Keynote Speaker

Get comfortable on the grounds of North Arm Farm for an open-air presentation by Rebecca Mackenzie, President + CEO of the Culinary Tourism Alliance (CTA) as she shares the vision, mission and mandate of CTA and what they and their members are doing to see Canada recognized as a culinary destination by 2030. She will share key visitor trends and best practice examples of the role chefs and farmers in showing immersive taste of place experiences. Learn how you can help with the efforts to put Canada at the international table.

Rebecca Mackenzie, President + CEO of the Culinary Tourism Alliance

Passionate about the interconnection between food, agriculture, tourism, arts, and culture, Rebecca has been instrumental in developing tourism experiences including Prince Edward County’s (PEC) award-winning Taste Trail and the Culinary Tourism Alliance’s Feast On® certification program.

In her role as President & CEO of the Culinary Tourism Alliance (CTA), she manages highly participatory and asset-based community development projects at the regional, provincial, and national levels. Rebecca oversees programming, partnership development, and comprehensive marketing partnerships that aim to increase awareness of Canada’s food tourism offerings, including the recently (June 2023) launched Great Taste of Canada.

Rebecca contributes her expertise to a variety of industry boards including the Chair of the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario (TIAO), Chair of Visit The County – PEC’s DMMO, and the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s (UNWTO) Gastronomic Tourism Network. She has written the curriculum for the Centennial College Food Tourism Post Graduate Program, contributed chapters to the 2nd UNWTO Global Report on Gastronomic Tourism, produced a chapter “Transforming the Terroir into a Tourist Destination” in the 2019 Routledge Handbook of Gastronomic Tourism and supported the development of the Food Tourism Entrepreneurship post-graduate program at George Brown College.

Rebecca completed a Master of Arts in Global Leadership at Royal Roads University in 2021 with a specific interest in the Sustainable Development Goals. She is a part-time professor at George Brown College teaching Gastronomy and Taste of Place.

She splits her time between Toronto and Prince Edward County and shares her love of taste of place with her husband Andrew, sons Jack and Liam, and their Silver Labrador, Blueberry.