A couple of minutes with...

On my recent visit to Mexico City I had the opportunity to have breakfast with Jorge Morfin, Director of the Canadian Tourism Commission's Mexico Office. This is a brief video of our conversation.

Cheers,

Jaime

I'm in Mexico City on a short business trip.

Not used to my former hometown. It is just too big and with more than 20 million people living in the Greater Mexico City Metropolitan Area a bit crowded. However, it is always great to see old friends and get together for dinner. Mexico City does have excellent restaurants. Two days ago I had dinner at Brasileiríssimo Polanco, an authentic Brazilian restaurant where the concept is "all you can eat." Las night a couple of friends took me to a fantastic Argentinian Steak & Fish house called Puerto Madero (after the place of the same name in Argentina). Fabulous steaks and great ambiance.

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Looking at the view from my hotel (41st floor of the Presidente InterContinental Hotel) it is not hard to see why millions of Mexico City residents may want to visit Canada given its reputation for clean air and pristine natural settings and safe and orderly cities. While Mexico City is a fascinating place to visit, people here yearn many a time to get away to places where they can feel freer and more relaxed, away from chaotic traffic and hazy, smoggy days. Unfortunately, there is another issue attracting Mexicans to a country like Canada. Safety. There are plans for a huge demonstration/walk next weekend to protest against the lack of safety in the country. All levels of government have signed a security accord and have promised results in 100 days. Mexicans are watching.

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Tomorrow I will be back in Toronto, not a perfect city by any means, but still one of the best in the world to live in and to visit.

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Jaime

Toronto has arrived. It's on TripAdvisor's Top 10 Urban Getaways in the world.

I was very happy to get my TripAdvisor newsletter email this week and see that my hometown, Toronto, made it to the Top Ten Urban Getaways in the World right up there with London, Rome, Milan, Paris, Barcelona and four other cities. Toronto was the only North American city besides San Jose del Cabo, Mexico listed in TripWatch's August 19th list of Top 10 Urban Getaways.

Happy tripping,

Jaime
www.torontoenespanol.com

Numbers for June are in. The US keeps sliding. Overseas holds its own. Germany, France, Italy and Spain doing well. Mexico and South America up.

Statcan published its "International Travel: Advance Information" bulletin for June 2008 today. US inbound tourism to Canada continues to slide with apparently no signs of turning around (except perhaps in Toronto given the success of Caribana this year). When it comes to automobile tourism - no surprise given gas prices in june - all provinces were hammered with double digit drops in excess of 10%. American visits by air were down 8.1% from June 2007.

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Overseas markets, though held their own with overall growth from most countries. Western Europe did quite well in june with inbound tourism to Canada growing by 2.3% compared to the same period last year. Only The Netherlands, Portugal and the UK saw declines.

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Hispanic tourism to Canada continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate in June than in previous months (logical before the busy summer season). Spanish inbound grew a respectable 8.4% compared to June '07. 7.8% more Mexicans came to Canada than a year earlier and Spanish speaking South America grew by 4.4%.

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Overall the decline in US visits is still a very big concern. It is now down 19.5% in the last three years and a staggering 50% since the year 2000 when Canada received 19,324,996 American visitors from January to June! (Compared to 9,627,935 from Jan to June this year)(source: StatCan's International Travel: Advance Information bulletins) It is amazing that the industry has been able to withstand this kind of blow. 50% in eight years!

Can anything be done to stem the tide (some would rather use the phrase "stopt the bleeding.")? I have my own opinions about it see one here: Canadian Tourism in Crisis.

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regards,

Jaime Horwitz MBA

www.cactusrock.com

Tourism BC (William Bakker) is looking for Videographers to Produce "BC Experiences" videos

Do you live in BC and love to shoot, edit and post videos? I guess even if you don't live in BC you may be able to get a gig shooting videos for Tourism BC while having a great time in one of the most beautiful provinces in our country. Check out William Bakker's blog for detailed information. I am considering applying myself - just for fun and to see parts of BC I haven't seen. Below, an example of BC Videos (They want something more personal and interactive - they want to see you. Confused? Lol. Visit William Bakker's blog ) Deadline to apply is August 22. Shooting begins mid-September.

