Canadians are booking trips to Europe and the U.S.. Cruise companies are expanding rapidly. And new hotels are being built in Canada around the world. The latest RBC consumer tracking figures for Canada finds that travel spending recently touched pre-COVID levels for the first time as pandemic restrictions eased. “The domestic tourism recovery continues to outpace international travel but Canadian spending on restaurants and hotels abroad has also been rising,” RBC said. Meanwhile, the American Automobile Association this week said cruise bookings during the past four weeks are twice as high as this time last year. Just 612 Canadians visited Read more
U.S.A.
Reuters reports that the U.S. Travel Association is urging President Joe Biden “to lift COVID-19 travel restrictions and repeal a mandate requiring masks on airplanes and in other transit modes by April 18.” The news outlet says it has seen a letter from the group to Dr. Ashish Jha, the incoming White House COVID response coordinator, that calls for an immediate end to the pre-departure testing requirement for all fully vaccinated inbound international persons and ending the mask mandate by April 18 “or announcing a plan and timeline to repeal the federal mask mandate within the subsequent 90 days.” “It Read more
I love a hotel that provides a real sense of occasion. The Ritz Carlton San Francisco does that in spades. The minute you pull up to the front doors you’ll be thoroughly impressed by the architecture. The hotel occupies a brilliant, white, neo-classical building on Nob Hill that was built in 1909 as the Pacific Coast headquarters of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. It’s got character galore, including magnificent columns that march across the front of the building and tremendous detail in every corner and facade, not to mention nook and cranny. But that’s just the exterior. The lobby is Read more
Trip Advisor has a top ten beaches of the U.S. list out, and Florida has been knocked out of the top spot. Hapuna Beach, located on the north Kona coast on Hawaii Big Island, takes the top spot this year, while Siesta Key in Florida took the silver medal. Casey Brogan, senior communications specialist at Tripadvisor, told CNBC that a Florida beach had finished first in the last eight polls. “So for Hawaii to pass it, this is actually the first time Hawaii has had the number one beach in the U.S. since 2014,” he said. (EDITOR’S NOTE: DO YOU Read more
Critics of the Canadian government have long argued that Canada has been far too cautious when it comes to travel and the coronavirus. But here’s something to think about; Canada is enacting more lenient entry rules than the United States. The Canadian government on Thursday (March 17) announced that mandatory border tests for fully vaccinated residents and visitors will be dropped as of April 1. But the U.S. still requires anyone heading to the States by air (land borders and ferry crossings are exempt) to provide a negative test result. The U.S. accepts rapid antigen tests, but those Read more
