Business Travel Guide: Vancouver, Canada
Vancouver has transformed itself again. For years, Vancouverites contended with major construction projects—a waterfront convention complex, hotels, rapid transit line from downtown to the airport and beyond, an Olympic village, and Olympic-sized sports venues. As a result, the cityscape has changed and the tallest building now dwarfs others in the downtown core. The city upgrades are enticing to Olympic-bound athletes and fans, as well as to business travelers and tourists. Vancouver is ready for the Olympics and the worldwide attention it will receive in February 2010.
While British Columbia's economy has long been based on the province's rich endowment of natural resources, primarily forestry, mining (including oil and gas) and fishing, preparing for the Olympics has diversified the economy. Industries supported by non-resource activities such as film and hi-tech, including software and biotechnology, are also finding a strong foothold. In fact, Vancouver is now home to some of North America's most cutting-edge animation, Internet and software development firms. Add tourism to the mix and you have a robust and dynamic economy. According to a recent assessment, tourism ranked as the third-largest money-maker in the province after wood/paper and energy products.
Blessed with a magnificent natural setting, Vancouver is encircled by seas and mountains, a setting that makes it a major Pacific port city. Situated on the Burrard Peninsula, surrounded by the Georgia Strait (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean), and the Coast Mountains, the city boasts spectacular scenery, the mildest climate in Canada and a compact downtown core ideal for business travelers. Asian tycoons, film industry moguls and throngs of conventioneers are regularly enchanted by the cleanliness and civility of this modestly proportioned city of half-a-million sophisticated inhabitants.
As a world-class city, Vancouver offers a plethora of first-class hotel rooms and an outstanding diversity of restaurants. Add up-scale shopping, public markets, progressive architecture, a visitor-friendly culture and award-winning wines from British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, and this city consistently earns repeat visits from business travelers and tourists alike. Accommodations in Vancouver reflect its status as a significant Pacific Rim destination and the city's importance as Canada's largest West Coast metropolis.
Facts to Know Before You Go |
Currency: Canadian Dollar
The Canadian dollar is constantly being measured against its U.S. counterpart. The exchange rate is currently $1.07 to the U.S. dollar. No need to hunt down an exchange office, however. The U.S. dollar is accepted almost everywhere and reasonable exchange rates are offered. The Canadian dollar itself is no longer paper; it's a large gold-colored coin nicknamed the "loonie" because it features the Spotted Loon, a beloved aquatic bird of northern lakes. A distinctive two-tone $2 coin, larger and heavier than the $1 coin, goes by the nickname "toonie" because it rhymes with loonie. Debit and credit cards can be used in virtually all retail shops, restaurants and fast-food eateries in Greater Vancouver.
Transportation
The modern and spacious Vancouver International Airport is located nine miles south of downtown on Sea Island. The Canada Line (www.translink.ca), an automated rail-based rapid transit built for the 2010 Winter Olympics, began service in 2009. Taxis and limousines [and public transit] are available curbside in front of the terminals to take you anywhere in the city. Taxis from the airport to downtown cost about $30.
Newspapers
The Vancouver Sun, the city's main English-language daily, is published every morning except Sunday. The Province is a tabloid with an emphasis on sports and entertainment. Business in Vancouver is the city's weekly business tabloid—and an excellent resource. BCBusiness, published monthly, provides behind-the-scenes coverage chronicling major deals and putting faces to the players. Canada's national newspaper is the well-respected The Globe and Mail, which is published Mondays through Saturdays. The city also has three daily Chinese-language newspapers: Sing Tao, Ming Pao and the World Journal, each offering news to Vancouver's large Chinese population. |
Built atop the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre for Expo'86, the Pan Pacific features 504 rooms and suites—all with high-speed Internet access. Business services also include videoconferencing, photocopy and fax service, as well as cell phone and pager rentals. Guests can work out in the state-of-the-art health club and dine in the serene Five Sails restaurant, which offers breathtaking harbor and mountain views.
