The pandemic has been anything but kind to Canada’s hotel industry. But a senior official at Canada’s Germain Hotels says they’re going to be okay. “One thing for sure is we’re out of the woods,” Marie Pier Germain, vice president sales and marketing for Germain Hotels, told me in a recent Zoom chat. “The company is going to be okay.” Germain said the company has kept communication lines open with its investors during the pandemic But it’s not been easy. And it hasn’t been a straight line. “Everything we’re used to relying on to forecast budget is gone,” she said. Read more
business travel
Tourism in Canada isn’t expected to rebound until late 2025 or early 2026, says the head of Destination Canada. Speaking at the marketing agency’s annual general meeting, held virtually on Thursday, Destination Canada President and CEO Marsha Walden said it will take that long for tourism expenditures to reach 2019 levels. Walden said Destination Canada anticipates total tourism revenues in Canada will reach $78 billion next year. That’s a 51% increase over 2021 but well below the $105 billion Canada raked in for 2019. “At the depth of the crisis almost every segment of our industry came to a complete Read more
VIA Rail Canada (VIA Rail) marked a historic milestone today with the unveiling of the first trainset of its state-of-the-art new fleet that will serve the Québec City – Windsor corridor. With the new test train parked on the platform of the LEED certified Ottawa station behind them, VIA Rail President and Chief Executive Officer, Cynthia Garneau and Chairperson of the Board of Directors, Françoise Bertrand, introduced Canadians to the first of 32 new trains in VIA Rail’s new Corridor fleet – a building block of VIA Rail’s modernization program which will help to create the VIA Rail of tomorrow. “This new fleet marks Read more
Aeroplan is giving customers a nice break just before Christmas. Aeroplan, the loyalty program run by air Canada, placed its expiration policy on hold during the pandemic. They also made our inactivity policy more flexible, as members have 18 months before their Aeroplan points expire if there has been no activity in their account; meaning they haven’t earned, redeemed, donated, transferred, or converted any points. In order to further support members as travel resumes, Aeroplan has further extended their pause on expiry of points until September 30, 2022. That means that between now and September 29, 2022, any Aeroplan points Read more
The Conference Board of Canada and Expedia Group say travel and tourism are definitely on the upswing. In their latest report, the Conference Board found that 86% of Canadians say they miss travelling. Better yet, the numbers who report that COVID-19 is slowing their travel plans is down sharply. Speaking during a zoom session put on by the Discover America Canada Committee, Jennifer Hendry, the conference board’s Senior Research Associate, said that in October of 2020, 62% of Canadians had no travel plans. In their October, 2021 report, that number was down to 47%. Hendry says that shows that “the Read more
