On a day when most of Canada, coast to coast, was gripped in polar temperatures and snow, Grenada tourism officials brought their sunny ways to a Toronto airport hotel, leaving a couple of dozen travel advisors more actively dreaming of an escape to the Caribbean Spice Island than usual, both personally and for clients.
Three years into the unlikely ownership of Wrexham AFC soccer/football club by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, the appeal of their accompanying (and explanatory) documentary series âWelcome to Wrexhamâ continues to skyrocket. The series, and overall exposure, generated by the celebrity owners and the fairytale story that has ensued, has gifted the city with an unexpected moment in the global spotlight and, subsequently, a not-surprising surge of visitors to sleepy North Wales.
Last week I proffered my favourite song from 2023; now itâs time to tout last yearâs best (in my humble estimation) album: The Rolling Stonesâ âHackney Diamonds.â Donât get me wrong, Iâm not typically blinded by any and every offering from rock bands whose best days are years (decades!) in the past, but dropped-jaw kudos to Mick, Keith et al, whose latest album is, I daresay, right up there with some of their best.
Thereâs a frequently used word in Papiamentu â âdushiââ which, while hard to precisely translate from the local lingo on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, essentially means positive vibes, beautiful, and the good things in life, all mashed up into one.
âTis the season for best-of lists, and whereas my days of accounting such things are mostly past, 2023 produced for me a definite â and most unexpected â song. One I still canât get out of my head. And donât want to.
Goway and APT & Travelmarvel, both like-minded Down Under specialists, leveraged a long-standing partnership earlier this year that saw the former become the official North American partner for the latter â and itâs a plan that has proved positively bonzer (âfirst rateâ in Aussie lingo), according to company officials.
Brazilâs Embratur has joined the Canadian association of tour operators (CATO), an unusual arrangement for a tourist board, but one that reflects the South American countryâs keen interest in the Canadian tourism market.
Itâs been an âincredibleâ year for Nassau Paradise Island (NPI), from the opening of the cityâs spectacular new cruise port to a Golden Jubilee, plus landmark hotel happenings and record arrivals. And in Canada, the return of representation for the NPI Promotion Board, which has âambitiousâ goals for the destination in this country.
Sunwing Vacations is always ready to help your mutual clients â so you donât have to! So says the tour companyâs VP of Sales & Business Development, Deana Murphy, who told top agents recently at the companyâs annual Christmas lunch with RIU that âwe have a wonderful team in every destination, and they are there to help.â
Ever wonder what the head of a national travel conglomerate dreams about for Christmas? Since weâre pretty sure it isnât sugar plums, we thought weâd ask Nathalie Tanious, the newly minted President and CEO of HIS-Red Label Vacations Inc., which operates TravelBrands and its many familiar tour divisions (among them Sunquest, Intair, Encore Cruises, and Exotic Journeys), as well as such retail brands as Red Tag, Merit, and itravel2000.
Can you believe its been 50 years since the release of âBand on the Run,â Paul McCartneyâs best post-Beatles album, which not surprisingly was the top-selling album in Canada (amongst other places) in 1974?
A new study says leisure travel will be ârobustâ for at least the next decade â including forecasted outbound spending and growth from Canada by the year 2033. And while thatâs good news for the travel industry, the Oxford Tourism Economics study portends changes in global patterns and holiday destinations that are already starting to take shape now.
Visit Orlando, in association with a full delegation of theme park, hotel, transportation and attraction partners, called in Calgary, Toronto and Halifax last week for the tour associationâs annual âOrlando Canadian Sunshine Tour,â attracting close to 500 enthusiastic travel advisors across the three events that resulted in record-breaking attendance for the mission.
When the winter gets tough in central Europe the tough get⊠festive, as age-old Christmas markets spring up across the region to help cast a warm glow over the snow. Among the most famous are markets in Germany, where most of the historic Weihnachtsmarkt/ Christkindlmarkts are now in full swing (most starting in mid to late November and continuing until just before Christmas and in some cases a few days after).
The cost of maintaining the Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO) may outweigh the provincial regulatorâs benefits to consumers, says Ontarioâs auditor general in itâs just-released âvalue for moneyâ audit. The wide-ranging report extensively, though not exclusively, examined the provinceâs tourism sector (including government), providing third-party observations and suggested âactions.â
Hawaii is ready for Canadians, and other visitors, to return â particularly to Maui, which suffered from devastating wildfires earlier this fall and is still on the road to recovery. But while the Hawaii Tourism Authority acknowledges that while many visitors ârespectfullyâ stayed away from Hawaii in the aftermath of the calamity, the islands are now really ready for their return.
