The Culinary Tourism Alliance has been dedicated to growing food tourism in Canada since 2006.
As a membership-based organization, we empower communities to create and celebrate their tastes of place by leveraging the history, heritage, and culture behind their foodways, making each destination unique.
Our organization offers
Membership and marketing
Industry and consumer events and experiences
Feast On®, Ontario’s local food certification program
Operating as a not-for-profit food tourism development organization, our mandate is to:
Work with communities to build their taste of places by supporting agriculture, viticulture, and aquaculture industries across the culinary tourism value chain
Foster partner engagement and relationship building within a community to enrich food and agritourism experiences that are mindful of natural resources and cultural manifestations
Seek and encourage mutually beneficial partnerships to increase capacity, leverage audiences, promote innovation and maximize resources
Promote authentic tastes of place by sharing stories with pride, respectfully honouring the cultures that create these experiences
Be a global leader in diverse and inclusive culinary and agritourism destination development
Our Journey
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2006
The Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance is established to implement the 2005-2015 Ontario Culinary Tourism Strategy and Action Plan, commissioned by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture & Sport. We operated under the umbrella of the Ontario Restaurant Hotels & Motels Association (ORHMA).
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2011
The organization officially incorporates as the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance and no longer operates under ORHMA.
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2014
The Feast On® program launches, becoming North America's largest and longest running local food certification program.
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2015
All of the actions within the 2005-2015 Ontario Culinary Tourism Strategy and Action Plan are completed.
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2016
The organization's name is offically changed to the Culinary Tourism Alliance, reflecting our growth beyond provincial borders and our position as a national leader in advancing food tourism across Canada.
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2023
The organization's by-laws are amended to expand our scope to a national organization. We begin accepting national membership, and the Great Taste of Canada campaign is launched. We host our inaugural Taste of Place Summit at George Brown College.
We are people persons.
We've lived, worked, and studied in communities around the world.
These experiences, along with our project work and busy travel schedule, inform our unique and constantly evolving perspective on food tourism development.
Industry Affiliations
Proud signatory of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism
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