Canada ranks 18th in world as tourism brand; USA takes home the gold medal

Earlier this year, a group called Future Brand released its annual "Country Brand Index" that rates countries according to their key attributes. They gave Canada the number two spot on the planet in terms of a tourism brand, putting behind only Switzerland.

The third, fourth and fifth spots in the Future Brand report went to Japan, Sweden and New Zealand.

It was a slight drop for Canada, as we finished tops in the Country Brand Index in 2010 and 2011.

But now there's a new report out by a compnay called Bloom Consulting, called the Country Branding Ranking. It would require a degree in something I don't understand to figure out how it's different from Future Brand's report, but one thing they say is that take a ton of factors into account and also that they're the only ones in this business (and I guess there is one) that takes tourist demand into account.

Readers of this blog will remember, perhaps, that Canada has slipped a fair bit in terms of international arrivals the last few years and is no longer in the top ten. Canada ranked seventh in international arrivals in 2007, but the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) recently stated we're now 18th.

And 18th is exactly where we stand in the world in the new Bloom Consulting report, which attempts to measure how much revenue a country could potentially add to its economy via trade and tourism.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's the Bloom report's top 20:

1. United States 2. Spain 3. France 4. China 5. Turkey 6. Thailand 7. Germany 8. Macau 9. United Kingdom 10. Australia 11. Austria 12. Italy 13. Hong Kong 14. Malaysia 15. Netherlands 16. Mexico 17. Switzerland 18. Canada 19. Croatia 20. Russian Federation

So at least we finished ahead of Russia. Let's hope that continues at the World Junior Hockey Championships, eh?

Here are a few other notables: 21. Portugal, 233. India, 24. Greece 25. Republic of Korea 28. Japan 32. Ireland.

The bottom ten? Here ya go: 152. Tajikistan (there goes my holiday plan) 153. Swaziland 154. Federation States of Micronesia 155. Sao Tome and Principe 156. Djibouti 157. Tonga 158. Kiribati 159. Papua New Guinea 160. Burundi and, at the bottom: 161. Marshall Islands (see photo at left, which looks pretty damn good to me).

Asia had eight countries in the top 25. Japan wasn't in that group due to the residual effects of the tsunami.

I don't remember seeing this report last year, but I found a website that shows the 2011 Bloom rankings, and Canada was 23rd. So I guess we're moving in the right direction. The U.S. was first last year as well, followed by Spain, France, Germany and the UK.

Bloom on Thursday also released a U.S. state by state analysis (plus D.C., for 51 ranking spots). Tops was California, no surprise given the plethora of things to do, followed by Florida and New York. Illinois was fourth and then it went Texas, Michigan (good to see), Georgia, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Colorado.

The bottom five were: 47. Kansas 48. Vermont (a surprise to me) 49. West Virginia 50. Rhode Island and 51. Delaware. Poor Delaware. Makes me think I should do a trip there sometime and see for myself.

DO WE HATE OUR FAMILIES OR SOMETHING?

Geez. A study by Cheapflights.ca finds that more than 80 per cent of Canadians want to travel tos ee family this Christmas, but less than 30 per cent have actually made travel plans.

Given the economy that might not be surprising.

Based on answers from more than 400 Canadians, the survey also found that just over 18 per cent of us wish we could travel to ESCAPE our family, though only 3.2 per cent of us actually are doing so.

Parents and children topped the list of fave family members to see, while in-laws, shockingly, were at the bottom, with less than two per cent of folks having them on their holiday travel wish-list.

More than 12 per cent of survey respondents said they will avoid seeing their brother or sister. But, just to end this on a nice note, 23 per cent said there were NO relatives they wanted to avoid.

HOTEL OMNI MONT-ROYAL IMPROVEMENTS

The folks at the Hotel Omni Mont-Royal (in Montreal, of course) say they've undergone a "spectacular" $20 million transformation.

Officials said it involved a "complete re-design and refurbishment of its facilities, including all 200 guest rooms and suites" and a new lobby, which now features "an upscale lounge bar and restaurant."

Other amenities include an outdoor pool (for summer, naturally) and "state of the art" fitness centre. They also have added Italian marble bathrooms and 42-inch LCD flat screen TV's.