A new team of BDMs for Canada, new and renovated resorts, plus new services â from elite amenities to foamy pool parties â highlight a busy year for RIU Hotels & Resorts, which celebrated the holiday season last week with Sunwing at the travel partnersâ 10th annual trade lunch at a venue north of Toronto.
If it seems that Canadian airlines are announcing or inaugurating new routes almost every day, itâs because they are. And while thatâs great news for consumers as the increased competition helps drive down fares from unprecedented peaks at the tail end of the pandemic, as one industry observer stated at a travel event in Toronto this week: âItâs like the old days â thereâs too much capacity out there.â
It was a curious event, on many levels. âEurope invites the curiousâ was the theme, but the Toronto trade gala last week was also the first-ever collaboration between the European Travel Commission (ETC) and the Canadian Association of Tour Operators (CATO).
Despite concerns over the war in neighbouring Israel-Gaza, Egyptâs tourism and antiquities minister believes the middle eastern country is just scratching the surface of its tourism potential. Ahmed Issa that his country is poised to reach 15 million visitors this year, having already posted record numbers in the first half of the year.
A friend recently urged me to check out an album called âUncorkedâ by Al Stewart, whom you may recall from his classic hits âYear of the Catâ and âTime Passages.â The acoustic-style album is amazing and inspired me to delve back into the catalogue of a long-time (but, tragically, a little forgotten) favourite from the past.
The way Valerie Damaseau sees it, the reason for her recent visit to Canada was simple: âTo bring some sunshine into your lives!â And while she may have been speaking hypothetically, as president of the tourist office of sunny St. Martin, it didnât seem out of the realm of possibility.
The Cuba Tourist Board thanked its agent partners for helping make Canada the countryâs No. 1 market at a gala event late last week at Torontoâs Palais Royale â a glittering venue that Canadian tourist board director Lessner Gomez likened to Havanaâs famed Tropicana cabaret, even if the weather outside wasnât quite the same as on the Caribbean island.
WTM London 2023 (World Travel Market) wrapped up last week with the worldâs largest English-language trade show giving all appearances of being its first to truly take place in a post-pandemic world. While the P word was still prevalent, the W word (war) carried more resonance, not least due to the not-surprising absence of Israel tourism delegates.
Iâd been mulling over this song for awhile, but when the opening violin intro came on at a wedding reception I attended recently caused a rush to the dance floor I accepted it as a sign, and immediately headed for YouTube. Dexys Midnight Runners are considered a one-hit wonder and even Homer Simpson joked in an episode, âYou havenât heard the last of them!â
World Travel Market London kicks off today in the British capital with the annual event expected to be 20% larger than last year as the industry continues its surging post-pandemic recovery. Travel Industry Today is onsite at the ExCel venue in east London and will offer coverage in the days, weeks, and months to come, reflecting the always overwhelming amount of information disseminated at the worldâs largest English language travel and tourism trade fair.
We donât use AI. Indeed, Travel Industry Today produces content the old-fashioned way â by real people, who really travel, and through travel industry sources cultivated literally for decades. I mention this because a just-released survey by The Canadian Journalism Foundation reports that fully one-half of Canadians admit they are not confident in their ability to distinguish between fake news generated by AI and human-produced content.
Itâs hard to pick a song for Electric Light Orchestra â after all, during the British bandâs heyday (1973-86), the Jeff Lynne-led collective boasted 15 Top 20 songs on the Billboard chart (and 27 in their home country), not least the innovative Chucky Berry-Beethoven (Ludvig von) mash-up, âRoll Over Beethoven.â But since that classic clocks in at eight minutes and nine seconds, Iâve opted here for something a little more concise.
Despite his 20-month tenure at WestJet being âquite a roller coaster for sureâ through the pandemic and its aftermath, WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech is enthused about his prospects for the company, for which he boldly proclaims, âWe want to be the national leisure champions for Canada from coast to coast.â
With more than 12.2 million crossing the border in the first seven months of the year, âCanadian travel to the US is coming back strong,â Brand USAâs Staci Mellman told attendees at the recent 15th annual Discover America Day â Canada media event in Toronto. âWoo hoo!â she added with as much eloquence as the term can allow.