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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Confidence up, city easier to sell

By: Martin Cash

Posted: 07/26/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Mariette Mulaire may be just as stressed out organizing the second Centrallia conference in two years, but she has found that the city is not such a hard sell.

"Manitobans used to feel like they were not good enough for anything -- including an NHL hockey team -- and portrayed a lower self-esteem as a market," she said. "In the last couple of years something has happened and it's not just the Jets."

Recently the national market research firm Environics determined prosperity levels increased in Manitoba at a rate greater than anywhere else in the country.

Manitoba's net worth is fifth highest among the provinces -- a little ahead of Quebec and some distance behind Saskatchewan.

The strong increase this year has a lot to do with the fact the housing market in Manitoba is about as strong as it is anywhere.

Some of us remember the '90s, when not a thing was built in Winnipeg and property values did not go up. Now Winnipeggers get to dabble in the real estate market like people in big cities around the world.

According to an unconfirmed story, the property tax on a Winnipeg business recently went up more than 10 per cent. The business owner was outraged because no work had been done to increase the value of the property. The taxes -- and value -- of the property went up because market values in general increased.

No one enjoys paying more taxes. But if the story is correct, the business may have to pay more taxes, but it's also worth more.

This stuff doesn't happen overnight, but this is the kind of dynamic that suggests a city like Winnipeg may be shedding its reputation as being an undesirable place that's down on its heels.

It's that kind of dynamic that has allowed organizers of October's Centrallia conference to have an easier time registering participants.

Centrallia is the business speed-dating where participants are matched for as many as 14 one-on-one half-hour meetings during 2 1/2 days of sessions.

Organizers are saying officially that about 600 companies are expected to participate from 40 countries.

But Mulaire, co-chair of Centrallia and the driving force behind its being here in the first place, said that will translate into 800 people -- about 100 more than the first event attracted two years ago.

She said it has been an easier sell this year than it was in 2010 when the global economy was still reeling from the credit meltdown and subsequent global recession.

Dave Angus, the other co-chair and president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, said he recently drove back from making a Centrallia presentation at Sioux Falls, S.D.

"We did one there last time and there was interest from a handful of companies," he said. "This time there are 32 organizations interested. We don't have to sell Winnipeg as much, especially to the groups who were here in 2010."

This time there are more places in the world where economies have normalized and there are more enterprises with the confidence to pay the $1,100 registration fee and come to Winnipeg.

The marketing of the event was aided by the fact that in April, Winnipeg was awarded a World Trade Center licence. ANIM (Agence Nationale et Internationale du Manitoba), the organization Mulaire is president of, has effectively become the secretariat for Winnipeg's WTC.

Mulaire said membership in the WTC has already helped attract delegations to Centrallia from places like Colombia and Italy.

The WTC will handle the followup work after Centrallia and will become a full-time operating entity to continue to leverage the Centrallia brand in various ways.

Centrallia and Winnipeg's WTC will help promote the city.

But before they could do that, the city needed to come into its own and have its citizens really believe there was something valuable to promote.

That's happening as we speak.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 26, 2012 B5

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