David Whitaker was hired in May of this year as chief marketing officer for Brand USA, which was set up in 2010 to market the U.S. to the world. He served as head of Tourism Toronto from 2007 until taking the Brand USA job. Prior to his Toronto job the Georgia native spent 17 years with the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. I sat down with him this week in Orlando at IPW, the massive, annual U.S. tourism session that attracts thousands of travel, trade and media types to talk business and book U.S. travel. Whitaker was in constant Read more
I got news of a remarkable study the other day from Resonance Consultancy, which did a report on 121 U.S. cities and ranked them according to their “experiential quality.” It strikes me as a bit of an inexact science, but the idea behind the study is a very good one that involved analyzing consumer comments on various websites to determine not just actual numbers of who goes where but the level of engagement and happiness people feel when they go to a destination. In a press release they sent, Resonance officials said industry folks know about visitor county,, spending and Read more
With the stroke of a pen, or, rather, with the stroke of a bunch of ballot votes in favour of legalizing gay marriage, Ireland has suddenly jumped into the thick of the worldwide travel conversation. Not only does the country look good by most of the world’s standards in terms of embracing different cultures, it stands to benefit greatly from a tourism standpoint. I don’t know how large the LGBT tourism business is worldwide, but if guesstimates are right that 10 per cent of the world counts itself as gay or transgendered or what have you, then it’s big. Very Read more
Hotel Wi-Fi is one of those touchstone issues travellers love to talk about. Who’s got the best? And who’s got it for free? There’s a new study out from Hotel WiFi Test that ranks hotels around the world, which is a great idea. The bad news for Canadians is there’s no Canada table. But there is date for Europe and the U.S. and Asia, so it’s still pretty useful. And a bit surprising. Despite continuing criticism, there are far too many hotels in the U.S. that charge for Wi-Fi, which I’ve argued is like charging for water in the shower Read more
A new report released today says wine tourism is a growing and important part of Canada’s tourism industry. That’s not really news, but the report from the Canadian Vintners Association (CVA) and the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) finds that wine tourism attracts a whopping 3 million visitors a year and drives $1.2 billion in spending a year for the critical national tourism sector. Canadian wine regions are world-class, not only because of the great wine, but also the hospitality, infrastructure and natural beauty, which we believe can be further promoted to would-be international visitors,” said Dan Paszkowski, President Read more
Lennon and McCartney. Lemon and lime. Golf and Scotch. Some things in life just go together. They grow in similar climates. They grew up together. Or, like golf and Scotch, they hail from the same country and count as perhaps a nation’s greatest two inventions. I like to think the first game of golf was followed by the winner buying a dram for the boys. Or maybe girls. Or perhaps golf created Scotch. I mean, maybe one day long, long ago a guy in the Scottish Highlands was whipping his mashie club along a particularly peaty bit of soil and Read more
We’ve wasted a lot of years in this country as the Canadian government continually slashed at federal tourism budgets. But rather than be churlish about this, I’m going to congratulate Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Tory government in Ottawa for FINALLY waking up and smelling the visitor numbers. It’s not as much money as tourism folks were asking. The latest releases I saw from the Tourism Industry Association of Canada were talking about $35 million a year from Ottawa for three years. The release they sent out today says Harper has promised $30 million but spread over those same Read more