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The Shangri-La is Vancouver's tallest and most dramatic landmark building. As the first North American outpost for the Hong Kong-based chain, the hotel's interiors are sumptuous and opulent. The Asian service for which they are branded includes discreet underground or private in-room check-in, and a welcome pot of steaming tea. Amid sophisticated, Zen-like décor, each of the 119 rooms offers a spacious workspace, complimentary high-speed Internet access, complimentary telephone calls, and 24-hour room service. Secretarial services and meeting rooms are also available. Start the day with a Chinese breakfast, end it with a movie screening in the hotel's 42-seat theatre, a visit to Chi, the spa, or dinner at Jean-George's Market.
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Each of the 397 sound-proof rooms and suites in this sumptuous hotel have furnishings that are museum-quality reproductions of European antiques. There are plenty of spectacular original pieces throughout the hotel's public spaces as well. All guestrooms include flat-screen TVs, wi-fi and super-plush beds (premium rooms have iHome radios with iPod docks). There's also a 24-hour self-serve business center with an airport kiosk offering early flight check-ins. Elegant meals, a civilized tea and a chocolate buffet await those who venture into Fleuri restaurant. For after hours communing, the richly paneled Gerard Lounge is ranked among the city's most popular watering holes.
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This boutique property at the Terminal City Club (a private business club) offers a sanctuary in the heart of Vancouver's bustling business center. Each of the 60 guestrooms and suites is tastefully decorated and many offer outstanding views. All have flat-screen TVs and Internet access. The extensive club facilities available to guests include one of the city's best fitness centers, squash courts, swimming pool, historic billiards room, library (with Wi-Fi) and private restaurants.
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A small, urban luxury hotel located across from the gardens and waterfalls of Robson Square, the Wedgewood is a favorite with U.S. filmmakers who have turned Vancouver into Hollywood North. The 83 luxurious rooms and suites have wireless high-speed Internet and are furnished with fresh flowers, genuine antiques and original art. There's a business center with secretarial services, Pentium computers and a laser printer. You can dine in Bacchus—an elegant retreat with a contemporary French menu, or grab a bite in the Bacchus Lounge where you're likely to recognize one of Vancouver's star hockey players. The day spa is state-of-the-art.
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HOTEL SPECIALS
 Hyatt
Regency Vancouver
Located in the downtown this hotel offers spacious guestrooms, floor to ceiling windows with amazing views of the city's skyline, or the beautiful mountains or the park. Official Site- Downtown Vancouver Hotel. Stay at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver. Book Online and Save! |
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Canada's only Iron Chef, Rob Feenie, stepped into the role of "Food Concept Architect" a few years ago at the restaurant/bar chain Cactus Club and has wooed the well-dressed, well-coiffed business crowds with his signature high-end dishes served at reasonable prices. (They once graced the menus of Lumière and Feenie's, but at double the price.) There are fourteen establishments throughout the Lower Mainland with Bentall 5 in the financial district attracting businessmen and women for extended lunches. The casual fine dining menu includes Feenie's fare—sake-maple marinated sablefish, mac & cheese with lobster, butternut squash ravioli with amaretti, pine nuts and crispy sage, short rib sandwich with caramelized onion and Emmental cheese on toasted sourdough, and rocket salad with panko and parmesan breaded chicken tossed in lemon caper sauce.
