This is the second in an ongoing series of posts on the FUTURE OF TRAVEL. I listened in on a couple of very good webinars, but I want to instead today talk about a great study that really hits the Canadian market. Abacus Data, which has offices in Toronto and Ottawa, did a survey of more than 1,000 Canadians the other day and came away with some very interesting stats that should be encouraging for folks in Canadian tourism. The study, conducted April 2 to 7, posited the following question: “Assuming travel restrictions are lifted at the end of June, Read more
THE FUTURE OF TRAVEL Stories and studies about the future of travel are rolling across my laptop every day. Sometimes every hour. We’re all curious about what the future looks like for air travel, hotels, destinations and cruise lines. Not to mention travel agents and travel journalists like me. With that in mind, and given my 11 years as a full-time travel writer and now 42-year (yikes) career as a full-time journalist, I’m going to be writing a “FUTURE OF TRAVEL” blog pretty much every weekday, or maybe every day, from now until we get a better picture of what’s Read more
Several stories I’ve read and a webinar I listened to today have me thinking more about what the future of travel will look like. I wish I could be more encouraging, but I’m finding a lot of mixed messages. I do think people will have a pent-up desire to get out there and explore, but I also realize all of us who do so will find a world that’s quite different from the one we’re used to. And I think companies – airlines, hotels, car rental companies and most definitely the cruise industry – will have to make major adjustments. Read more
This is a re-post of a story I wrote for Postmedia in 2016. Anguilla has a new social media campaign, using the hashtags #AnguillafromAfar and #DreamingofAnguilla. ANGUILLA – Justin Bieber was spotted here over Christmas one year, and there are some very chi-chi resorts. But Anguilla also offers low-key, fantastic activities that are easy on the wallet. Here’s a mix of things to do that can fit a variety of budgets. FOR MUSIC LOVERS I’d only been on the island for an hour when I stumbled onto Elodia’s Beach Bar, on long, sweeping Shoal Bay East. A band called Took Read more
TONGARIKI, EASTER ISLAND – The hour of 7 a.m. is still a nasty rumour. To the east, in a distant sky, the sun is rising over a deserted Pacific Ocean. I’m carefully making my way through a thick field of grass wedged with bits of lava rock, my iPhone flashlight helping point the way in the pre-dawn darkness. Horses that appear to come from a nearby ranch nibble noiselessly in the black morning. I get too close to what looks like a chestnut-coloured colt and it bounds skittishly to its mother a few metres away. The horses aren’t aware of Read more
Canada has, on occasion, been laughed at for being a tad on safe and conservative side of the tourism ledger. Given the climate we’re living in and the COVID-19 crisis, “safe” might be the best thing we have going for us, tourism consultant Greg Klassen says. Speaking on Hotelier Magazine’s Checking In podcast with host Rosanna Caira, Klassen said he worked for more than a decade at Destination Canada, selling the country to potential visitors. “We were always fighting this notion of Canada as a safe place,” said Klassen, a partner at Twenty31 consulting in Vancouver. “But people were going Read more
