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Again, can you please post numbers which shows Montreal receiving greater visitation than Toronto.
Montreal is a more popular leisure destination than Toronto, but probably isn't going to get greater visitation, simply because it's a smaller city and smaller business center. The vast majority of visitors to a city are there for family/friends or business.
Just as Houston gets more visitors than NOLA, Toronto will get more visitors than Montreal. But not tourists. Toronto isn't a major tourist city.
Montreal is a more popular leisure destination than Toronto, but probably isn't going to get greater visitation, simply because it's a smaller city and smaller business center. The vast majority of visitors to a city are there for family/friends or business.
Just as Houston gets more visitors than NOLA, Toronto will get more visitors than Montreal. But not tourists. Toronto isn't a major tourist city.
So essentially you have nothing to back this up other than what you think right? Be honest this is going by what you feel and not what any sort of data gives you?
What I can tell you is that Toronto gets a whole lot more people coming to it on flights than Montreal. Even if less of a percentage on each of those flights comes to Toronto for leisure purposes than on flights to Montreal (that would be an assumption but i'll bite for the purpose of argument) - there are still more people coming to Toronto so in absolute numbers Toronto would still top it. We're not talking about the pound for pound best fighter here. Any time you connect two cities together you will have that leisure connection, business connection and those visiting family. That is the case when linking any two cities - and yes, you're always going to get a leisure component in that linkage so the more links you have the better. Not that others mean nothing because they do. Business and family visitors spend money and do touristy/leisurely things. Toronto also gets more day trips than Montreal suggesting more people also come by land including from the U.S.
There is a pretty stark difference in number of international flights coming to Pearson vs Trudeau. Toronto doesn't need to win a C/D popularity contest to simply have more humans coming to it for a variety of reasons including tourism. Montreal calls all overnight visitors tourists (including those who visit family and on business) but regardless what you call them, Toronto gets more overnight visitors to it (14 million v 9.6 million). Both city measures day trippers. Guess which one tops the other - Toronto 26 million v 17 million.
I couldn't get the report for Montreal for 2015 but even accounting for some robust growth yoy Montreal still has less overnight visitors/tourists (Toronto can call an O/N visitor a tourist too!) to it than Toronto as well as less number of day trip visitors. Interestingly, Tourism Montreal went out of its way to highlight growth in business meetings and conventions in addition to the sports market as being big factors in its growth. I found that rather amusing because you'd think it would be the other way around - but great for Montreal nonetheless.
Anyway, i'm not sure how exactly this can all be simply explained away other than touchy feely stuff.... Both cities are posting record numbers. Both cities are doing much better with U.S tourists/visitors overnight and day trip due to the lower CAD. Its a good thing! I have criticisms for Tourism Toronto - blv me.. They have a healthy crop of leisure visitors but how the city deals with them is rather poor imo.. The fact Toronto has these tourists booths downtown is great - fact that Toronto doesn't have a dedicated Visitors Centre is just inexcusable for a city of Toronto's size. I have no doubt Montreal does a better job marketing itself to tourists and dealing with tourism but that is another thread I guess.
You made up all this stuff, though. It's basically all exaggerated or wrong. Houston isn't as diverse as a NYC or LA, doesn't have as many ethnic restaurants, doesn't have more parkland, doesn't have top tier cultural organizations, and the like. It's a big, functional city that grows because it has a robust job market.
Actually I would agree with you. NYC in particular has way more ethnicities/cultures/languages represented than Houston. It looks like Houston's DT core is dead too which is obviously not the case with NYC. That is what I like about Toronto - it doesn't have a dead DT core and is growing heavily. You need a critical mass of residents who live in a core to make it interesting. If that critical mass is mon - fri office workers and dead at night well -that is a typical suburban city and fortunately not the model Toronto is using. Toronto blends big/growing/interesting far better than Houston. You can get a much better steak in Houston though - big plus. weather is better too.
Argentina is about as close as you can get to being dominated by one city without being a just a city-state a la Honk Kong and Singapore...
If you were to look a the world's largest economies and their largest UAs as a share of their output, it would look somewhat like this:
Buenos Aires UA ~60% of Argentine GDP, ~39% of population
Tokyo UA ~35% of Japanese GDP, ~30% of population
Paris UA ~27% of French GDP, ~17% of population
London UA ~25% of UK GDP, ~17% of population
Mexico City UA ~23% of Mexican GDP, ~17% of population
Moscow UA ~22% of Russian GDP, ~11% of population
Jakarta UA ~20% of Indonesian GDP, ~14% of population
Stockholm UA ~20% of Swedish GDP, ~15% of population
Sao Paulo UA ~19% of Brazilian GDP, ~11% of population
Toronto UA ~19% of Canadian GDP, ~18% of population
Rotterdam-Hague UA ~19% of Dutch GDP, ~17% of population
Sydney UA ~18% of Australian GDP, ~17% of population
Madrid UA ~17% of Spanish GDP, ~13% of population
Milan UA ~14% of Italian GDP, ~9% of population
Zurich UA ~12% of Swiss GDP, ~10% of population
Essen-Dusseldorf UA ~10% of German GDP, ~8% of popuation
New York UA ~9% of US GDP, ~7% of population
Delhi UA ~6% of Indian GDP, ~3% of population
Shanghai UA ~4% of Chinese GDP, ~2% of population
If you count Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto megalopolis as one unit you're talking about roughly half of Japan's population and 60% of it's economy. The Bos-Wash Megalopolis is about 18% of the US economy and 13% of its population, a smaller relative share than Toronto alone in Canada.