They say rooms have views of either Mont-Royal Park or the Montreal skyline.

AIR CANADA ADDS VIRTUAL HOLD

This oughta help a few folks. Air Canada sent me a note today to say that what they call "virtual hold" has now rolled out at their call centres in Canada and the U.S. and is currently offered for general reservations and web support services.

“"With this new product, customers are now given an estimated wait time and the option of a call-back rather than remaining on hold," officials said.

Here's what they said about it in an employee newsletter: "Virtual Hold certainly helps alleviate customer frustration from being on hold indefinitely.  The estimated wait time information and option to continue on hold or have a call-back is very much appreciated by our customers - especially during irregular operations. Our IT team worked tirelessly for several months upon months to overcome the multiple challenges of installing new technology on a legacy phone system. The next step is to add a service where customers can schedule a call back time. Call Centres continues to focus on reducing the amount of time customers wait with ongoing hiring and implementation of technology and process improvements."

JAUNT.CA DEAL OF THE DAY

Jaunt.ca, a division of Torstar, has a two-for-one Avalon River Cruise special that's exclusive to Jaunt. It's a cruise through central Europe's capital cities on the Avalon Tranquility and it's going for $1,633 plus $133 in taxes for a total of $1,766.

Here are the highlights:

• BONUS: Two for One: for every one person (paid in full), the second traveller's cruise is FREE (reflected in the pricing)
• 12-day River Cruise and stay along the Danube River, starting in Budapest and ending in Prague
• Includes the following ports of call with daily sightseeing programs in: Budapest, Hungary; Bratislava, Slovakia; Vienna, Austria; Krems, Austria; Melk, Austria; Grein, Austria; Passau, Germany; and Prague, Czech Republic
• Accommodations in a Deluxe Outside Stateroom, located on the Indigo Deck (Category E) featuring twin windows. Upgraded cabin categories with French Balconies available at 1.855.GO.JAUNT
• Includes all meals on the ship, complimentary sparkling wine with breakfast, soft drinks with lunch, and wine, beer, or soft drinks with dinner
• 2 nights' accommodations in Prague at the InterContinental

More details:

• For every traveller paid in full another traveller's cruise is free
• The tour employs local guides so you have the best exposure to the places visited
• The cruise visits renowned capitals and lesser known destinations

Offer Details

• Valid for travel on April 11, 2013 sailing
• Pricing (per person, based on double occupancy, plus port charges)
  
  Deluxe Outside Stateroom (Category E)
  $1632.50 per person, double occupancy
  Tax: $133
  
• Valid passport required for travel from Canada
• This offer is 100% non-refundable at time of booking

 

 

 

 

World Travel and Tourism session puts focus on recovering, lovely Japan

This special report comes from Star Travel correspondent Bert Archer in Japan....

Every year for the past 12, about a thousand executives, entrepreneurs and other travel and tourism players get together for the annual summit of the World Travel and Tourism Council [http://www.wttc.org/our-mission/] to discuss the issues. Airline CEOs talk about taxes, hotel CEOs talk about occupancy rates, and for the past few years, everyone’s been talking about China.

But this year, the summit was held in Japan, and the increasingly global travel community found itself facing disaster, crisis management, and the role tourism can play in getting a nation back on its feet.

To drive the point home, the first two days of the summit were held in Sendai, the nearest major city to the epicentre of the earthquake the hit the nation on March 11, 2011. It’s the city whose airport got washed away, the one where those videos of cars being carried down the streets were filmed. It’s the city where on the day of the quake, news reporters were unable to reach anyone with a working phone or Internet connection.

Almost exactly 13 months later, on April 16, I took a bullet train from Tokyo to Sendai, passing through Fukushima (see temple photo at left), which is just one stop before Sendai on the northeastern line. I was sitting across the aisle from a couple of American seniors, both of us with cameras in our laps, looking for signs of the triple disaster we’d seen such vivid images of.

The cameras stayed in our laps.

As the train roared through town after town, city after city at its customary 300 km/h, there was nothing to see but workaday bustling. No damage, no rubble, not even any telltale vacant lots. When I heard Fukushima announced on the PA system, I expected some comment, perhaps a radiation warning, maybe a deserted train station. But it bustled like all the rest, the radiation, limited to a 20km radius around the nuclear plant, which was way out of town. A few people wore little cotton facemasks, but that was just because it was cold and flu season.

