News of the day, folks. A little of this and a few dashes of that. CALLING ALL CANADIANS – FLORIDA WANTS YOU! Florida sunshine will come cheaper this winter. Florida Governor Rick Scott was in Toronto this week to announce a new Canadian Power Play program that aims to boost the number of visits from Canada this coming winter. The state is offering Canadians up to 20 per cent off package travel deals from VISIT FLORIDA partners. My friends at Travel Pulse Canada were all over this announcement this week if you want to read more. It’s a great idea Read more
Europe
Toronto is Canada’s most welcoming city and is the top 15 in the world, according to a new study by TravelBird. With the United Nations celebrating World Cities Day today (Oct.31), TravelBird looked at the top 500 tourists destinations around the world and then took into account factors that can lead to a visitor feeling welcome, including the happiness of locals, openness to tourists, airports and other issues. They gave Singapore the highest rating, with a mark of 8.22. Next were Stockholm (8.02), Helsinki (8.01), San Francisco (8.00) and Rotterdam (7.98). The next five were Lisbon, Tokyo, Oslo, Zurich, and Read more
Lonely Planet says folks should choogle on down to Chile next year. But they also should slide over to South Korea and check out Portugal, Djibouti and New Zealand. The popular travel guide and publishing company today (Oct. 24) issued its annual book of top places for experience-hungry travellers to dine in and explore in 2018. Last year Canada was all over these kinds of charts owing to 2017 being our 150th birthday. This year we’ve slipped off the radar and nearly disappeared, at least in the Lonely Planet Guide. Canadian destinations failed to appear in the list of top Read more
Canadian millennials would rather take grandma on their bucket list trips than a movie star. Hotels.com surveyed Canadian millennials and found that 40% would rather complete their bucket list trips with their parents or grandparents than anyone else. Only 11 % said they’d want to complete their trips with a celebrity. 28% said they’d want to go with a sibling and 25% said they’d like to go alone. As well, almost one-in-five millennials (18%) said they get their travel inspiration from parents or grandparents. I don’t know about you, but in these days of negative news I love that millennials Read more
It’s a tough act to balance. Canadian destinations and cities around the world want tourists to come and fill the coffers of local hotels and businesses. But sometimes it’s too much. If you’ve been following the news, you might have seen protests in Barcelona, where locals recently protested the annual onslaught of tourists from Britain and other countries, who party all night in Las Ramblas after jetting in on cheap flights from the likes of Ryanair with money in their pockets. Venice also has complained, as has Iceland. Today I read a story about similar sentiments in beautiful Amsterdam, where Read more
