Seven minutes at Yonge and Sheppard. Thirty seconds at Yonge and St. Clair. And maybe a minute at Front and John.
Torontonians are being asked to be kind to visitors as the city battles to improve its tourism numbers and help those who drop their dollars at local attractions.
The Toronto Star decided to put Toronto to the test and sent out a relatively unthreatening, marginally well-dressed reporter to a few street corners to stand with a map in hand and see how long it would take for Hogtowners to offer help. The results were mostly pretty good.
The reporter also stopped pedestrians to ask for directions to specific attractions. A few iPod isolationists didn’t want to be delayed but most everyone was willing to lend a hand. And while they didn’t know exactly how to get to all the attractions, everyone who was stopped seemed happy to at least point — often literally — an alleged tourist in the right direction.
