Irish PM talks tourism with the trade

Expanding its horizons

(Pictured above) Ireland’s new Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar (c) met with key suppliers and trade partners in Toronto including (l-r) Patrice Geske, Globus family of brands; Alison Metcalfe, Tourism Ireland; Ian Duffy, Royal Irish Tours; Niall Gibbons, Tourism Ireland; Luigi Iannello, Air Canada Vacations; Denise Heffron, Transat; and Tim Morgan, TPI. ANN RUPPENSTEIN Coinciding...

 

The sisterhood of the travelling women

WOMEN IN TRAVEL: JENNIFER HADDOW

ANN RUPPENSTEIN They’re movers and shakers. Their contributions have changed and continue to change the nature of travel, both in Canada and around the world. In this week’s issue, Canadian Travel Press’ monthly series of profiles on women in travel, continues with Jennifer Haddow, the owner and director of Wild Women Expeditions. Wild Women Expeditions – the world’s largest...

 

Canadian travel buying trends captured

Sorry, but we're different

Pictured above: Rio de Janeiro from Sugarloaf Mountain by CTP’s Ann Ruppenstein Mike Dunbar “Canadians are not Americans.” That might seem blindingly obvious to readers of CTP but it was the key takeaway from a study of Canadian travel-buying habits outlined to a predominantly American audience of travel marketers at the recent Destinations International annual congress in...

 

New Zealand woos agents with Explore PLUS

Pictured above: Mitre Peak towers above a tranquil Milford Sound in Fiordland. Photo courtesy WWW.FIORDLAND.ORG.NZ IAN STALKER Seeing is believing when it comes to travel agents selling New Zealand, according to Tourism New Zealand. The tourism promotion body has announced that North American travel agents can now plan and book independent fam trips with Tourism New Zealand’s new Explore...

 

Transborder contradictions

Mike Dunbar The bad news: Transborder travel in both directions declined in May. The good news: Both the north and southbound high-value air travel segments remained in growth mode. According to figures released by the US Department of Commerce’s travel and tourism office, the total number of Canadian overnight border-hops declined 6% compared with May 2016, while overnight travel in the...

 

Plenty of reasons to sell groups

Pictured above: Myanmar is one of the countries Collette groups can explore. Ian Stalker Michelle Palma says there’s no shortage of reasons why travel agents should book groups with the company she promotes. And Palma, vice-president, sales – Canada for Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection, says the actual Uniworld vessels are among those reasons. “Our ships are the perfect...

 

Welcome to the Travel Universe

Lufthansa Group exploring new ways to create experiences

BOB MOWAT Since he took over as vice-president of sales, The Americas for the Lufthansa Group in January of this year, Tamur Goudarzi-Pour (pictured above left, with Lufthansa Group Canada’s Hans DeHaan) has been living in rather interesting times, having had to deal with the Trump Administration’s travel bans and its new rules for bringing electronics on board aircraft . But it...

 

Wildfires hurting tourism in the West

TED DAVIS It’s been called the second worst fire season for BC on record, and tourism operators are amongst the many being impacted by wildfi res in the province. The wildfire season got off to an early start in 2017, with many blazes well underway throughout July. A long stretch of unusually hot and dry weather into August has yielded no rain, and there are now enough fires, combined with...

 

Gary gets the whole pie

BOB MOWAT Many years ago, I sat down to interview Gary Sadler for the first time … and toward the end of the conversation, he delivered a line that just begged to go into a headline. [caption id="attachment_96578" align="alignright" width="300"] Gary Sadler[/caption] We were talking about all the things that Sandals was doing to help agents make more money, and Sadler, never short on...

 

The Hotel Insider

The highs and the non-existent lows of Canadian hotel pricing

By Eric Barber 2017 is an exciting year for Canada, celebrating its 150th anniversary, and it appears that this is going to be a record-breaking year for travel in Canada. In addition to our 150th celebrations, there are many other factors making inbound tourism buoyant such as the weak Canadian dollar versus the US dollar and Euro; extensive additional airlift from international markets, in...