NYC ON SALE...STAR BLOGGING FROM IRELAND...KUDOS TO TORONTO

Hot on the heels of a hotwire.com report that noted many hotel prices in New York this month are about one-third cheaper than a year ago comes news that a slew of luxury hotels in Manhattan are putting on a sale of their own.

NYC & Company, the marketing/tourism organization for the city of New York, says eight luxury hotels are offering a stay two nights (in a row) and get one free deal between July 1 and Sept. 7. The package is available at the Carlyle, Jumeirah Essex House, Loews Regency, the London NYC, the New York Palace, the Plaza, the Sherry-Netherland and the fabled Waldorf-Astoria.

As well, Saks Fifth Avenue is taking part in the deal by offering a VIP shopping package to Third Night guests, a deal that includes personal shopping at the Fifth Avenue Club, special savings and complimentary coffee and dessert at Saks Fifth Avenue's Cafe SFA, which overlooks Rockefeller Center (look, there's Tina Fey!) and the Channel gardens.

For information, go to nycgo.com/thirdnight.

STAR MOVIES EDITOR ON LOCATION IN IRELAND

It's no fun doing a travel blog on your own. So I'm happy to welcome a fellow traveller, if you will. Star Movies Editor Linda Barnard, who's a dynamite reporter and a damned fun person to hang around with, is on holidays in Ireland and is typing up a terrific blog as she goes.

In the interests of cross-promotion and giving you readers a variety of voices, I'm posting a link to her blog. Hope you enjoy it.

TORONTO ON THE MOVE

A new ranking of "global city images" has put Toronto in a comfortable spot. But with some room for improvement.

A GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media study released Tuesday (June 16) found that the top cities in terms of their overall "brand" was Paris. followed by Sydney, London (ooh, the Aussies come out ahead of the Brits; they'll love that Down Under), Rome, New York, Barcelona, San Francisco, Los Angeles (heh, heh; San Franciscans LOVE to lord it over L.A.), Vienna and Madrid.

Simon Anholt, founder of the City Brands Index, says it measures the "world's perception of each city, which influences people's choice on where to live, work and vacation." The ranking is based on a survey in which respondents from 20 major countries are asked to rate 50 cities. The ranking is developed by averaging city scores on six categories:

- presence (the knowledge of a city and perception of its global contribution);

- place (cleanliness, aesthetic qualities and climate);

- pre-requisites (affordable accomodations and quality of public amenities);

- people (friendliness, personal encounters and cultural diversity);

- pulse (interesting events, activities and lifestyles); and,

- potential (perception as good place to do business, to find a job and go to school).

Toronto finished 13th overall in the CBI, which is pretty good and, frankly, probably about where we should be given the categories. We certainly don't win any points for climate, and our aesthetic qualities have only recently begun to show up on the world's radar screen thanks to the ROM, the AGO and other architectural delights. Most folks around the globe aren't likely to put Toronto high on a list for global contributions given Canada's size and all. I suspect folks around the world don't know much about things like Luminato or the Pride parade or maybe even the film festival, so perhaps our "pulse" could improve.

The study found that in terms of presence, the top three were London, New York and Paris. On place brand, it went Sydney, Rome, Paris. On pre-requisities, Toronto came out in the number two spot, defeated only by Sydney (hey, anyone from the Pan American Games evaluation group paying attention?), with Amsterdam third.  Vancouver was sixth in that category, by the way.

On people, we again came out second only to Sydney (damned Aussies!), but ahead of the third place folks from Melbourne. On pulse, Toronto didn't make the top 10 (Paris, New York and Rome were 1-2-3). Nor did we score a top 10 finish in the potential category (London, New York and Sydney had top spots).

Officials couldn't tell me where, in fact, Toronto finished in terms of presence, place, pulse or potential; only that it wasn't in the top 10.

Still, 13th in the world isn't bad. Vancouver came 18th, which was the only other Canadian city they were able to tell me about. And at least we know what we have to work on, right?