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
airlines
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
Go west, young man is a famous quote about the settling of the American West, a call for folks in the crowded Eastern United States to pack up for California and other, less crowded areas to the west. It could well be the slogan for air transportation in the crowded southern Ontario market. There’s been talk for years of building a Toronto Pearson relief airport in Pickering. That could still happen. But, in the meantime, airline folks are answering the call to avoid Pearson congestion (and high fees) by inducing folks to fly out of Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo, both an Read more
A former snowboarding champion turned celebrity chef who wants to use a uniquely Canadian snack as part of his menu at a posh new downtown Toronto hotel. Akira Back is not your typical chef, and his restaurant at the coming Bisha Hotel Toronto promises to be just as fun and quirky. In a telephone chat on a day when he was getting ready to fly to Korea, Back told me he’d like to use ketchup-flavoured potato chips in one of the dishes at the Bisha Hotel Toronto, which is set to open sometime in October and will be home to Read more
A new study by reputable pollsters Angus Reid is giving Air Canada officials something to think about. It also suggests Canadians are none too happy with airlines in general. An Angus Reid report I spotted today found that 50% of Canadians rate Montreal-based Air Canada as “good” or “excellent,” while 17% gave our biggest airline a rating of “poor” or “terrible.” Things were considerably brighter for Calgary-based WestJet. Angus Reid said its study found that 77% of Canadians rate WestJet either good or excellent, while a measly 4% gave them a poor or terrible rating. That’s a pretty big difference, Read more
