Winnipeg: Home of the new-coach smell
Plant tours draw MCI customers far and wide

Winnipeg. It's not home to the world's most majestic ski slopes. It's no theme-park mecca. It's not even very warm most of the year. Nonetheless, it is home to the world's best — and best-selling — coaches. Maybe it's time you planned a visit.

Operators have been making MCI's Winnipeg and Pembina manufacturing facilities a travel destination for years. Most factory-bound customers come at the invitation of their sales representative. But it's usually Winnipeg's Dayna Toth, customer support specialist, who makes most of the arrangements.

For customers who can spare the time, Toth and her team usually arrange to pick up the customer at the airport, take them to a hotel and arrange a full schedule of plant tours, presentations and other activities.

At the plant

Sometimes Toth also arranges to take customers down the road to visit the Vansco Electronics factory, which makes harnesses and other parts for MCI coaches.

Gaining a new appreciation

"People have no idea of the magnitude of what goes into the making of their coach," says Toth. "Once they see the nuts and bolts and guts, they gain a new appreciation for the process."

Yet the biggest moment is when the customer enters the Coach Delivery Facility to pick up the keys. Many customers are surprised to find their coach sporting their own logo just for the occasion.

Time for fun

There's usually a dinner, and Winnipeg always offers a few diversions beyond the plant. Toth has arranged fishing trips ("Cats on the Red" is popular river option), golf outings, shopping expeditions and more.

MCI employees tend to enjoy the visits as much as the guests do. Toth's team usually informs employees of when a customer is going to be visiting the plant, providing key details about who they are and what their business is all about so the workers can extend a more knowledgeable welcome. Says Toth, "It's nice to put faces to names."

Seven things you probably don’t know about Winnipeg

• The intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street is known as the windiest spot in Canada as well as the country's most famous intersection, from which all roads radiate outwards.
• Winnipeg is also one of Canada's sunniest cities, receiving an average of 2,372 hours of sunshine per year. July is the sunniest month and outshines all other Canadian cities even in winter.
• Lake Winnipeg's Grand Beach, with its boardwalk, long stretches of sand and summer-party atmosphere, has been called one of the world's 10 best beaches by Playboy Magazine.
• The area is home to the Narcisse snake dens, where tens of thousands of Red-Sided Garter Snakes emerge each May for one heck of a spring fling. The writhing hordes draw voyeurs and naturalists from around the world.
• Those seeking the "polar bear capitol of the world" might consider a two-hour small-plane ride to Churchill, Manitoba, where the bears — the world's largest land predators — frolic most visibly in the fall.
• More than 10,000 trophy-sized fish are pulled out of Manitoba's plentiful waters every year. Arctic grayling, brook trout, northern pike and walleye thrive here. Winnipeg's Red River offers some of the best giant channel catfishing in the world.
• Winnipeg is generally accepted as the spiritual home of Winnie-the-Pooh — actually a bear purchased in White River, Ontario, by an officer of the Fort Garry Horse Cavalry regiment during World War I. The bear, which he named "Winnipeg," ended up in the London Zoo, where Christopher Robin Milne, son of author A.A. Milne, first met the animal in 1924.

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