Americans are feeling more confident about travel, and two in five are likely to take a trip to Canada this year. New research from Destination Canada paints a pretty good picture for summer tourism north of the border, but there are still concerns about COVID-19 and fuel costs. Compared to December of last year, American’s confidence to travel has increased significantly, with 56% saying that they are confident that they can travel safely in the current environment. In December that figure was just 38%. Thirty eight per cent of Americans indicate that they are likely to travel to Canada sometime Read more
borders
Today is a day to celebrate for Canadian travellers, and for anyone wishing to visit Canada. But it’ll be even better two weeks from now. The Canadian government today (March 17) announced that mandatory border tests for fully vaccinated residents and visitors will be dropped as of April 1. That means Canadians can travel out of the country and not have to worry about finding an expensive COVID-19 test. They also don’t have to worry that they’ll be denied entry to the country because of a positive test result. It also means foreign visitors can avoid pricey tests Read more
We Canadians can be docile at times. But we don’t like getting pushed around by Uncle Sam, or any other country. Which is why it’s a very bad idea for a group of U.S. Congress members to be sending “please open your border” notes to the Canadian government. Global News has this report: A bipartisan group of 29 federal lawmakers led by New York representatives Brian Higgins and Elise Stefanik sent a letter to Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf late last week, urging both countries to “immediately craft a comprehensive framework for phased reopening Read more
The Trudeau government says Canadians shouldn’t expect open borders anytime soon. Also, Air Canada is teaming up with the Cleveland Clinic, a look at the best hotels in Canada as voted by Travel + Leisure, and new social distancing rules for cruise ships. My Future of Travel blog for July 9. Canada’s Borders Staying Shut For Now BNN Bloomberg has this report on the Canadian border situation: Finance Minister Bill Morneau says he doesn’t expect Canada to lift travel restrictions with the U.S. set in place to curtail the spread of COVID-19, and opening the border would create “additional risk” Read more
My old Toronto Star friend Josh Rubin has a great story in today’s Star Business section about how some folks in the Canadian travel and tourism biz are suggesting that Canada partially open its borders to try to rescue the summer season. Rubin writes that the head of the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario, Beth Potter, believes that, even if the U.S. border doesn’t open, Canada should still be allowing visitors from other countries. Rubin notes that the European Union this week announced it was opening borders to visitors from 15 countries, including Canada, but not the U.S., Brazil or Read more
