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January 2014

Sex on the Beach is apparently more than just a cocktail for Canadians. A great new study by the folks at Expedia.ca finds that 22 per cent of Canadians surveyed admit to “getting frisky” on the sand while on holidays. Which should put the lie to that stereotype of button-down, buttoned-up Canucks, right? Actually, the provincial breakdown is pretty interesting. A full 28 per cent of Quebeckers say they’ll get down on the beach, while a pretty sizeable 25 per cent of Ontario folks said they do the same. Folks in British Columbia may think they’re all trendy and cutting-edge Read more

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The air wars get more intense every week, it seems. And with it our choices for air travel increase. Calgary-based WestJet today announced “its most comprehensive schedule release since the airline took to the skies in 1996.” The airline said it’s adding five new routes, increasing frequency on 20 existing routes across the network, and moving five seasonal routes to year-round service. The biggest news for folks in the right-hand side of the country is that WestJet Encore is moving east (as expected) to start service between Toronto and Thunder Bay, as well as between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg. “The Read more

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Canada has a new five-diamond hotel. And it’s a local success story. The American Automobile Association and Canadian Automobile Association last week quietly released their new list of top-rated hotels and restaurants in Canada and the U.S., and it gave the (relatively) new Four Seasons hotel in Toronto a coveted five-diamond rating. That brings the number of Canadian properties with five-diamond status to five in Canada: the Four Seasons in Toronto’s Yorkville area, the Ritz-Carlton Toronto downtown, the Ritz-Carlton in Montreal, the Four Seasons in Whistler, B.C. and the Shangri-La in Vancouver. Which means Ontario is the only province with Read more

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DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA – I had no idea. I’ve driven past Delray Beach a few times on my way from Palm Beach or Orlando to Miami. But I had no clue it was this vibrant and fun and interesting. And I didn’t know how sumptuous the Boca Raton Resort really was. I was just down in Florida for a tourism event called Florida Huddle; a chance to meet with hotel and attraction folks and tourism destination reps at the Palm Beach County Convention Centre. But I did a two-day visit to Delray and Boca Raton prior to the meetings that Read more

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BANFF, ALBERTA – It’s one of the great tourist attractions of Canada. And one of the top views in the world. I’ve been up the Sulphur Mountain Gondola in Banff several times. This year was the first time I’d done it in winter. And it was spectacular. I was out in the Rockies on a recent visit and had been hoping to do a helicopter tour near Kananaskis _ a gorgeous part of Alberta – and maybe some snowshoeing high in the mountains. But the winds were fierce and the chopper pilot said it wasn’t safe to fly. I always Read more

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