News that has caught Chris' eye in the Travel World

Top City Destinations (5 October, 2017)

Mastercard's 2017 Global Destination Cities Index has just been published. This ranks 132 top destination cities by visitor volume and spending. For the second year in a row, Bangkok is poised to be the most popular city in the world for international travelers. The Thai capital is projected to welcome nearly 20.2 million international overnight visitors this year. Before Bangkok's two-year run in the No. 1 spot, London occupied the top ranking and London retained its No. 2 spot for the second year running, with projected arrivals topping 20 million in 2017. Paris is in third place at 16.1 million visitors and Dubai comes in at No. 4, very close behind. Singapore rounds out the Top 5 for arrivals. The top US destination is New York, which comes in sixth.

Cuba open for business (25 September, 2017)

The Canadian government has lifted its travel advisories for Havana and Varadero in Cuba after a swift and effective response to Hurricane Irma. Eloy Govea, Director for Canada for the Cuba Tourist Board, and a previous guest on the Travel Show, says “The retraction of the travel advisories for Havana and Varadero is really a reflection of how Cubans have banded together to get life back on track. We are pleased that the Canadian government is confident in the safety of our destinations and look forward to showcasing Canadian travellers the spirit of Cuba once again.”

This is good news indeed and Canadian travel and tour operators have resumed flights and activities in Havana, Varadero and Holguin. Only the destinations of Cayo Coco and Cayo Santa Maria continue their recovery and they should be available for winter sun vacations again very soon.

Reflection on recent natural disasters (20 September, 2017)

Tragically, there has been a sequence of disasters in some of the southbound sun destinations that we Canadians are so fond of travelling to, especially in our colder weather. Mexico has suffered not one, but two deadly earthquakes within two weeks of each other and of course the relentless succession of hurricanes across the Caribbean and the southern US States has been appalling. Some Caribbean destinations such as Dominica, St Marten, Barbuda and the Virgin Islands have been so devastated that their tourism infrastructure will take a long while to rebuild. For these destinations, all we can do as travellers is perhaps to donate what we can in terms of money and time to the relief efforts now underway. But for most of the other destinations, such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Mexico, Texas and Florida, the best support we can provide is our continued vacation travel to our favourite destinations down south. The clean-up and repairs will be completed and they will need our business this winter like never before. We will be doing our bit by covering some of these destinations on the Travel Show in the next few months.