Destinations
Busabout Adds Bulgaria to 2018 Lineup
Book the Ultimate Eastern Adventure tour freely and of your own will... Busabout, HAGGiS and Shamrocker Adventures have launched their 2018-2019 brochure that includes an expanded Busabout Hop-On Hop-Off network with new stops in Spain and Portugal and the addition of a trip to culinary capital of Bologna. And notes Busabout's Damien Bennett, that tour operator's new lineup includes Bulgaria, a first for the company, and Romania, which will now be available throughout Busabout's Europe season. Romania – home to Transylvania, the setting for Bram Stoker's classic horror novel...
Agents’ Choice 2018 – It’s Time To Vote
Agents' Choice 2018 is back and it's better than ever. This year, Canada's favourite travel agency poll has expanded a number of categories. For example, agents will now be able to vote for their favourite destinations in the Caribbean, Europe, Mexico, Asia, Canada, the USA and more. Canadian retailers will also be able to pick their favourite tour operator offering programs to each of these regions as well. Agents' Choice 2018 has also added new categories that allow agents to vote for their favourite travel agent education program and their favourite travel agent loyalty and...
Nominations Open For Destination France Award
Atout France in Canada is preparing its upcoming trade show series Destination France 2018, which stops in Quebec City (Feb. 26), Montreal (Feb. 27), Toronto (Feb. 28) and Vancouver (March 1). The annual events are also the time to recognize the work of tour operators who create unique offers to discover France by the Product of the Year Award. Atout France invites tour operators to showcase their product for France and its overseas regions with the Destination France Award. Voted by travel agents from Jan. 30 to Feb. 16, the Product of the Year Award highlights the wide variety of...
Dominican Helps Beat the Winter Blues
Abdallah Castillo joined fellow Dominicans in putting his best foot forward in downtown Toronto last night (Jan. 15). Castillo, who oversees the Dominican Republic Tourism Board's Toronto office, joined Dominicans and non-Dominicans alike in demonstrating his merengue dance footwork skills during the second annual Beat the Winter Blues celebration, hosted by the tourism board and the CBC. The event offered those in Toronto's Union Station Dominican cuisine, music, dance performances and dance opportunities, and a chance to try their hand at a golf simulator, along with a chance to...
2017 A Record Year for Los Angeles
Los Angeles welcomed 48.31 million visitors in 2017, setting a new tourism milestone for the seventh consecutive year. The record figure is a million visitors higher than 2016’s total, an increase of 2.2%, driven by an all-time high 41.2 million domestic visitors. International visitation overall grew 0.9% to a record 7.1 million visitors, outperforming both its projected forecast and inbound travel to the United States as a whole in 2017. 2017 marked a record year for Canada, with its highest ever visitor total of 747,000. Visitations from Canada also outperformed an earlier...
Keflavik Airport Smashes Records
Iceland is hot. Growing by an immense 28% in passenger numbers, Iceland’s Keflavik Airport welcomed 8.8 million passengers in 2017. Seeing nearly two million more passengers than the year before, the Icelandic hub saw balanced growth across O&D and connecting traffic, resulting in another record-breaking year for the gateway. “It’s exhilarating to be part of the rapid growth we’re experiencing here at Keflavik and it’s showing no signs of slowing down,” said Hlynur Sigurdsson, Commercial Director, Isavia. He added, “To get a clear idea of how rapidly our...
CIE Tours Partners With Air Canada
Ireland and Britain’s largest tour operator – CIE Tours International – has introduced air-inclusive guided vacations for Canadian travellers, thanks to a new partnership with Air Canada. The agreement enables CIE Tours to package competitively priced flights within its tour price for travel originating at any airport serviced by Air Canada with direct flights to Shannon or Dublin. In addition, those who book select guided vacations by Jan. 31 can take advantage of CIE Tours’ “2 for 1 Companion Flies Free” promotion (use promotion code TWOFORONE18C). The free non-stop...
AGENTS’ CHOICE IS BACK!
The theme at Baxter Media these days is all about “making it new,” so it should surprise no one that that's exactly what we're going to do with Agents' Choice in 2018. Actually, we already started making those changes with the Canadian travel industry's favourite and most influential poll of travel agents in 2017 with a brand new design that showcases the results in a way that makes for easy reading. And we're happy to report that last year, 5,770 Canadian travel agents voted for their favourites in 30 different categories, making it the second highest response rate in the history...