Destinations
Edith Baxter: ‘She Had The Irie Of Jamaica In Her Heart’
In his opening remarks at the 2023 Edith Baxter Memorial Award Luncheon at the Toronto Region Board of Trade on Sept. 22, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, the Honourable Edmund Bartlett told those attending that “we are all gifted” and have a special role to play in using those gifts to spread happiness when travelling the world. Minister Bartlett continued that “one of the greatest gifts that brought us here today is Edith Baxter,” observing that “Jamaica was in her heart and that’s the Irie of Jamaica and Edith Baxter had it in her heart.” The Tourism...
Miami Offers Visitors More Than One Experience
Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau temporarily enabled some Toronto women to become bag ladies. And as well enabled some men in the Ontario capital to also use tote bags to demonstrate their creativity, and in doing so, innovatively underscored the artistic side of Miami, said bureau spokeswoman Suzie Sponder. Sponder recently led a Miami delegation to Toronto that included Pedro Amos of Miami's Best Graffiti Guide, who invited those attending the evening to use spray paint to aesthetically decorate provided bags, the sort of imagination that is routinely on display in...
Jamaica Targets 500,000 Canadian Arrivals By 2025
Describing it as an “ambitious but achievable” target, Jamaica's Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, is pushing for 500,000 visitors to Jamaica from Canada by 2025. Minister Bartlett made the disclosure ahead of his arrival in Canada on September 19, where he will be joined by senior tourism officials on a five-day ‘winter marketing blitz’ as Jamaica seeks to engage critical travel partners in the Greater Toronto Area. Said the Minister: “We have an overarching goal to welcome 5 million visitors and earn 5 billion dollars in tourism revenue by 2025. Canada is our...
Tourism New Zealand Seeking Qualified Advisors
Tourism New Zealand is inviting qualified travel advisors to a morning filled with destination training, New Zealand cuisine, experiential activities and some amazing trip giveaways. It is designed to convert travellers’ bucket list intentions to actual bookings. The date for this event is Sept. 28 from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm, at a Vancouver venue in the South Granville region. The venue information and parking details (no charge) will be forwarded upon confirmation of attendance by the travel advisor. At each of these events, Tourism New Zealand will host a targeted handful of...
Bermuda Is Special And It’s Time To Discover Why
As Tracy Berkeley sees it, Bermuda has everything that the post-COVID traveller is looking for. “I think there has been a lot of pent-up demand to travel and to be perfectly honest, people are not concerned about the price point,” observed Berkeley, CEO of the Bermuda Tourism Authority (BTA), before continuing: “What they’re more concerned about is the experience and the product offering… as long as those three things align, people walk away with expectations met or exceeded.” “If there’s no ease to get to a destination and the product does not provide what the...
Loreto Celebrates Added Lift From WestJet
Westerners will have an easier time to get to Loreto as WestJet will offer weekly nonstop seasonal service from Calgary International Airport (YYC) to Baja Sur Loreto starting Nov. 3. Flights can be booked through www.westjet.com. Running through April 26, the nonstop flights will operate once a week and depart Calgary at 10:25 AM local time and arrive in Loreto by 1:25 pm local time. The returning flight will depart Loreto at 2:30 PM local time and arrive back in Calgary at 7:27pm local time. The flight times allow for additional time for same day connecting flights from across...
JAPEX 2023 Continues On A High Note
With Jamaica poised to have its best year ever for visitor arrivals, minister of tourism Edmund Bartlett is upbeat about tourism to the destination. “We are 5% ahead over 2019 in terms of visitor arrivals. Expectation is that we will end the year at some 2.8-2.9 million visitors, which will be just shy of 200,000 more than 2019, which is our best year in the history of tourism,” Bartlett said addressing the media during the Jamaica Product Exchange (JAPEX) underway this week in Montego Bay. Notably, Bartlett said this fall will see 1.1 million seats to the destination, “the...
JAPEX 2023 Kicks Off In Montego Bay
The Jamaica Product Exchange (JAPEX) is officially underway in Montego Bay — marking the first time Jamaica’s biggest inbound travel industry conference is being staged in person since 2019. “I want to say firstly how very happy I am to be with you together again, having been together apart for more than two years,” Jamaica’s minister of tourism Edmund Bartlett noted during a welcome reception at CHUKKA Ocean Outpost at Sandy Bay. “Jamaica today boasts of a recovery that is the number one in the entire English speaking Caribbean.” Over 235 delegates representing 20...