At The Westin Bayshore in Vancouver, Canada, the ghost of legendary eccentric Howard Hughes just might be haunting the Infinity Wall, the largest LED screen in any North American hotel ballroom. Vancouver the city is already an incentive draw, but at the Bayshore, groups will experience a distinctive blend of past, present and future.
Originally known as the Bayshore Inn when it first opened on Coal Harbour in 1961, the property famously hosted Hughes for six chaotic months in 1972. Hughes lived on the top floor of the 20-story tower while his handlers took over the 19th floor. None of the hotel staff ever saw him.
Known as the Westin Bayshore since 1981, the property now includes an adjoining conference complex, situating any group within a reasonable walk to the Harbour Air seaplane base behind the Vancouver Convention Center. The Bayshore remains popular both for its location along the seawall and its modern-day incentive offerings.
[Read the latest edition of Incentives Today!]
“Eighty-five percent of the rooms are looking at the water in some capacity,” said Sarah Woodgate, the Bayshore’s manager, as we walked around the spacious lobby.
Inside, the Bayshore no longer uses any plastic bottles of water, in any guest room, at any meeting or anywhere else, as of 2024. Tap water in Vancouver is very drinkable. Water refill stations exist on every floor and in all public spaces.
“We’re very proud of that, and for how little pushback we’re getting from our guests,” Woodgate said.
By far the most eye-popping addition to the Bayshore’s recent meeting space renovation is the Infinity Wall, installed in September 2025. Lynsey Stock, director of sales and marketing, showed us the wall. With fully motorized and configurable panels, the wall is set to elevate any high-profile meeting, conference, gala event or wedding to an entirely new level.
The Infinity Wall is highly programmable. Groups can now use full-blown immersive video to accompany any event or weave a PowerPoint presentation with 3D animation across the entire wall. Curtain reveals are now a thing of the dark ages.
“If someone needs to dial in to greet an incentive group and say, ‘Congratulations for making this incentive trip,’ anything like that can be edited in,” Stock said.
With the Infinity Wall, the only limit is a planner’s imagination; Howard Hughes himself could even make an appearance.
[More Western Canada Coverage]
In the Right Spot
Part of the reason for the Bayshore’s popularity with incentives is its location. Coal Harbour is quiet and residential, yet close to everything else, a perfect base for groups to explore the Vancouver landscape in numerous ways.
The Harbour Air seaplane base, for example, is just a 15-minute walk along the seawall from the Bayshore. North America’s largest seaplane airline, Harbour Air operates 150 daily flights to a dozen destinations. We could have gone all the way to Seattle or Whistler, or even straight to Victoria Harbour for afternoon tea. Instead, a quick 20-minute flight around downtown Vancouver gave us the most spectacular views imaginable.
For a ground-level perspective, Talaysay Tours, an Indigenous mother-and-daughter-owned company, provides land-based learning experiences about First Nations history and ways of living. They set us up with an amazing guide, Ruby Banwait, who spilled the details on just how much the marine ecosystems of Stanley Park were inseparable from each other. As a marine biologist, Banwait fits in perfectly with Talaysay Tours.
“I’ve never worked in a place where I felt so valued from the get-go,” she said as we wandered along the seawall.
For one hour, Banwait relayed all sorts of wisdom from the Coast Salish Nations. The forest receives - most of its nutrients from the ocean, Banwait told us. Species of wolves around here actually feast on fish. A few Hemlock needles hold more medicinal properties than most over-the-counter products. All of this was Indigenous wisdom for 1,000 years before anyone else showed up.
At the end, Banwait poured us herbal tea from her own thermos.
Talaysay offers many other corporate group tours that combine adventure and culture. Larger groups can choose from kayaking and boating to fishing and cultural or botanical walking tours.
[More Gary Singh Stories]
On to Chinatown
Then, over in Chinatown, moments before Judy Lam Maxwell was scheduled to give us a tour of heritage structures and benevolent society buildings, the Canadian government posted a note on LinkedIn, recognizing Maxwell for Women’s History Month. The announcement came literally minutes before we met for coffee.
Maxwell leads numerous esoteric neighborhood jaunts for corporate groups, as well as award-winning classes on how to make dumplings. She is the only guide whose tours accessed the Chinese fraternal organizations. In quasi-stealth fashion, she took us up dark skinny staircases into every building so we could greet seniors as they played Mah-Jongg and ping-pong. Her tours also include Treasure Green Tea, the oldest tea shop in Vancouver, where Olivia, the tea maestra, likewise provided group lessons on all things tea.
Throughout our walk, just about every Chinese shopkeeper said hello to Maxwell. She is clearly a neighborhood celebrity
“I’ve been an activist in Chinatown for 25 years,” she told us. “So, people are used to seeing me walking around with people.”
Back in Coal Harbour, another serendipitous announcement came over the wire during our stay. The Westin Bayshore was named the No. 4 Best Hotel in Western Canada in the 2025 Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards.
Inspired by the repeated serendipity, we continued to scope out the group-friendly activities. Inside, where natural light seeped into many of the public spaces, groups were doing “liquid yoga,” literally in the pool while floating on aquamats. There was an “indoor urban cultivator,” a garden for the hotel chef to grow herbs and microgreens year-round. There were cooking classes for kids and beekeeping lessons. The breakfast buffet even included a giant slab of honeycomb.
The bee activities continued outside. Stock gave us the lowdown.
“The beekeeper or chef can open the hives and do an experience with the group itself,” Stock said. “So, we open the hives typically on Fridays, but we can do it for a group on a different day and then bring the group out, do a little bee education, including tasting some fresh honey from the hive itself. So that’s a unique experience that scales well to groups.”
In addition to the beehives, we spotted a reading nook and a Coast Salish Indigenous pollinator garden, where the bees came to visit on a regular basis.
When it comes to ingress and egress, the Bayshore’s main tower features side-door access, the icing on the cake. Groups with yacht bookings easily slip out the door, and then straight across the seawalk to the marina. Coming the other way, any guest could enter and make a beeline for the elevators, far away from the lobby, with the utmost secrecy. Howard Hughes would have been proud.
