By Michael Baginski/ Last week was a tough one for music with the deaths of Ozzy Osbourne and Chuck Mangione (and pop culture in general if you count Hulk Hogan*). It’s not surprising then that another loss – that of George Kooymans – sadly slipped under the radar. The Dutch rock star may not have been a well-known outside the Netherlands, but his band, Golden Earring, and their classic song “Radar Love,” certainly are.
Ozzy Osbourne, the gloomy, demon-invoking lead singer of the pioneering band Black Sabbath who became the throaty, growling voice – and drug-and-alcohol ravaged id – of heavy metal, died Tuesday, just weeks after his farewell show. He was 76. In 2020, he revealed he had Parkinson’s disease after suffering a fall.
By Michael Baginski/ I sometimes feel like I was a little AWOL in the ‘90s – culturally that is. In my defence there was marriage, new home, kids (towards the end of the decade), dog, first job in travel (and lots of travelling) … You get the idea. And it’s how I undoubtedly utterly missed Primal Scream – my absolute favourite musical discovery of this year, 2025.
By Michael Baginski/ Grenada continues to be a popular destination for Canadians, but with many currently looking for new destinations beyond the U.S., the island’s new CEO of tourism thinks the time is ripe to make an even stronger case for the Spice Island.
By Michael Baginski/ ACTA’s 35th annual golf tournament last week marked a milestone on more than just the course as the association’s popular president Wendy Paradis officially celebrated her last day with the organization before retirement and passed the torch to Suzanne Acton-Gervais, who made her first official outing after being announced for the job.
By Michael Baginski/ The annual U.S Travel Association IPW trade show is typically a treasure trove of music, playing to America’s outsized influence on popular culture. This year in Chicago, the event was highlighted by a special Travel South USA partners conference featuring Darius Rucker, aka Hootie of Hootie & the Blowfish.
By Michael Baginski/ Bob Harris says there’s so much more to Myrtle beach than golf. After all, Canadians who told him so. The executive VP of group sales for Visit Myrtle Beach said his own misconception that Canadians mainly admire the South Carolina destination for its world class golf (mini and masters) was quickly corrected by in-the-know visitors from north of the border.
By Michael Baginski/ Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is now law, which is bad news for Brand USA. At nearly 900 pages, the budget reconciliation legislation – signed by the president with the backdrop of fireworks on July 4 – is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations. But buried in the document is the slashing of funding for the marketing organization responsible for promoting U.S. tourism abroad by 80% to a mere $20 million.
Each year on since 2008, Ringo Starr has invited people everywhere to pause at 12 noon local time on July 8 – his birthday – to say, think, or post “Peace and Love” as a collective moment of global unity. The heartfelt tradition is now recognized worldwide as a simple yet powerful gesture of kindness and hope.
By Michael Baginski/ From Hendrix to Heart and Brandi Carlile to the Foo Fighters, Seattle has consistently rated as one of North America’s premiere music cities. Perhaps most notably, the Pacific northwest city spawned “grunge,” the gritty sound that captured the zeitgeist of the late 1980s and early ‘90s.
By Michael Baginski/- Not unlike its ubiquitous flying fish, Bahamas tourism is calmly skimming along above the surface of the world’s choppy waters and having a definitive moment in the sun, both generally and with its integral Canadian market.
By Michael Baginski/ I’m usually the one asking the questions. But this year at IPW, the U.S. Travel Association interviewed me – on camera – about my views on Canadian travel south of the border during these troubled times. And as a Canadian, I told them we were pissed.
By Michael Baginski/ IPW wasn’t a doozy – at least in the way I predicted in this space a week ago. To be clear, the annual U.S. Travel Association tradeshow was absolutely first rate thanks to the organizers, and particularly host city Chicago; however, any anticipated fireworks inside the show were quickly doused by a thorough glossing over by U.S. Travel and Brand USA of the affairs going on outside the convention space.
By Michael Baginski/ “Tumbling Dice” is often cited as one of the Rolling Stones top songs, so it’s of little surprise that it has been covered by many artists over the years and, surprisingly perhaps, none so capably as Linda Ronstadt. That’s no insult to clearly one of the greatest vocalists of all time, but one tends to recall her softer offerings like “Blue Bayou.”
by Michael Baginski/-Chicago is the place to be for the travel trade this week as U.S. Travel hosts its signature IPW trade show, where U.S. suppliers and destinations – and the host city, of course – pull out all the stops to put on a show for the world and position the U.S. as a pre-eminent place to visit. At the same time, the event never fails to capture the zeitgeist of the host country – both in travel and in general – and, as such, this year ought to be a doozy.
