Great Britain is most definitely gearing up for all the celebrations leading up to the Coronation of HM King Charles III in May 2023. There is much being planned all across Britain to mark this historic occasion including all things royal to businesses that support the Prince’s Trust to royal food and fashion, as well as fabulous destinations to holiday just like a royal. Also in May, Liverpool will host Eurovision 2023 with a two-week long festival taking place in this UNESCO City of Music ahead of the event. Get more information on everything Eurovision here. The Coronation of King Charles III promises to be a once-in-a-generation Read more
Europe
Canada’s passport application backlog has been ‘completely eliminated,’ one of the top ministers in the Trudeau government says. CTV News reports tat Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould this week said that service times for passport applications are back to pre-pandemic standards, after the backlog ballooned last summer. Canadians looking to renew their passports last summer found long wait lines and lengthy delays, an issue that passport officials said was due to a huge spike in demand for travel as COVID travel restrictions began to ease. The CBC reports that Canadians waiting anxiously for their passports to arrive before Read more
The number of air passenger complaints to Canada’s transport regulator has more than tripled over the past year, soaring past 42,000 as of this month, Canadian Press reports. Complaints totalled about 13,400 as of March 31, 2022, before skyrocketing to unprecedented highs in the ensuing 12 months, according to Canadian Transportation Agency reports. They hit 36,000 in late January, and rose by another 17 per cent since then. Ottawa recently announced $75.9 million in new funding to help deal with the backlog. Canadian Press reports another $11 million was given to the CTA last year, and that the number of Read more
Time Magazine (remember them?) is out with a list of its top 50 destinations for 2023. Some of my fave places made the list, including Vancouver, Vienna, surprising Tampa and the Caribbean island of Dominica, where I spent five days in January. Also making the list on the Canadian side of the ledger was Churchill, Manitoba, which I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting. For Australia, placements went to Kangaroo Island in South Australia and Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. There are six U.S. places on the list but none from the United Kingdom or Ireland, which is a little Read more
Business travel is back in a big way. American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT), the world’s leading BTB travel platform, told company investors on a recent fourth-quarter 2022 earnings call that they expect total business travel spending to grow by 24% in 2023 to reach over a trillion dollars. Expectations for a strong year are supported by data from the company’s vast customer portfolio and studies from across the industry. According to the Global Business Travel Association’s Q1 2023 Business Travel Outlook Poll published at the end of January, domestic and international bookings are currently at 67% and 54% Read more
