, Games & Events. The goal of these annual Awards is to shine a spotlight on the dynamic Canadians, places and events that are building our nation’s growing sport tourism industry. Now in their 10th year, they have been presented annually since 2007.
About the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance (CSTA)
The Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance is a tourism industry led organization that promotes sport tourism as an economic development initiative at the community level. The CSTA services over 400 members across Canada, including 145 municipalities, 200 national and provincial sport, multi-sport and major games organizations and variety of other sport and tourism industry partners. Sport tourism is the fastest growing segment of the tourism industry with approximately $5.2 billion in annual spending by domestic and international visitors.
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For more information contact:
Barb MacDonald, CSTA Communications Consultant
Tel: (613) 894-1769
barbmacd@storm.ca