Our Homestay Director
Marina Wilson
Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Marina Wilson was blessed with the opportunity to live, study and work in both official languages of Canada, English and French. After moving to St. Catharines, Ontario, and pursuing her university studies at Brock University, she combined her love of culture and international travel with the start of her long career in the homestay sector as the Homestay Coordinator and Cultural Animator at Brock in 1989. In 1990, Marina experienced the day-to-day life of an international student while living with various host families during a Rotary exchange in Thailand, learning about the people, their customs and ways of life of that beautiful culture. The experience in Asia ignited her passion to bring together local Canadian families with international students so to foster increased cultural understanding, awareness and acceptance of our differences and similarities as members of the same global village.
During her sabbatical years from her position at the university, and while focusing on raising her two young children, Marina recognized how much more impressionable younger students (children and teens) are than older university students, with whom she was accustomed to working in her role at the time. She also recognized the need for safe and adequate Homestay Accommodation for the increasing number of K-12 international students coming to study in the Niagara Region. It was then, in 2005, that Marina Wilson conceptualized and launched Hospitalité Canada Ltd. Since then, Hospitalité Canada has welcomed and cared for thousands of elementary and high school students visiting our region, providing them with a safe, comfortable and loving family environment found in the homes of our host families. Students have come from over 25 countries, 5 continents, to experience short-term and full year programs with local school boards and private schools, who call on Hospitalité Canada for their homestay needs.
Finally, to better understand and support her host families, Marina wanted her own family to know what it would be like to host students and share their own home and culture with others. With that in mind, the Wilson family has hosted many students throughout the years and it is evident how the experience has impacted them as a family; they have learned that there is so much to learn from their student-guests from other cultures and they have learned at a young age the importance of hospitality; that their door would always be open, and that there would always be an extra seat at the dinner table.