Don't go packing your bags for New York just yet ... Canada gets top marks

October 31, 2012

Don't go packing your bags for New York just yet ... Canada gets top marks

The good news is JFK Airport and Newark Airport in the New York City area have reopened.

The bad news is there's still limited service. The even worse news is that LaGuardia is still a wet, watery mess (as you can see from this picture taken yesterday) and it's not clear when they'll be up and running again. Let alone the damage and blackouts in southern Manhattan...

USA Today reports the number of cancelled flights due to Hurricane/TropicalStorm/Pain-in-the-butt Sandy is nearing 19,000. No doubt the number will climb well past that by this afternoon given LaGuardia's situation and limited service in Newark and JFK.

What a mess...

ON THE OTHER HAND, GOOD NEWS FOR CANADA

In case you missed it, FutureBrand, the folks who run the Country Brand Index that rates countries according to their key attributes, have dropped Canada from the number one spot on the globe.

Canada came tops last year and the year before, but the latest rankings put Canada in the number two spot, behind Switzerland. Still, a silver medal ain't chump change, and we're ahead of third place Japan, fourth place Sweden and fifth place New Zealand.

Canadian Tourism Commission vice president Greg Klassen said there are "tremendously encouraging" bits in the report, including the strength of our ski resorts.

He also pointed to a note that Canada jumped from 25th to 10th in Heritage and Culture in the latest rankings and that Canada's culinary reputation leapt from 30th to 11th; also a key factor for incoming tourists who probably harken back to the back bacon days of Bob and Doug McKenzie.

Canada also is getting better marks in the value for money category, Klassen said.

Of course it would be better to stay as number one, but number two with some encouraging rankings is still a pretty impressive thing. It would be nice if the Canadian government would recognize those strengths and do more to help our tourism folks, however.

Posted by Jim Byers at 08:46:44 AM in airlines, canada, Current Affairs, New York, ontario, Skiing, toronto, Travel, united states

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Travel Blog by Jim Byers

Jim Byers is the Star's Travel Editor. He has been writing travel stories for more than a decade, covered five Olympic Games and spent years covering the Blue Jays, the Toronto Raptors and the PGA Tour. He's been everywhere from Bonavista to Vancouver Island, as well as China, Hong Kong, Australia, the Caribbean, Thailand, Mexico, Tahiti, New Zealand, Vietnam, a dozen countries in Europe and just about every major city in the U.S. Okay, he was only in Liechtenstein for a couple hours in a rental car and his only visit to New Orleans was when he was 12, but you get the picture.

October 31, 2012