The endless summer has come to an end. Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ visionary and fragile leader whose genius for melody, arrangements and wide-eyed self-expression inspired “Good Vibrations,” “California Girls” and other summertime anthems and made him one of the world’s most influential recording artists, has died at 82.
By Michael Baginski/ With thousands of travel trade professionals from around the world – typically including well over a hundred Canadians – set to descend on Chicago this weekend for the U.S. travel industry’s signature IPW trade show (June 14-18), the U.S. Travel Association has issued a notable and sign-of-the-times guide to entering the country for delegates.
By Michael Baginski/ More than 250 travel advisors turned out last week in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver to experience the La Pura Vida lifestyle as a delegation of more than a dozen suppliers from Costa Rica, plus the country’s tourism minister, made the case that there’s no better time for Canadians for visit.
By Michael Baginski/ With the news this week that G Adventures has enlisted The Jacksons to perform at the company’s epic GX tourism event in Jordan in September, the time seems right to recall a group that is one of the top-selling bands of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide since bursting on the scene with four straight No. 1 hits on the Motown label in 1969.
By Michael Baginski/ I recently spent a minute (several, in fact) in New York – a visit that transpired during the nascent times of tariffs and the 51st state. Perhaps not surprisingly, I was asked by some why I went, and what my experience was like. Simply put, it was New York – no more, no less. Frenetic, mesmerizing, limitless, a world unto itself. And utterly unconcerned, even oblivious, of my Canadianness and critical gaze.
By Michael Baginski/ There’s no better time for Canadians to discover, or return to, Berlin – on many levels – says the CEO of Visit Berlin, who noted to Canadian media last week that, “When we read the news about south of here, we immediately thought that we should go and visit our friends in Canada.”
This year’s U.S. travel trade show IPW kicks off in a couple of weeks in Chicago and one of the best perks for attendees will be the city’s vibrant music scene. The city continues to celebrate the 50th anniversary of House music (ok, not my cup of tea, so don’t worry!), but it is equally renowned for its rock, jazz and, especially, blues history.
By Michael Baginski/ Many Caribbean nations are looking further north than usual for visitors as economic turmoil threatens the United States and wary (and aggrieved) Canadians look for alternative destinations to the U.S. for their summer holidays.
Which of us aging dads hasn’t had – or at least hasn’t wanted to – have their own band out in the garage? Well, the Middle-Aged Dad Jam Band (MadJB) has actually fulfilled that fantasy. Formed during the pandemic by members of the comedy troupe The State, the project is no joke. All accomplished musicians, the group exploded on social media, formed their own YouTube channel, and enlisted celebrity friends to join them in performing a repertoire of favourite pop-rock classics, like Kristen Bell in today’s rendition of “Islands in the Stream.”
By Michael Baginski/ Travel remains strong in 2025, according to a new survey of Nexion Travel Group (NTG) members in Canada, who report that factors such as global uncertainty, political tensions between the U.S. and Canada, as well as a weaker loonie and economic distrust, have affected where – but not whether – Canadians are travelling this year.
By Michael Baginski/ With Canadian visitations rebounding and a continued strong interest from the U.S., the Caribbean tourism sector is continuing robust recovery and expansion, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO).
I heard this song – this version, at least – walking through an airport somewhere and it stopped me in my tracks. Almost missed my flight. I’m kidding, of course, but The Band’s folksy, Appalachian treatment of the Bruce Springsteen classic “Atlantic City” did give me a “what is this?” moment and sent me searching on the Internet when I got home.
By Michael Baginski/ Collette celebrated Travel Agent Month with a special gathering for Toronto-area travel advisors Tuesday atop the X Hotel at Exhibition Place, offering arguably the most spectacular view of the city, and the island airport.
By Michael Baginski/ Holding to account “the big orange elephant in the room” and the “shameful way the current president has represented us on the national stage as of late,” Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker says matter of factly that he “doesn’t blame anyone from Canada whose appetite for visiting the U.S. might have soured.”
By Michael Baginski/ Three members of Congress from across the U.S. political and geographical spectrum – one an avid supporter of Donald Trump; another a Republican who has been targeted by the POTUS; and an opposition Democrat – having come out in support of Canadian snowbirds, proposing that the reliable long-stay visitors be allowed to stay in U.S. even longer than is currently permitted.