Airlines
U.S. Virgin Islands Have A Plan
The U.S. Virgin Islands has a plan. In the wake of the two Category 5 hurricanes that hit in September, the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism has developed a 150-day rolling marketing plan to share with industry stakeholders. Commissioner of Tourism Beverly Nicholson-Doty said: “This new plan has been developed to establish priorities and a road map of activities we will pursue as our destination recovers.” Nicholson-Doty noted that the “abridged plan” will be fluid and adaptable to the current dynamic recovery environment and the Department of Tourism is committed...
Making The Leap
IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) initiative took a “critical” leap forward last October when all three global distribution system (GDS) providers – Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport – confirmed that they will achieve the highest level of certification as aggregators by the end of this year, reports Quebec editor, Mike Dunbar in his multi-part series on IATA in this week's digital edition of Canadian Travel Press. According to NDC program director Yanik Hoyles, getting the GDSs on board was crucial, since their commitment signaled that NDC has been embraced by all...
Good News From Jamaica
Clearly, Canadians were making it Jamaica, again in 2017. The Jamaica Tourist Board's (JTB) regional director – Canada, Philip Rose told Press Today that Jamaica welcomed 405,174 Canadian visitors in 2017. And that, Rose said, represents an increase of 8.9% over the previous year. “I take this opportunity to thank and congratulate my team for all their ongoing efforts. I thank our airline, tour operator and hotel partners for their commitment to Jamaica,” observed a clearly pleased Rose, before continuing: “Lastly, I invite all mentioned above to join me in saluting our...
ACV Has It All In Europe
Air Canada Vacations thinks Nice is nice … As is a huge swathe of the rest of Europe. The tour operator held a Thursday Europe product launch in Toronto that featured European destinations stretching from Iceland to Iberia, along the French Riviera to cities like Nice and into Eastern Europe, with Croatia being among new additions to its program. In all, the tour operator has around 122 Europe vacation packages, with agents told that seven-night European vacation packages that include air travel, hotels and transfers are priced comparably to Caribbean winter all-inclusive holidays...
Canada, Israel Expand Air Deal
Both Air Canada and Transat A.T are welcoming the Canadian government's announcement of an expanded air transport agreement with Israel. With the revised agreement Air Canada indicated it will look to further expand its services between Canada and Israel. Benjamin Smith, president, passenger airlines at Air Canada, commented: “Air Canada welcomes the expansion of the Canada-Israel air transport agreement as it will allow us to enhance our network and further advance our successful international expansion strategy.” Smith said: “We look forward to increasing our services to...
Air Canada Joins Agents’ Choice Awards Gala
Baxter Media is pleased to announce Air Canada's participation in the first annual Agents' Choice Awards Gala as a presenting sponsor. The Agents' Choice Awards Gala evening, set for June 14, 2018 in Toronto, brings the 19th annual Agents' Choice readership survey to life by honouring favourites in each category with a trophy presentation live on stage. Air Canada's presenting sponsorship demonstrates their commitment to celebrating the best and brightest at the Canadian travel industry's signature event of the year. In addition to presenting the Agents' Choice Awards survey...
Take A Vacation
There were some raised eyebrows at the offices of Air Transat when it learned that 33% of Canadians haven't taken a vacation in the past two years. So not surprisingly, the airline decided to take concrete action in line with its brand promise to “brighten the everyday with the joy of vacations.” Eager to learn more about why some Canadians hardly ever take a vacation, Air Transat mounted an operation to “infiltrate” the performance-evaluation meetings of employees at a select group of companies. These workers all had something in common: they are very much appreciated by...
Tan Joins WestJet
Alfredo C. Tan as Chief Digital and Innovation Officer. Alfredo will join WestJet on March 5, 2018. He will report to Ed Sims, executive vice-president, commercial for WestJet and will head the further development and rollout of WestJet's digital strategy as the airline transitions from a low-cost, point-to-point carrier to a fully-fledged network airline. As well as leading the WestJet Digital team at the airline's headquarters in Calgary, Tan will begin to build a second team in Toronto. Together, these teams will collaborate in building out WestJet's full digital capabilities...