Canada en Español quietly but proudly turns 10.

Last Wednesday January 28th, I was surprised by my wife and daughter with a sort or surprise dinner. I drove to the restaurant so it wasn't a total surprise there. We went to Frida a new Mexican restaurant in the Eglinton - Allen Road area of Toronto. The restaruantl is small and elegantly understated, not a garish touristy Mexican resto, but rather a new kind of Mexican restaurant that is growing in parts of North America. This new kind of Mexican restaurant serves nouveau mexicain cuisine, that is dishes based on authentic Mexican cuisine but stylized for an international clientele. Frida is just a few months old, so it's early to say whether it will succeed. The food was fine, though not outstanding (especially given the prices). Service was very friendly, but not quite professional. I'll give them sometime before I decide whether I should recommend Frida. For now, I will stick with Milagro (corner of Mercer and John St's downtown Toronto).
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But I digress. The surprise was not the restaurant. My wife and daughter remembered that I launched Canada en Espanol ten years ago on January 28, 1999. Being so busy lately I had forgotten about the anniversary. They gave me a very touching card and we had a grand time. Canadá en Español began with one website that January and 60,000 online visits (more or less) in 1999. It has grown to 21 consumer sites (including the BlogdeCanada and the social media site CanadAmigos) with traffic in 2008 reaching about 2.5 million visits. In 2009 I am having several of the sites overhauled to make them more contemporary and to add more value to advertisers and partners. Also, Iexpect Canadamigos to do quite well. It has grown to almost 3,000 members and almost 10,000 visits per month. While we may see a softening in the market due to the global economic recession, I believe that inbound Hispanic tourism to Canada will continue to grow significantly in the next five to ten years mostly because Canada is still a very new destination in those markets and we have a myriad of places and activities to offer Hispanic travellers.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA
twitter.com/jaimehorwitz
Cactus Rock New Media Ltd.