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Contemporary
Quick Bite
$$$$$ |
If you want to get down to business at lunch or dinner over a burger made with premium Canadian Angus beef, drop into Earls Paramount downtown. Generous, reasonably priced dishes, exclusive microbrews, and a wine list that focuses on hot producers and regional strengths make Earls a rare breed among upscale chains. Each pearl in this restaurant empire emphasizes high-quality, fresh only, seasonal ingredients, whether on pizzas (from the open-to-view wood oven), in pasta, or with burgers. It's fast food and it isn't—menu highlights include the grilled prawn tacos, smoked salmon and tuna rolls, Jeera chicken curry, authentic pad Thai, and pappardelle alfredo. Servers are young, bright and attractive. Bring the whole gang if you need to schedule a working lunch and head for the Hornby Street location where there's an upstairs loft that comfortably seats sixteen to twenty. It's available at lunch and from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. or 9 p.m. to midnight with a minimum of fifteen guests. |
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Business dining is a top priority at Gotham. The king of Vancouver's steakhouses, David Aisenstat, turned his attention to creating an upscale Hy's (one of Canada's first steakhouse chains) and the result is a room with well-executed lighting, unhurried but efficient service and plush leather banquettes conveying an image favored by corporate types. Meat is the main course here, Triple AAA Canadian Prime to be precise. From the New York strip to the 24-ounce porterhouse, it's a cattle drive for the taste buds. You can share interesting sides—Lyonnaise potatoes, sautéed baby beets or thick-cut beer battered onion rings. For sheer entertainment value, take a seat at the bar and engage in some of the best people-watching Vancouver has to offer. Gotham also has two private dining rooms—the eight to 18-seat Boardroom with a cozy fireplace, and the Club Room that accommodates 30 for a sit-down dinner and comes complete with a bar and audio-visual capabilities. One note: this place is priced with the assumption that everyone has a limitless expense account. |
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This two-story Italian restaurant situated on a prime piece of downtown real estate is a vibrant spot for a business lunch or dinner. On the ground floor, there's an open kitchen and a 60-foot white marble bar named "D.O.C." The upstairs lounge features a second bar and a 50-seat dining room for private functions. It's an asset not lost on the high-energy patrons—a mix of young professionals and stockbrokers. Chef Ryan Gauthier deftly combines the flavors and influences of Italy's regions to put together a family-style feast. His antipasto platter resonates with the freshness and simplicity of grilled calamari, jumbo prawns, eggplant Parmigiana, fennel-crusted ahi tuna, spicy meatballs, osso buco risotto, deep-fried pouches of zucchini blossoms stuffed with burrata, and a caprese salad that shines when heirloom tomatoes are in season. Crisp pizza crusts with savory toppings emerge from the imported gas-fired brick oven. The meat platter includes chicken saltimbocca, beefsteak Florentine, veal piccata, mushroom risotto and roasted vegetables. Classic pastas include a choice of pomodoro, aglio olio, Alfredo, carbonara, bolognese and pesto. The cellar is stocked with solid Italian vintages and new- and old-world offerings, and enthusiastic service adds to the dining pleasure.
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Sushi/Japanese
16/20
$$$$$ |
Indulge your yen for Japanese food and close the deal at Tojo's. Hidekazu Tojo has developed a passionate following with the city's sushi snobs for his surgically precise innovations. This location features an impressive soaring room with a bustling yet relaxed atmosphere which is most apt for his sushi performances. If you're a duo, sit at the 15-seat bar and let Tojo-san dazzle your palate with his omakase. Among the best selections are Tojo tuna and "special beef" (thinly sliced beef wrapped around asparagus and shrimp). Tojo also created the "BC roll" (barbecued salmon skin, green onions, cucumber and daikon) now found in almost every Japanese restaurant in Vancouver. Everyday specials are first-rate. If it's autumn, don't miss pine mushroom soup, steamed monkfish liver served from October to May, and scallops and sautéed halibut cheeks with shiitake mushrooms in the spring. The wine list needs some attention, but maybe that's why cold Masukagami saké is hot at Tojo's. |
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Coast
1054 Alberni St.
604-685-5010
www.coastrestaurant.com
Located on what has become the hippest retail street in Vancouver, Coast rubs elbows with Tiffany & Co., Brooks Brothers and Betsey Johnson, but at this high-energy lounge and restaurant where the well-toned crowd hang, the business is all about seafood. Featured dishes include the Cedar-Planked Walleye, Tuna Tar Tar, and Hoisin Glazed Duck Breast. Sit at the U-shaped bar for non-stop action or reserve a balcony table on the mezzanine and you get a view of the towers of iced seafood and shellfish, oysterbar, and sushi station. Prices are reasonable and the service is stellar.
