Mike Foster, a tireless advocate for travel advisors in this country who built one of Southern Ontario’s largest agencies, says he is retiring, including stepping down at the end of the year from his position as President of Nexion Travel Group-Canada.
Visit Orlando, along with its theme parks, attractions, hotels and transportation partners, will bring the Orlando Canadian Sunshine Tour to Ottawa (Oct. 9) and Montreal (Oct. 10) this fall.
Germany on Monday began random checks at its borders with five Western European nations as it seeks to crack down on irregular migration, expanding a system of mobile border controls that are already in place at four other borders. However, a return to a past system with closed borders and mandatory border checks for every person crossing the border is not in the cards.
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is getting its bells back, just in time for the medieval landmark’s reopening following a devastating 2019 fire. A convoy of trucks bearing eight restored bells – the heaviest of which weighs more than four tons – pulled into the huge worksite surrounding the monument late last week on an island in the Seine River.
Travellers, business groups and politicians – and the travel industry! – are feeling relief after Air Canada and the union representing thousands of its pilots negotiated a new labour deal and averted a disruptive, countrywide shutdown. The airline announced shortly after midnight Sunday that it had reached a tentative, four-year collective agreement with the Air Line Pilots Association.
Shanghai’s airports were cancelling hundreds of flights as Typhoon Bebinca made landfall in the early hours of Monday morning. The strongest typhoon to hit Shanghai since at least 1949 flooded roads with water and broken tree branches, knocked out power to some homes as it swept over the financial hub Monday.
Despite losing nearly $40 million in its third quarter ending July 31, Transat AT CEO Annick Guérard says the company is moving away from its disruptions earlier in the year with flight attendants labour negotiations, and that next year will be more “stable” than 2024.
ACTA held its Eastern Canada regional summit in Toronto last week. And besides a full slate of news, education and a Grand Trade show, the association celebrated excellence and innovation, and outstanding achievements and remarkable contributions in the Canadian travel industry, with a number of member awards. They included the well-known Louise Gardner of Kitchener, Ont. for her advocacy (banner photo, centre).
Intrepid Travel is encouraging agents to be a “change champion” when it comes to sustainability and has issued a new handbook – ‘How to be a champion of change: An agent’s guide to understanding sustainable travel’ – to help.
Despite the focus on Air Canada and its pilots, the rest of the travel world continued to turn last week, and we offer a synopsis of news from the realms of hotels and resorts, cruising, events, FAMs, destinations and much more.
Air Canada and business leaders – including the Canadian Association of Travel Agencies and Travel Agents (ACTA) – are asking Ottawa to be ready to intervene in labour talks with its pilots as time is running out before a potential shutdown. But so far, the government has said the two sides need to work things out.
The Association of Canadian Travel Agencies and Travel Advisors (ACTA) kicked off its fall Summit series with a full day session in Toronto Thursday, with more than 700 attendees on hand to get the latest industry trends and association news, engage in professional development, connect with peers and industry executives, and meet key suppliers at an extensive trade show, which included the largest delegation ever from Brand USA.
Everyone’s worst travel nightmare is arriving at destination only to find their baggage didn’t travel with them. In the US alone, over 7 million pieces of luggage were reported as mishandled from 2021 to 2024, with American Airlines being the company with the most luggage mishandled.
Even the ground beneath your feet can’t be trusted any more, says Mia Otokiak, describing how her husband was almost swallowed up by a giant sinkhole. Riding a four-wheel drive ATV, he stopped just in time when a big section of the main trail out of Cambridge Bay became a deep crater. Soil that had been permanently frozen just melted and washed away as previously uncommon heat becomes the new normal.
