Outaouais Tourism and the Université du Québec en Outaouais have formed a strategic partnership designed to increase business travel that has already succeeded in attracting an international conference to the region next year.
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Outaouais Tourism and the Université du Québec en Outaouais have formed a strategic partnership designed to increase business travel that has already succeeded in attracting an international conference to the region next year.
According to UQO rector Murielle Laberge, university faculty members have expertise and connections that enable them to attract national and international conferences, but support is needed.
“Events can be complicated to organize. The expertise of our professors is research, not organizing events,” Laberge told OBJ. “We had the tendency to organize scientific activities, such as congresses, but we were doing it on our own. This partnership (with Outaouais Tourism) will reduce the administrative burden associated with attracting major conferences.”
For its part, Outaouais Tourism will help identify events and prepare applications, while also providing financial assistance to help university faculty submit bids, travel to outreach events and participate in networking activities.
The partnership is part of a larger effort by the Quebec government to position the province as a business destination, according to Geneviève Latulippe, CEO of Outaouais Tourism.
The Outaouais region is one of three targets, along with Quebec City and Montreal, chosen for their travel infrastructure and tourist attractions. All three are undertaking partnerships between a local university and destination marketing organization.
As part of the provincial initiative, the Outaouais region received $1.5 million from the Ministry of Tourism of Quebec to invest in business tourism, including the new partnership.
“We enjoy a unique status in the tourism sector,” Latulippe told OBJ. “We are one of the official gateways to Quebec. We are close to an international airport, a train station, and soon we will be connected to the high-speed rail. We are located in a really strategic position.”
Outaouais Tourism and UQO have hit the ground running, winning a bid to host the Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education (RECE) Conference in fall 2027.
The conference is hosted annually by RECE International, a network of academics, practitioners and advocates in early childhood education. This year’s event is being held in New Zealand.
Laberge said the conference was pitched by professor Joanne Lehrer, who’s with UQO’s education department. While Lehrer outlined the academic and scientific value of bringing the conference to the region, Outaouais Tourism broke down the travel details, event space, hotel costs and transit logistics to strengthen the case.
“It’s really a win-win,” Laberge said of the conference. “It will be great exposure and networking for our researchers and it will be good for the region, which will benefit from all those people going in and staying at hotels, visiting restaurants and everything. So it’s a win-win partnership.”
The conference is expected to generate $400,000 in accommodation spending, with 200 to 250 delegates attending, according to Latulippe.
With tourism traffic to the Ottawa area stabilizing over the past three years. Latulippe said the Outaouais region, which includes Gatineau and other nearby municipalities in western Quebec, has benefited.
“I think it’s really important to say that the Outaouais region’s business tourism offerings are part of a coordinated development strategy with Ottawa,” she said. “We work closely together and we are a major region within the National Capital Region. I like to say that we’re the cool little sister and our offerings are complementary. We work really well together.”
Last October, Latulippe told OBJ that the region saw an 8.9 per cent increase in overnight stays in the first three months of 2025, compared to the previous year. Over the summer, overnight stays rose 4.5 per cent, which she said was substantial compared to the average provincial increase of 2.2 per cent in the same period.
The region has benefited from an increase in domestic travel due to ongoing trade tensions with the United States, which has led to more Canadians travelling within their own country.
To further support business travel, the region is looking to construct a new conference centre on the site of the Hotel Casino du Lac-Leamy in Gatineau. The proposed 100,000-square-foot facility is expected to cost $50 million to construct.