This is very interesting - thanks for this.
Another thing to look at is how big the drop is between number 1 and numbers 2, 3, 4, etc.
The second-largest city in Argentina is roughly 1/10th the size of BA.
The second and third cities in the UK and France are much smaller relative to Paris than Montreal or even Vancouver are to Toronto.
You made up all this stuff, though. It's basically all exaggerated or wrong. Houston isn't as diverse as a NYC or LA, doesn't have as many ethnic restaurants, doesn't have more parkland, doesn't have top tier cultural organizations, and the like. It's a big, functional city that grows because it has a robust job market.
I didn't make it up. Houston has surpassed NYC in diversity:
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), located in the Houston Museum District, Houston, is one of the largest museums in the United States.[2] The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 6,000 years of history with approximately 64,000 works from six continents.[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum..._Arts,_Houston
Many people don't know these things about Houston, but it measures up to most of the cities in North America. But people believe it's just a business city. It isn't the 4th largest in the US for no reason...
When Galveston was being developed, they estimated that at one time it would be the Manhattan of the South but a hurricane destroyed it in the early 1900s. At that time, they decided to locate the main infrastructure further inland, in Houston. Houston is on a trajectory to become the NYC of the South. It will one day surpass Chicago.
That being said, give me New Orleans over Houston for visiting any day! Same as I would prefer Montreal (or even Quebec City for that matter) over Toronto for visiting.
What constitutes "diversity"? Many American wrongly thinking higher non-White population means higher diversity, I am sorry, but that's just sheer stupid. So if an American city has 100% Latino population, then it automatically becomes the most diverse city in the country? Doesn't pass basic logic.
Diversity lies in multiple language, multiple culture co-existing, ideally with none being too predominate. Now let's see the percentage of Non-Hispanic white, black, Hispanic, and Asian percentage
Houston does have lower non-Hispanic white, but it is pretty obvious that NYC is still a lot more diverse than it as the population among various ethnicity is more evenly distributed. Houston and LA are probably somewhat similar in terms of ethnic diversity (which is unexpected for me actually).
Additionally, as many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City, compared "over 90" in Houston. It is night and day. For me, skin colour matters far less than language, which is the core of cultural difference. An third generation American born Chinese can be completely white-washed and doesn't speak a word of Chinese or know what day is Chinese New Year and eats hamburgers every day, and you can't say "well, as long as he is not white, he adds to the cultural diversity".
What constitutes "diversity"? Many American wrongly thinking higher non-White population means higher diversity, I am sorry, but that's just sheer stupid. So if an American city has 100% Latino population, then it automatically becomes the most diverse city in the country? Doesn't pass basic logic.
Diversity lies in multiple language, multiple culture co-existing, ideally with none being too predominate. Now let's see the percentage of Non-Hispanic white, black, Hispanic, and Asian percentage
Houston does have lower non-Hispanic white, but it is pretty obvious that NYC is still a lot more diverse than it as the population among various ethnicity is more evenly distributed. Houston and LA are probably somewhat similar in terms of ethnic diversity (which is unexpected for me actually).
Additionally, as many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City, compared "over 90" in Houston. It is night and day. For me, skin colour matters far less than language, which is the core of cultural difference. An third generation American born Chinese can be completely white-washed and doesn't speak a word of Chinese or know what day is Chinese New Year and eats hamburgers every day, and you can't say "well, as long as he is not white, he adds to the cultural diversity".
Actually with the numbers you quote (no source), Houston has greater diversity than LA. There are more African Americans as a percentage than in LA by a large margin (14% more). There are more Asians and Latinos but by a smaller margin (5%).
Actually with the numbers you quote (no source), Houston has greater diversity than LA. There are more African Americans as a percentage than in LA by a large margin (14% more). There are more Asians and Latinos but by a smaller margin (5%).
Tourism numbers really have to be taken with a huge grain of salt IMO.
For example, if Toronto gets 40 million visitors annually, that puts it almost exactly with Las Vegas, which has 41-42 million visitors a year.
Orlando gets 65-70 million visitors a year.
"Greater Miami and Beaches" gets 15 million visitors a year.
New Orleans gets about 10 million visitors a year.
New York City gets 60 million.
These are all numbers that are put out there by tourism people in these respective cities.
Few weeks ago, I saw a highway bill board ad on I-95 heading into Newark stating that Newark NJ receives over "40 million visitors a year", by the local tourism bureau. Newark NJ of all places. Wonder how many of those are airport "transit" visitors because Newark Liberty also happens to be the largest United Airlines hub on the east coast.
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