Cheers,

Jaime

Wordle Clouds - neat Web Toy. Take a look.

The Canadian Tourism Blog Wordle. Just a neat Web toy that lets you create "clouds" of your blog or someone else's and visualize its content at some point in time. Waste of time? Research? Fun? You decide. Click on the cloud to see a large version. Cheers.

Jaime

The NFL's Buffalo Bills play in Toronto today. I would love to go, but Prices were set Sky High, Why?

I've always liked Football, that is NFL football. When I was a kid in Mexico City one of my dreams was to play football at one of the leagues in Mexico City. Yes, Mexicans play football at the high-school and university level. I even remember some old Mexican movies that featured games between arch rivals National University Pumas against the Mexican Polytechnical Institute. I never got to play because my brother ended up playing little league base-ball and Mom could only be in one place at one time. (I turned to Martial Arts instead)

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I used to watch NFL games all throughout high-school (the old Pittsburgh-Dallas rivalry) and when I went to University in Penn State I purchased my season tickets to see the Nittany Lions. At that time Penn State had the likes of Matt Millen who went on to play for the Raiders and Bruce Clark who later played for the Toronto Argos.
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Watching College ball was great but I never did go to watch a live NFL game. So imagine my surprise when I found out that the NFL was coming to Toronto. Wow, I thought this is my chance. I also thought, "What a great thing for tourism and for Toronto." I signed up online for the ticket alerts. I understand that over 180,000 people signed up. I'm sure the organizers and companies involved in bringing the Bills to T.O. were certain they would sell out both the pre-season and regular-season games in no time once they released the tickets. When I got the email telling me that I could go ahead and purchase tickets I immediately and excitedly logged on to the appropriate sight. I looked up the prices and Surprise! Prices for the 2 Game package: from $140 to $1,150!!! Of course the $140 tickets are way up high where the players look like ants running around. The 100 level tickets that I would like cost $700 or more for the 2 games! The blogosphere began to buzz with opinions. Example: "anyone who purchases these tickets at the over-inflated prices they are charging (for a meaningless game no less) just proves P.T. Barnums theory. There's a sucker born every minute." http://www.thestar.com/article/470923 "Rogers needs to sell tickets at an average ticket price above $200 and seems to be doing it. By comparison, the NFL's New England Patriots had the league's highest average ticket price last season at $91. Buffalo has the NFL's lowest average ticket price at just $51." They Are Still Looking for Suckers to Buy Bills Tickets in Toronto.

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Suffice it to say that I decided against going to the game. One thing is to be passionate about a sport (and I am not that passionate about football anymore), and another to be a sucker. It's not the money per se, it's the perceived value. In 1992 when the Toronto Blue Jays made it to the World Series, I paid close to $1,000 for two tickets. At today's dollars we're talking about $2,000! But I did not flinch. The perceived value was huge. The first World Series game ever to be played outside the United States! Historical. But to pay inflated prices for a pre-season NFL game?! Thanks, but no thanks. It's good publicity for Toronto that the NFL is playing here. But it may also backfire as the blogosphere shows. It may give Toronto a black eye in travelers minds who may think that Toronto is just way too expensive a city to visit.

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"Unnecessary roughness. 15 yard penalty"
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Cheers,
Jaime

One of Ontario's Top 100 Unusual Places To Visit

North America's Largest Outdoor Mural--Artists on site in August.

Midland, Ontario………………August 2008. As one of the top 100 places to see in Ontario, Downtown Midland should be on every visitors and residents travel list. Midland hosts North America’s largest outdoor mural and was recently listed in the Ron Brown first edition of Top 100 Unusual Things to see in Ontario released September 17^th 2007, Boston Mills Press. Brown labels the murals as a "Giant Outdoor Art Gallery". The murals depicting a scene from the Jesuits meeting Huron aboriginals for the first time is the largest outdoor historic mural in North America. Ron Brown is a Canadian travel writer and broadcaster who is the author of several books on unusual features to see throughout Ontario. His latest titles include Downtown Ontario; Unusual Main Streets to Explore, and Top One Hundred Unusual Things to See in Ontario. Toronto-based Brown also regularly contributes to CBC Radio broadcasts.