Between sessions in Sendai, I walked around the city, where hundreds had died that day. Business as usual. Most of the damage had been in the coastal area, but even the port had re-opened for business as early as April 16, 2011. The city centre’s a few kilometres from the coast, so I took the train to Matsushima Bay [http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/miyagi/matusima.html], a little north of Sendai and one of Japan’s designated three most scenic spots, with its 260 islands, some no bigger than boulders, but each with its own mythological or poetic significance. Right on the coast, 8 people were killed when the tsunami hit  this small town of 16,000. The commercial strip, with its walk-up barbeque windows, souvenir shops and a string of restaurants specializing in Matsushima Bay oysters, is right on the water. Famous in Japan, these oysters are enormous – the one I had was four or five times the size or your average Malpeque, and the only one I’ve eaten in my life that seemed like it had been an actual creature rather than a serving of lemon-flavoured phlegm on a half shell. It had been more protected than many spots, with those islands shielding some of the torrent, but once again, with the exception of a single sushi restaurant that looked like it was just finishing up some extensive renovations, not a sign that anything untoward had happened as I walked down the scenic sidewalk, its blue Tsunami warning stickers still in place.

This is not to say that everything is hunky dory in northeastern Japan, nor that the country has completely recovered. But what I can tell you, and what the WTTC conference hoped to underline, is that the north is not a wasteland, that it is, in fact, with its cherry blossoms, its coastline, its temples and its extraordinary cuisine (Sendai is known for its beef tongue, which was good enough to make me break my usual no-tongue-in-my-mouth-that-hasn’t-bought-me-dinner-first rule), open for business and ready for travellers.

To make part of the point, Norifumi Idee, commissioner with the Japan Tourism Agency, put some results up on a screen of a study he had commissioned to measure the background radiation in Japan and other parts of the world. On the day the readings were taken, April 10, 2012, Sendai had 0.060 microsieverts per hour of background radiation. Tokyo has 0.051 and Okinawa 0.022. New York, by contrast, has 0.094, Singapore had 0.07 and Paris 0.054. Ontario’s average readings for this past March were as much as 6 times higher than Sendai’s. For some more context, you’d be exposed to about 40 microsieverts of radiation on an average cross-country flight [http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/blog/?p=511].

So, it’s safe to go to Japan, even to Fukushima, if you like. But safety is the least of the reasons for going. There are the usual reasons: the aforementioned temples, cherry blossoms, etc. The fact that Japan has more three-star Michelin restaurants than France, and that even an average sushi bar will re-calibrate your notion of sushi goodness. But maybe the best reason of all to go is the fact that it has cost, and is still costing, about $120 billion to make Japan run again. And with China eating its industrial lunch, tourism is playing an ever greater role in its economy. And as the stream of executives, from rail companies, hotel chains and airlines made clear, though domestic tourism is back to its pre-quake levels, there is still a pervasive notion that Japan is off limits among the international traveling community.

This is the real lasting damage the country’s suffering. Even the prime minister came to dinner when the summit moved to Tokyo (see photo at left) to plead his case. They all began by thanking the world for its generous support after the disaster with a grace only the Japanese can pull off. And they all ended with an invitation to visit, the implications of which were clear. Cheques and foreign aid disbursements are wonderful, but what really gets a nation back on its feet is business, and tourism’s one of the best.

It's 2012 travel list time & Lonely Planet goes goofy ... Also Berlin/Vienna news

There's frost on the pumpkin here in Toronto and that can only mean we're getting close to the year-end. And that can only mean it's time for more travel lists.

I like Lonely Planet a lot. I know they've kinda taken over the world, but you can't fault them for putting out good guides.

I do, however, have to wonder about their latest group of lists. They sent me an item today to say that their top 10 cities for 2012 travel are London, Muscat (Oman), Bengaluru (India), Cadiz (Spain), Stockholm, Guimaraes (Portugal), Santiago (Chile), Hong Kong, Orlando and Darwin.

You can always argue with things like that. I don't know where Bengaluru came from and I don't know Guimaraes at all. I kinda like that they chose Orlando, which is featured in Star Travel this Saturday and has a lot more going for it than the Mouse.

