Going to the Tourism Leadership Conference on Via Rail's Via 1

I am writing this post on the train to Ottawa using Via Rail's Wi Fi access courtesy of Via. It's been quite an enjoyable train ride in a Via Rail private car courtesy or TIAC and Via Rail. Several delegates are on the train having a great time getting to the conference. I have been talking to John Pinter of Meridian Reservation Systems. We've had a very interesting conversation about their unique rez service. Said hello to Anne Marshall of Elmhirst's Resort and talked a little bit about Hispanic inbound markets. We're about 40 minutes from Ottawa so we'll have plenty of time to check in, relax a bit and then attend the conferences first sessions. Elaine McCulloch, from Via Rail's marketing department has been our Via liaison and hostess and she has been wonderful. Thanks Elaine. Stay tuned to this blog. I will be writing a couple of posts about the conference in the next few days. I will also tweet about it. See www.twitter.com/jaimehorwitz and follow me.

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Cheers,

Jaime

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Happy Halloween!

October Events Transforming Canadian Tourism

Two events in October are linked to the building Canada’s future global position as a leading sustainable “Eco Destination”. One is the publication of the second issue of EcoTourism Canada Magazine, published by Vern Telford, Professor Emeritus at Georgian College in Barrie; and secondly, The Ecotourism & Sustainable Tourism Conference in Vancouver October 27-29.

EcoTourism Magazine Canada features Canadian Ecology Centre, the Bear Whisperer, a new Eco Lodge on James Bay, a new environmental language “Eco-Eigo”, and Whistler—a destination determined to be a world leader in sustainability. A major feature of the Second Edition is the printing using Warren’s Waterless Printing.

Featured in the new issue are details on the Ecotourism & Sustainable Tourism Conference in Vancouver October 27-29 hosted by The British Columbia Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, and The International Ecotourism Society located in Washington D.C. EcoTourism Canada Magazine is an official sponsor of the 2008 conference.

Stay tuned for updates…………Ron Taylor

I love Fashion and so do millions of Hispanics around the world

I am doubly busy this week because I am personally covering Toronto's L'Oreal Fashion Week for my Spanish language blog and www.blogdecanada.com and my social networking site, www.canadamigos.com. Fashion is very important to Latin Americans and Spaniards. Especially women, although men also like to indulge in a certain sartorial eloquence. Rare is the Latin or Spanish tourist who travels and does not purchase clothes (except of course those on a limited budget like the backpacker crowd, but even them will rather buy a new pair of jeans than pay for a hotel room). Part of Canadá en Español's mission is to educate my fellow Spanish speaking travelers about great things we have in Canada besides the obvious attractions like the Rockies and Niagara Falls. While we don't yet have truly global fashion brands, we do have great fashion talent in Canada and the Toronto and Montréal Fashion Weeks prove it.

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In the last two days I have seen fantastic Spring 2009 collections starting with Alfred Sung's White Collection, which opened this year's Fashion Week. Today I saw a great and sexy women's fashion collection by rising star Jason Meyers and a splendidly elegant swimwear collection from Aqua di Lara's Reyhan Sofraci.

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Cheers,

Jaime

It's that time of the month. StatCan's Advance Travel Information numbers for August 2008 are out. USA? Still down. But Overseas doing very well.

Statistics Canada released inbound tourism numbers for August 2008. Not surprisingly, inbound from the US continues to decline. Since August 2001, visits from the US have dropped approximately 50%, a staggering number, that's about sixteen million less visitors.

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While not making up completely for lost US visits, Overseas inbound markets continue to do rather well, except for Asia, where Japan also continues to drop (down about 30% since 2001). All regions showed growth except Asia which saw a drop of 3.2% in August compared to August 2007.

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The Stars

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What single country showed the highest growth rate in August 2008 compared to the same month last year? Mexico? Good guess, but no. Mexico slowed down a bit this past August growing only 4.4% (11.2% Jan to Aug). The UK? Not at all. The UK is showing signs of stress. It was down 7.3% compared to Aug 2007. Germany? Nope. While it did well growing 6.1% this past August, Germany is not the big star. France you say, it must be France. Good guess, given all the promotion and publicity there generated by Quebec's 400th Birthday. France grew an amazing 30.7% in August. But no, it was not France. The country that showed the biggest percentage increase in inbound tourism to Canada last August was SPAIN. Spaniards are taking a liking to Canada. It must be word of mouth and online properties like CanadaenEspanol and CanadAmigos, since very little marketing is being done there by Canadian tourism organizations. SPAIN grew a staggering 31% in August 2008 compared to August 2007. While the absolute numbers are not huge. This is just a signal of what future numbers could be. SPAIN can become another Mexico for Canadian Tourism if enough Canadian Tourism organizatons get together to market our destinations properly. Canadá en Español (Cactus Rock New Media Ltd.) is forming an alliance with a Destination PR and Marketing firm in Madrid in order to offer cost accessible PR, Marketing and sales representation services in Spain.

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Olé
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Jaime Horwitz
www.cactusrock.com
www.canadamigos.com

Jaime Horwitz with his daughter Madison in Ronda, Andalucía, Spain. Summer 2005

Presentations from the Ontario Tourism Marketing Summit Available.

If you were not able to attend the Ontario Tourism Marketing Summit event this year, you can take a look at the presentations by visiting the OTMP's Summit webpage. Given the economic situation around the world, I particularly recommend taking a look at Warren Jestin, Senior VP & Chief Economist, Scotiabank's presentation, Ontario Tourism - Don't Expect a Return to Business as Usual

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Regards,

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Jaime

Conclusion of the Travelocity - Howard Johnson zaga

In my next to last previous post I related the extremely frustrating experience of trying to help the Mexican Shotokan Karate team who were booked in the wrong city (Brampton) last week (the booking was fone over the telephone and not online - the phone agent recommended the HJ in Brampton, obviously not knowing how far from downtown it is). The team came to Toronto to compete in the World Shotokan Karate Cup at Ryerson University in downtown Toronto. Brampton is about 40 kms from downtown Toronto, a very long trek in rush hour. After hours on the phone we were able to get them moved to a Howard Johnson hotel in Toronto not far from Ryerson. In the end it took several calls (over four and a half hours) to Travelocity and the Howard Johnson hotel to straighten things out. Needless to say, the team has no plans to ever book travel with Travelocity again. On the bright side, they were able to enjoy the city of Toronto on their spare time and went home with three gold medals and three silver medals.
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Jaime