Tour Operators
Kung Hei Fat Choy!
It's Chinese New Year and the dragons are running wild in 2012. Check out your horoscope for the year, courtesy of the Hong Kong Tourist Board, in Travel Courier's annual cover story. TC also reports on new online air booking capabilities from G Adventures and the latest on travel insurance. And make sure you take a good look at this week's digital edition of Travel Courier. It has a whole new look with great new features such as page-flip technology, enhanced zoom, key-word search, and share capabilities. So go to https://www.travelpress.com/subscription/IDEA/115712_011912_tc/ and check it...
Insight appointment
Insight Vacations has appointed a new sales manager for Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Lisa Bray has joined the Insight Canadian sales team and will be covering the Prairie Provinces. Bray comes to Insight with more than 27 years of industry experience, including retail, tour operator sales and travel educator. She has been the chair of CITC Saskatchewan for nine years and industry educator for 10 years with CITC and local educational institutions. Most recently, Bray served as the Saskatchewan business development manager for Thomas Cook...
Trio of tourism conferences offer quite a buzz
At the beginning of March, hoteliers, tourism marketers, travel technology types and other industry professionals will head to Toronto for a trio of conferences that have been creating quite a buzz in the tourism business in the last couple of years. From March 5-6, the Hotel Association of Canada (HAC) will hold its annual conference which, in 2012, features Dr. David Suzuki and Joie de Vivre's founder, Chip Conley as the headline speakers. HAC's incoming chairman, Hank Stackhouse will not only give delegates the inside scoop on what's coming in the next 12 months for the association, he'll...
Goway introduces new online brochure
Goway Travel has consolidated all of the Holidays of a Lifetime small group escorted tour programs into one user-friendly online brochure. The 42 page on-line brochure, available to view on Goway's web site, contains full details on the nine tours designated as Holidays of a Lifetime; it incorporates destinations represented by Goway such as Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa, China, India, Middle East and Latin America. The online brochure can be viewed or downloaded and printed at http://www.goway.com/brochure...
Agents can now book flights online with G Adventures
G Adventures has enhanced its online reservation platform Sherpa, allowing travel agents to package international airfares with adventure tours online for the first time. "We wanted to kick start the New Year for our agency partners by making it easier for them to satisfy the requirements of their clients in one simple process - online. Signaling an end for the need for agents to pick up a phone and call G Adventures to book their passengers' flights,"says John Warner, G Adventures' VP Global Sales. "It's all about continually improving our customer service for our partners and their...
Goway offers Cook Islands incentives
Goway is offering incentives for those who sign up for a Goway Rewards Card and sell two air/land vacations (minimum of four passengers) to the Cook Islands. Agents can earn a free plane ticket with Air New Zealand and if clients spend three nights or longer in the Cook Islands, combined with international airfare on Air New Zealand, Goway will credit the Goway Rewards Card with $25 per booking. Agents can sign up for free at http://www.gowayagent.com . IslandsEscapes by Goway, in conjunction with Cook Islands Tourism, currently has a campaign called "Delicious Deals in the Cook Islands"to...
BikeHike connects the world
Vancouver-based BikeHike Adventures has a new tagline - "connecting the world through active travel."After nearly 18 years of operating under the tagline "multi-sport adventures for earthlings addicted to outdoor life,"the veteran adventure travel operator felt a change was necessary to augment the company's growth and direction. BikeHike specializes in active adventures with an emphasis on authentic cultural encounters. The new tagline will soon be supported by a new web site. Online users will see an increased emphasis on cultural encounters throughout the overall layout of the site....
Sunwing expands Mediterranean cruise options
Sunwing is expanding its cruise offerings with new Mediterranean sailings departing from Barcelona, Spain this summer aboard Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises. A Western Mediterranean itinerary is available aboard the Norwegian Epic, NCL's newest cruise ship, with seven-night cruises departing Sundays from June 17 to Sept. 2. Itineraries include the following ports of call in Spain, Italy and France: Barcelona, Naples, Rome, Florence, Nice and Provence. Cruise packages include roundtrip flights from Toronto as well as transfers to and from the Barcelona airport to the cruise pier. Sunwing...