Travel Leaders Network set to ignite Canada with new regional show format in 2026

As Travel Leaders Network (TLN) wrapped up its trio of Fall Regionals in Canada last week, it unveiled plans for a new format for the annual events for 2026 that the group’s senior executives believe will provide members with more of what they want.

The group’s mixer and regional event have always been popular, increasingly so, and growing, with Travel Leaders Network’s Vice President Canada, Christine James pointing out that the group has seen strong participation by both members and suppliers in the 11 events it has hosted so far in 2025.

In fact, James said that every year, TLN has to find bigger venues in order to accommodate the growing numbers of both member and suppliers because “we don’t want to turn anyone away.”
A total of 1,056 members and 250 suppliers have attended the 11 events in both Eastern and Western Canada, and increase in attendance of 39% year to date.

“So, those are pretty substantial numbers,” James observed before running through the numbers for the 2025 Fall Regionals which saw Vancouver welcome 121 members and 46 supplier booths; Edmonton hosted 84 members and 44 suppliers; and Toronto – the group’s biggest event of the year – was attended by 230 members and 64 suppliers.

New format will ignite Canada in 2026

Ignite Canada – as the new events will be called – will provide members with an expanded program and is a response to feedback from Travel Leaders Network’s Canadian members.

James explains that in 2026: “We’re moving from 3 one-day events to 2 two-day events. They’re going to be kind of like a mini Edge Conference for two reasons.”

She continued: “When you’re doing a one-day event, there’s just so much – [there are just] so many workshops, supplier presentations, panels that you can fit into one day, so you’re limited.”

The one-day format also makes it difficult to do workshops, James said, because you don’t have the capacity or the time and “we’re really trying to expand that.”

Travel Leaders Network’s Canadian Vice President also address another issue, and that’s the current tensions between Canada and the U.S. and “the challenges that many of our Canadian members had going down to the US” for the Edge Conference this year.

Making it clear that Ignite Canada is in no way designed to replace the Edge Conference – which had great attendance despite the current situation, James said that: “We wanted to be able to accommodate our membership locally by presenting them with a learning opportunity that’s expanded and I think the two-day format will be good for them.”

Lindsay Pearlman, President of Travel Leaders Network, observed that the Canada-U.S. situation was something that the group needed to address and “we have a platform [the Fall Regionals] that works well and we’re going to expand that platform and provide you pretty much similar content to what you’re going to get at Edge without having to leave the country.”

Vancouver and Toronto are 2026 venues

Ignite Canada events will be held in Vancouver and Toronto in 2026, which did raise the question of how Travel Leaders Network’s members in Edmonton felt about that.

James said that the new Ignite Canada format was announced during the Edmonton event and “we got really good response.”
And she said that Travel Leaders Network will be negotiating hotel and air rates for its out-of-town members in Western Canada who want to attend the event in Vancouver, but also there could be out-of-town members wanting to attend the Toronto show as well.

Both James and Pearlman clearly believe that the Ignite Canada format will be a winner; with James noting that suppliers are already signing up for the 2026 events; and Pearlman pointing to the consistently strong, and growing, support the annual shows continue to receive.