For the summer of 2008 our murals are continuing to be restored by 3 local artists with the financial aid of the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Ruth Hurdle is recreating the Rotary Mural which was originally on the LCBO building. This mural will be relocated on the side of T & G Fabrics. Terri-Lee Milley will be recreating the S.S. Lemoyne mural which will be painted on location on the side of Homecoming beside St. Paul’s United Church. Sonja Rathke has been restoring all the murals located at the Town of Midland’s Harbour Master’s office at the bottom of King Street this summer. Please feel free to speak with them about their experiences.

Midland Ontario is 90 minutes north of the Greater Toronto Area, and 35 minutes North West of Barrie. Situated on the shores of Georgian Bay in historic Huronia, the Midland area is one of Ontario’s earliest developed settlements dating back to the early 1600’s and Samuel de Champlain.

WHERE TO STAY IN THE AREA: Hotels, Resorts and Historic Inns are available. See Midland Area Accommodation.

WHAT TO DO IN THE AREA. Exciting historical re-enactments and attractions, fresh clean beaches complement First Nations history, Georgian Bay Cruises and Great Lakes British Navel history and the towering Martyrs’ Shrine. http://www.georgianbaytourism.on.ca/S/Attractions.aspx

TOURIST INFORMATION: FREE full colour guidebook available by calling 1800-263-7745, or view Georgian Bay Visitor Guide on-line

For additional information on Downtown Midland and the Midland Mural Project contact Meredith Forrest at 705.527.7246,

Summer vacation is over. I look forward to the Fall/Winter season of Tourism Conferences

I've had a great summer so far. This is a very lucky state of affairs given that this summer has been the wettest summer on record in parts of Canada, including my home province, Ontario. I feel for those tourism businesses that depend in large measure on good weather over the summer months. Water based businesses like canoe and kayak rental outfits, golf courses, summer festivals - and a myriad of businesses that look forward to crowds of pedestrians walking about and stopping by - all have suffered to a certain degree the summer of rain we've had. Bad weather is the last thing we need in a very very challenging year for the industry with US visits at an all time low and still declining (June numbers come out next week) and many people opting for staycations instead of vacations.

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I was very lucky because on our trip to Quebec we only had a couple of days where the weather was not cooperative and last week at the cottage in Muskoka (Ontario) we only had one sort of bad day weatherwise. Overall our two weeks away from work were tremendous.

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After a week by a beautiful lake, I am all recharged and rearing to go. In addition to my usual work (promoting Canada to Hispanic markets, making sales calls, writing proposals, etc., etc.,) I am looking forward to the Fall and Winter season of tourism events and conferences. Beginning in October I will attend the Ontario Tourism Marketing Summit here in Toronto, followed by Canada's Tourism Leadership Summit in Gatineau, Quebec (Capital Region) in early November and possibly the PhoCusWright Conference , Travel Innovation Summit and Bloggers Summit in Los Angeles, also in November. Next January or early February, I will be attending the second Canada-e-Connect Online Tourism Strategy Conference in which I am quite involved having the honour to act as Chairperson.

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So all in all lots to look forward to and plenty of work to stay out of trouble. Follow this blog for news and posts about the conferences.
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I hope you've also had a good summer and I wish you the best for this coming Fall
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Jaime
www.canadaenespanol.ca

Time for the cottage and no World Wide Web for a Week

I will be away for the following week resting by a beautiful lake in Muskoka, Ontario. No emails, no websites, no Facebooks, no Canadamigos.com, no blogging. Just an old fashioned hardcover (The Bourne Sanction, if you want to know), a canoe, and the family. Hope you are having as great a summer as I am.
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I will be back blogging away after August 10th.

Cheers,
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Jaime