But the Lonely Planet folks also sent me their list of best-value destinations for 2012, and it's quite, well, stupid. They have a heading on the press release that says the following: "If past years (or recessions) have sucked up your travel budget, plan smart and get more bang for your buck in 2012)."

They then go on to list, in the number one spot for VALUE, the NorthEast USA. Yep, the home of New York City and Boston, two of the pricier cities on the continent.

Number two is more like it: Tajikistan, followed by Lesotho (see photo below) and the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Number five? SAN FRANCISCO!!!!

I adore San Francisco. It's a fabulous place. But VALUE?

I guess you could argue that any city that great is worth the price, so it's a good deal. San Francisco has tons to offer and you CAN find cheap places to eat and great places to wander for free. Ditto for New York. But hotels in both cities are pricey, and neither is a destination most folks would consider as "great value," at least not in the traditional way of thinking of the phrase.

I mean, if you put Lesotho in there and Tajikistan, you clearly don't mean high-end, popular destinations that cost a fair bit but still deliver a strong punch.

The six through 10 spots in the value destination are Japan (usually expensive but probably a better deal since the horrible tsunami they had), Ohrid in Macedonia, Merida in Mexico, Iquitos in Peru and Porto, Portugal.

I understand maybe they wanted some American destinations, but value destinations in the U.S. would, I think, be someplace like Las Vegas or maybe Austin, Texas or Myrtle Beach or Milwaukee, which, incidentally, is a pretty good town. Definitely NOT the Northeast USA or San Francisco.

While we're on the subject of lists, here's what the folks at Frommers have said about top destinations for 2012: Curacao, Chongqing  (China), Fukuoka (Japan), Beirut, Ghana, London's Greenwich neighbourhood, Girona (Spain), Kansas City (not a bad town, either), the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and, finally, The Bay of Fundy. They listed the Bay of Fundy as being in Nova Scotia, which is partly correct, and say they choose it because it's a "quiet, charming area; perfect for recharging your batteries."

BERLIN AND VIENNA JOIN FORCES

One is known as an edgy city with plenty of history. The other is known as a quiet, historic city with more energy than you might expect.

They make a good couple, Berlin (see photo) and Vienna. So much so that they've joined forces and are marketing themselves together as tourist destinations.

"In Europe we're competitors but not here," Burkhard Kieker, CEO of Visit Berlin, told me over breakfast the other day. "Vienna has old style from the empire but also a great savoir vivre. Berline is edgy but it's the focal point of a lot of history with a young and vibrant crowd."

"Our cities are similar enough and different enough to make the perfect match," said Norbert Kettner, managing director of the Vienna Tourism Board.

Kieker said the two cities are only an hour apart by plane and flights cost as little as 29 Euros.

There are no direct flights from Toronto to Berlin right now, Kieker said, but Berlin will open a new airport next June and he hopes to have service restored and that Berlin will turn into a major European airport hub.

Vienna is an historic and a beautiful city, said Kettner. But it's also got plenty of galleries and nightspots and edginess to it.

"We're old-school but not old-fashioned."

Kieker said world war sites are popular in Berlin but the city is trying to be careful.

"We don't want to do a Nazi Disneyland," he said.

Kieker said Jewish life is increasingly vibrant in Berlin and that his city is the number one foreign destination for Israelis.

The two cities began their joint marketing in Brazil earlier this year and continued it this week in Toronto with a couple media events.

 

 

 

Japan quake/tsunami disaster hurts Japan tourism, but also the rest of the world

It's obvious that the earthquake and tsunami have had a major impact on Japan. Tourists are understandably not booking week-long trips to the battered nation. Cruise ships have pulled out in favour of longer stays in other parts of Asia.

It's sad, but that makes sense given the scale of the disaster. What some folks may not have thought about early on is the reverse flow, that is, how the troubles in Japan will impact on visits from Japanese tourists.

