Tracking The Trends

In this week’s issue of Canadian Travel Press, executive editor, Bob Mowat reports that the four experts on the 2014 Best Western Leisure Travel Summit that was held in Toronto last week are predicting a strong summer travel season.

The annual summit featured Google’s Dennis Morgenstern; Best Western’s Dorothy Dowling; TIAC’s David Goldstein; and CAA’s Brenda Kyllo in a fascinating discussion of what the trade could expect between now and Labour Day.

Best Western’s senior vice-president sales & marketing, Dorothy Dowling told those attending the event that the hotel company’s business in Canada has been strong and that it is tracking double-digit growth here for the period between the Victoria Day weekend that’s just passed and Labour Day.

CAA’s vice-president-travel, Brenda Kyllo agreed, noting that historically Canada has been seeing growth of between 3% to 5% during the past few years — experiencing only a “small dip” during the recession. “Over the last four or five years,” Kyllo observed, “Canadian growth has been consistent.”

David Goldstein, president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) said that the summer of 2014 looks “particularly strong,” with positive developments including the performance of the China market which is up 20%; and he indicated that he’s expecting to see a resurgence in the Japanese market.

On the question of whether the winter of 2013-2014 will have an impact on summer travel, Google’s head of industry, travel, Dennis Morgenstern observed that the search engine has seen the use of all of the key words for tropical destinations increase by 15% during the winter just passed. He noted that in tracking people’s travel intentions, what Google has been seeing is that this summer, there’s strong interest in destinations like Cancun, Miami and Orlando.

For the full story, check out this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press by clicking here.