Air Canada has revealed the 30 nominees for Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants 2024 rankings, which has been celebrating the country’s distinct culinary scene since 2022. The Top 10 restaurant finalists will be announced on Nov. 4, 2024
An appropriate song for this soggy summer, perhaps, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” was according to its author John Fogerty, a metaphor for impending change – in particular in respect to his, at the time, troubled band, Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Global companies plan spend more in the coming year on business travel than in recent years, according to Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG)’ first-ever ‘State of the Market’ report, which reveals insights from a global survey designed to uncover the latest insights and trends driving the behaviours and preferences of today’s business traveller and shaping the future of the industry.
A surge of tourists for the Paris Olympics (including Paralympics) this summer has put France on the path to achieving record tourist numbers in 2024. According to government data released last week, some 1.7 million international visitors came during the Olympic period, up 13% compared with the previous year, and another 1.4 million French tourists visited the capital, up 26%. In addition, the Olympics drew millions more visitors who travelled to Paris for the day.
As flooding from Hurricane Francine ravages parts of the US gulf coast, three major wildfires are burning in Southern California, endangering tens of thousands of homes and other structures.
Vienna, home of Johann Strauss, whose 200th birthday is being celebrated in 2025, serenaded the Canadian trade with news from the Austrian capital on Tuesday in Toronto. Accompanied by a classical music duo, and colourful montage artist, the city tourist board’s market manager for Canada Elke Bachner said Canadian visits to the city are surging, not least due to ample lift from Air Canada’s courtesy of its year-round direct flights from Toronto and Montreal.
Maureen Barnes-Smith, the face of Sandals/Beaches resorts in Canada, is marking a career milestone – 30 years with the company’s affiliate Unique Vacations Canada Inc. Now VP Sales & Marketing, Canada, the affable Smith joined the UVC team in September 1994 as the first office manager in the Canadian office.
RIU Hotels & Resorts has announced the reopening of the Riu Palace Bavaro, in Punta Cana, after what it says is nothing less than a “watershed refurbishment” in terms of what the chain offers in the destination and around the world.
Hundreds of workers at Kenya’s main international airport in Nairobi demonstrated on Wednesday against a planned deal between the government and a foreign investor. Planes have remained grounded, with hundreds of passengers stranded at the airport.
Two Delta Air Lines planes collided on a taxiway at Atlanta’s airport Tuesday morning, with a larger plane knocking over the tail of a smaller regional jet. The airline said the wing of a Delta Airbus A350 jet that was bound for Tokyo hit the tail of a smaller Bombardier CRJ-900 that was on an adjacent taxiway. The smaller plane, operated by Delta subsidiary Endeavor Air, was preparing to take off for Lafayette, Louisiana.
Louisiana is bracing for Francine today (Wednesday), a storm that was expected to achieve hurricane status overnight before barreling into a coastline that has yet to fully recover since hurricanes Laura and Delta decimated Lake Charles in 2020, followed a year later by Hurricane Ida.
Cruise passengers arriving in Santorini and Mykonos will soon be expected pay a little more for the privilege of visiting the popular Greek islands with the introduction of new fee likely to be implemented by next summer. The Greek government announced the €20 (approximately $30) levy as a means to help manage the strain on the destinations due to a surge in visitors.
The Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority is set to honour its top producing travel professionals – including 25 Canadians – at a gala event on island in December. The inaugural Antigua and Barbuda Black Pineapple Awards will celebrate “the outstanding achievements of hard-working travel agents from around the world,” culminating in a gala black-tie dinner and awards ceremony.
The US government is examining the four largest US airline frequent-flyer programs and how they devalue points that consumers have earned and frequently change the number of points or miles needed to book flights.
Expedia’s TAAP Autumn Sale is back, offering travel agents the opportunity to secure at least 25% off thousands of hotels worldwide. This deal is now available for bookings made through Oct. 13, for travel until March 31, 2025.
A Florida county is in talks to acquire a storied but aging ocean liner in a proposed deal that could create the largest artificial reef in the world. But the plan has hit a snag, after local officials in coastal Okaloosa County in the Florida panhandle postponed a vote on the plan to buy and purposefully sink the SS United States.