Cashing In On The Cold

Let’s see how to put this politely. Actually, there’s no good way. You see, when Canadians are freezing their butts off, they don’t care much about anything except getting out of the country and ending up somewhere that’s warm.

In fact, in this week’s edition of Canadian Travel Press (Feb. 17, 2014), our intrepid, though shivering, reporter, Ian Stalker discovered in his conversations with a number of top travel agents and tour operators, that sinking temperatures — not to mention nasty weather — was having more effect on Canadians’ travel plans than was the Canadian dollar.

Well-known Winnipeg agent, Ron Pradinuk put it this way: “Right now, I think that nothing would [negatively] impact bookings to sun destinations from Winnipeg. $70 per couple [the estimated average additional cost on packages because of the lower dollar] is not even having a minor impact.”

While Sunwing’s Jessica Patriquin said that the operator is finding that: “The cold weather has actually spiked demand …”

For more on this story, go to https://www.travelpress.com/subscription/IDEA/110514_021714_ctp .