Canadian searches for international flights are outweighing those for domestic trips, but flights within Canada remain very popular, a new study says. Kayak.com looked at flight searches for the week of April 10 and compared them three years ago, prior to the pandemic, and then to a month ago. For three year comparisons, they found Dubai led the way, with searches up 105% since April of 2019. Next was Halifax at 97%, followed by Istanbul at 90%. For month-over-month comparisons, searches for flights to Frankfurt were on top, with a gain of 17% from March to April of this year. Read more
India
Forbes has a great item today about what countries in Europe are open for visitors. I’ve also got items on the resumption of cruise ship travel in Canada, passengers behaving badly, the resumption of Transat flights to Italy, a nice story on Ottawa and news about suspended flights between Vancouver and India. WHAT COUNTRIES ARE OPEN IN EUROPE Many European Union countries, including the UK and Ireland, have entirely done away with COVID-19 travel restrictions for non-EU travelers. Others, however, still have restrictions in place. Continue reading the Forbes story here. AND WHAT’S OPEN IN THE CARIBBEAN, TOO Travelweek has Read more
Air Canada is back on top of the podium. The Montreal-based airline today was named best in North America by Skytrax, a prestigious British-based group that surveys airline passengers and says its reviews are entirely independent. The results were announced at the Paris Air Show. It’s a great feather in the cap for Air Canada, which was named the best North American airline from 2010 to 2014, then watched Virgin America capture the crown the past two years. That means they’ve copped the award six times in the past eight years. “We’re super happy, obviously, and very proud to represent Read more
What a great study. I mentioned on Twitter the other day how I found a study that compared the cost of club sandwiches and a mini-bottle of vodka at various hotels around the world. That was fun. But now comes a far more exhaustive study that looks around the world at everything from the cost of a Big Mac to the price of a man’s haircut, a standard beer, a cheap date and the cost of a five-star hotel room. It’s useful information if you can believe all of it. But I’ll get to that in a minute. In the Read more
I get asked a lot about what destinations to visit. It’s a fun question to answer. I don’t, however, always know the best TIME to book a trip. I know that hotels in New York City and Toronto and other business centres are often cheaper on weekends than during the week when biz folks travel the most. And I’ve always been told it’s best to book tickets for North America travel about four to six weeks ahead, the reasoning being that airlines know if we book a year in advance it’s probably a wedding or something important and that if Read more
