It’s a small change, but an important one. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today announced that he is appointing a Minister of Tourism for his federal cabinet. Trudeau said Edmonton MP Randy Boissonnault will be Minister of Tourism and also Associate Minister of Finance. For years, even decades, tourism ministers in Ottawa have had their tourism duties lumped in with other things, such as small business; even though tourism is a big business that accounts for roughly 10% of our GDP. Now, however, we won’t have a “Minister of Agriculture, Children’s Shoes and Tourism,” but a real “Minister of Tourism.” Read more
tourism
We’re only six weeks from summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, and that has a lot of people feeling better about things. If you’re in the travel and tourism business, there are some pretty good reasons for optimism as well. I’ll look at a new poll in my FUTURE OF TRAVEL blog today, as well as optimistic TSA numbers and comments from airline officials. There’s also some news from Jasper National Park in Alberta and some not-so-hopeful comments out of France. THERE’S A GOOD MOON ON THE RISE First up, the good news for a Sunday. A report on novacancynews.com Read more
It’s about time. I’ve been arguing for years that Canadian tourism folks are sailing the wrong waters by spending too much time and energy on emerging markets and forgetting the giant next door. Now I’ve got more company. In a press release issued yesterday in advance of next week’s Canadian Tourism Marketing Summit, it was revealed that a survey by HLT Advisory found an incredible 79 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with a proposal to focus increasingly scarce marketing resources on U.S. residents. Only four per cent of folks disagreed with something called the “Connecting America” initiative, Read more
To somewhat borrow a phrase from the band Simple Minds, “Don’t You Forget About Us.” It has often seemed to me that Americans forget about the impact Canadians have on their economy when it comes to tourism and travel. We’re easily their biggest market, but the Americans often get all jazzed and doe-eyed thinking about markets like China and Russia and Brazil and forget about those of us up here in Canada. I understand how that can be. I mean, I’m often critical of Canadian tourism for falling in love with the same countries and getting all exotic and in Read more
NEVIS – I think I’m in love. I’ve only been on this Caribbean island two days but I’ve packed a ton of great experiences into my 48 hours. And I’ve loved every minute of it. It’s a place I didn’t know a lot about, having never been to St. Kitt’s, which is a mere two miles away and is part of the same country. But it’s a stunner; tranquil, quiet and lovely, with some of the nicest people you’ll find on this planet of ours. I’ve been to a fair number of Caribbean countries, and this has to be right Read more
