Destinations
South Africa Sees North American Arrivals Rise
Buoyed by reports that the US was South Africa’s top source market for overseas travel in 2021, top executives from South African Tourism launched a series of Global Advocacy Engagements visiting Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York City to help build on that momentum with trade, media and stakeholders in this important market. While in Los Angeles meeting with the South African Consulate General and stakeholders, acting CEO Themba Khumalo, shared that arrival figures for 2022 continue to inspire optimism, with 76,994 Americans having already visited South Africa as of May 2022. US...
Iceland Is Calling
Baking bread with lava? It’s a thing. While Iceland is widely known for serving up tasty hot dogs — made mainly from lamb instead of the typical pork — or skyr — a dairy product that’s like a thick yogurt — there’s another memorable dish that’s worth sinking your teeth into. In the town of Laugarvatn, travellers can devour rye bread after it’s been baked in the ground for 24hours from heat generated by a volcanic hot spring. Now, it doesn’t get much fresher — or more Instagram-worthy — than that. Of course, the culinary options across the island don’t end...
Discover America Canada Blasts Off
John Herrington's journey through life has clearly seen astonishing high points and perhaps some somewhat disappointing low ones. The former NASA astronaut was the guest speaker at a Thursday (Sept. 15) Toronto Discover America Canada event, recounting travelling upwards in an incredibly dramatic fashion to the International Space Station on a 13-day Space Shuttle Endeavour mission in 2002. Herrington's talk was marked by dramatic images of the International Space Station and the Earth taken from Space, including a New Zealand channel that British explorer Captain Cook centuries...
Caribbean At Risk Of Pricing Out Of Market
The price is not right. Driving home the point that “some Caribbean states are pricing themselves out of the global travel and tourism competition,” Peter Cerdá, Regional Vice President, The Americas for IATA, kicked off the 4th Caribbean Aviation Day held in the Cayman Islands by doing a price comparison between travel destinations. For example, a flight for an eight day vacation from London to Bridgetown in October is around $800, but a flight from London to Dubai for the exact same time frame is around $600. “For a family of four, that is an $800 difference just for the...
Rebuilding The Industry Together
The ACTA 2022 Eastern Canada Travel Industry Summit, which is a national conference from the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies (ACTA), kicked off a three-city whistle stop national tour in Toronto yesterday, reports Press Today’s Ilona Kauremszky. The travel trade show, on hiatus since the start of the pandemic, and which usually convened provincially, held its first in-person summit at the Toronto Metro Convention Centre. Travel agents, industry partners and key stakeholder suppliers participated in a full-day of seminars, giving participants the inside scoop on a variety of...
Rebuilding Stronger In The Caribbean
Tourism ministers from across the Caribbean are gathered in the Cayman Islands this week for a joint series of events with the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA). “These are the first destination media briefings to be held in person since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Kevin Pile, communications consultant for the CTO, announced ahead of a schedule of updates from 15 countries across the region. Yesterday, Kenneth Bryan, minister of tourism for the Cayman Islands, was voted in as the new chair of the CTO. “I’m...
Tourism Is ‘Better Than Ever’ In The Dominican Republic
Things are ticking along nicely for the Dominican Republic’s tourism industry these days with destination welcoming 621,953 foreign visitors in August. The results were announced by the country’s president, Luis Abinader and its minister of tourism, David Collado, with both making it clear that the Dominican Republic’s tourism sector was ‘at its best.’ The August arrival numbers eclipsed the arrival numbers of 124,563 for the same month in 2019. As well, Collado pointed out that if the 94,792 cruise passengers who visited the country last month are added to these...
Travel Edge Network Launches Edge Advantage
Travel Edge Network has launched Edge Advantage as part of its ongoing efforts to provide training and education for travel advisors. Customized to the needs of the network, Edge Advantage is ideal for both new-to-business advisors as well as for tenured advisors who may need training in limited areas. For example, the Build Your Business program on website development has been in high demand with tenured advisors who have not yet taken the leap to move their business online. There are also live quarterly Bootcamp training programs with the Directors of Hotel, Air, Insurance,...