 Whether you're seeking a glass of sake or 5,000 tons of foundation-ready cement, Granville Island is the place to go. Originally called "Industrial Island," it was once an assortment of factories and warehouses. This changed in the mid-1970s when two local visionaries decided the mudflat had development potential. The federal government also got on board with the idea and those warehouses haven't been the same since. Out went the bolts, anvils and boilers, and in came the art supplies, organic fruit and vegetables, artisanal bakeries and flame-juggling buskers. Canada's first sake winery, Artisan SakeMaker Studio, can be found tucked between a goldsmith and a potter. Stop in to sample the three handcrafted sakes, labeled as Osake: Junmai Nama; Junmai Nama Genshu; Junmai Nama Nigorit or the Junmai sparkling sake. What developed is possibly the most successful urban redevelopment in North America, and has drawn international attention from planners globally.
The Grouse Grind
6400 Nancy Greene Way
North Vancouver
604-984-0661
www.grousemountain.com
 Take your colleagues on a hike or go on an after-hours adventure and head for the Grouse Grind, the city's sweatiest see-and-be-seen hiking strip. Each year, approximately 100,000 enthusiasts scramble up the rocky 1.8-mile incline from the foot of Grouse to the beer and nachos nirvana of Altitudes Bistro. The Grouse Grind is particularly popular on summer evenings when the Skyride parking lot fills by 5:30pm. Within an hour, 400-plus are normally cruising the trail. But don't join the flock if you're not ready for a workout. It's not called the Grind for nothing. We recommend sensible shoes and at least one water bottle for the trek; one and a half hours is the average hiking time. Those in a rush should know the record: 26 minutes, 19 seconds. It's free to hike, but if you don't want to schlep back down, spend $5 and climb aboard the gondola for the return trip down the hill.
Stanley Park Seawall
www.city.vancouver.bc.ca
 Leave negotiations and business attire behind and head for one of the city's most beloved parks. It's a rite of passage in Vancouver to walk, run or cycle around the 6.5-mile seawall in Stanley Park. Watch seaplanes taking off and landing in Burrard Inlet, stop and smell the rose gardens, brace yourself for the Nine O'clock Gun, shout out at Hallelujah Point and gulp great breaths of cedar-scented air while trying not to disturb nesting Canada geese around Lost Lagoon. To escape the crowds, venture off the pavement onto easy hiking and walking trails inside the park's core. Many bike-rental shops are found near the Georgia/Denman Street entrance to Stanley Park if cycling is your passion or pastime.
 For a break from business discussions, consider adding a nature walk to your agenda and head for Point Grey, Musqueam Reserve and Spanish Banks West. Somewhere along the steep, winding bluff that leads down the University of British Columbia's western bluff, the social fabric loosens and the tight stitches of inhibition unravel. By the time you're at the bottom of the bluff near the edge of the staircase, you can disband with all modesty and step onto clothing-optional Wreck Beach. Aside from a few bundled-up rubberneckers scoping the shoreline, most Wreckies take full advantage of Canada's only Speedo-free beach. The 3.6-mile-long stretch of sand and rock, washed by the currents of the Fraser River, Strait of Georgia and English Bay, has become a mecca each summer for an estimated 100,000 sun worshippers determined to avoid tan lines.
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* Wreck Beach image by Arnold C; Granville Island image
by Flying Penguin of Pacific Spirit Photography; Grouse Mountain image by Chris Stubbs; Stanley Park image by
Michael Rogers
P020899 |
(Updated:
10/15/09 AR) |
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