We all want to save money on our travel. So here’s a good study; a report from www.kiwi.com that looks at the cost of flights in 80 countries around the globe and comes up with what they call a Flight Price Index. Suffice to say Canada came out as fairly expensive, but not nearly as bad as Belgium. More on that in a minute. For now, here’s background from the Kiwi press release so you can see what they did. “We took into account short-haul and long-haul flights from 80 of the world’s most frequently visited countries and cities, calculating Read more
Europe
London’s prices are falling down. But you’re still much further ahead if try Prague or Bangkok. A new study of hotel prices by hotels.com shows that the Brexit vote has had an effect on hotel costs. The study found that Canadians last year paid an average of $254 a night for a hotel in London, England. That’s down 9% from the 2015 average price of $278. It’s a sizable drop, but $254 Cdn. per night is still a hefty price to pay for a night’s sleep. The hotels.com Hotel Price Index study found you’re much better off in Paris, where Read more
Canada’s renewed investment in tourism seems to be working. The low Canadian dollar and U.S. politics also might be helping. Figures released today by Destination Canada show that arrivals into Canada last year jumped 11% to our highest level in 14 years. Visits from the U.S. reached 13,899,814; up 10%, while international arrivals jumped a whopping 16 %. In total, Canada attracted 19,979,334 visitors; the second highest amount ever and the highest since 2002. This year could be even better given it’s our 150th birthday, with parties planned coast to coast, and the continuing low dollar. There also are reports Read more
The city of Okotoks, Alberta was ridiculed couple years ago when one section of a page of their campaign read “There are a number of things to do in Okotoks.” Yeah, that’s probably not going to win any major advertising awards. Back in the 1990s or so, the city of Barrie, Ontario had a sign when you came into town saying, “Beautiful Barrie, Ontario’s Most Progressive City.” I was never able to prove that, but last I checked there weren’t any homeless people, all the elderly were well looked after and the only crimes were small children shoplifting tiny bits Read more
We lost Prince and Glenn Frey of The Eagles and Leonard Cohen. And a certain Twitter-loving business guy of mixed intelligence got elected president of the U.S. But there were some great things for me in the year in travel, including a yodelling shop owner, a sex-crazed marsupial and a chance meeting with the son of one of the fabled Marx Brothers. So here are my annual Jimmy Awards for travel, this time with an eye on the off-kilter, weird and just a little bit strange. Best Rum-Punch-Drinking-Monkey: This fellow (of course, it may have been a lady monkey) at Read more