Hawaii already is feeling the pinch. Some folks (possibly with overactive imaginations) fear radioactive fallout in the Hawaiian islands from Japan's damaged nuclear reactors.  A larger concern is that Japanese, who are big spenders outside their home country, are cancelling trips to stay at home, as cnn.com points out. Other Asian travelers can't connect through Tokyo the way they used to, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Here's what the Honolulu paper had to say "'Starwood Hotels & Resorts anticipates bookings for April and May in Waikiki will come in 25 percent to 30 percent lower than anticipated,' said Keith Vieira, senior vice president and director of operations for Starwood Hotels & Resorts in Hawaii and French Polynesia. The chain has experienced thousands of cancellations, especially on the group side, from Japan, Vieira said. The Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa, the Hilton Hawaiian Village and Outrigger Hotels & Resorts also have reported significant Japan decreases."

If it happens in Hawaii, chances are it will happen here, too, which means we could see a serious decrease in Japanese visitors to places such as Banff, Niagara Falls and, yes, even Anne of Green Gables country in Prince Edward Island.

The latest Conference Board of Canada report, issued Monday, suggested a downturn in Japanese visits was expected and also noted the sharp rise in visits to Canada from India and China. The latter two developments are good news but I believe the volume of visits from China is still fairly low, and it's doubtful that overseas visit increases will make up for the bad news from Japan. Not to mention increasing fuel costs and other issues.

 

 

Torontonian leaves Tokyo for safety of Hong Kong - wonders when he'll go back

Canadian journalist C. James Dale continues his fine reporting/blogging from Asia in this report from Hong Kong, where he landed the other day after finally making the decision to leave his home in Tokyo. He and his wife are staying with friends in Hong Kong.

After clocking eleven hours of sleep from Friday until Tuesday, an eight-hour slumber felt like an unearned extravagance. Breakfast was spent checking the news, checking on friends in Japan, and giving technical advice to a colleague who was about to interview survivors of Hiroshima's atomic bombing (they, like many Japanese, are experiencing this nuclear emergency on a deeper social level, given that their country is the only nation in the world to have lived through a nuclear attack).           

Even when my wife and I headed out to get some groceries for our hosts here in Hong Kong, we couldn't escape what was happening in our second home. We bumped into Chris Yates, a Toronto native who has been living in Tokyo for more than a decade. He and his wife had been watching this story unfold, wondering if things would get better or worse. The decision to leave happened quickly. 
       

      "I woke up in the morning and knew we had to go, so we booked a flight for that afternoon," he said.

They're now staying with his brother and are supposed to return to Tokyo on Sunday. But as with so many things related to this complicated crisis, there's a sense of uncertainty.
       

     "I lived there 11 years and I don't know when we're going to go back," he said sadly.

Chris is one of many ex-pats who have fled Japan reluctantly. But there are many more who have chosen to stay, like David P., who wrote to me saying he was surprised to hear I’d left.

     "There is no danger whatsoever here, nor was there yesterday. I was really disgusted by the way ignorant users of social media whipped up hysteria," he said. "The panic and hysteria is more dangerous than the actual threat in Tokyo."

Perhaps there’s some truth to that. But what I’ve told David, Chris, and several others these past 24 hours, one's reasons for getting out of (possible) harm's way are varied, complex, and ultimately personal. When we’re faced with threats both natural and unnatural, we should support and respect a person’s need to do what feels right for them. 
       

Having said that, I’ve been actively pressuring a friend who has stayed behind in Tokyo to come join us in Hong Kong. She won’t leave because she fears she’ll lose her job, and as a journalist she is driven to cover the story, but she wants to get away, at least for a weekend.
       

     “I am starting to get physically affected from the emotional turmoil of having to continuously present news about devastation, death tolls and problems at the nuclear plant so close to home,” she wrote, while at the same time noting that many Japanese are far worse off. Instead of coming here, she’s heading to Kobe for the weekend.
       

My wife and I have been worrying about work too, but another companion from Tokyo is trying to cheer us up.
       

     "Please don't even think about your job,” Sarah Krull wrote from Berlin. “Health and safety are more important."

I told you Sarah’s story in this blog a few days ago. She left for Germany earlier this week and had a painful parting with her fiancé, Masa, who felt an obligation to stay with his parents. But now that things have changed in Japan, he’s decided to head to Europe to be with his future wife. I don’t imagine they’re debating whether his decision is being driven by panic, hysteria, or good sense. They just know they want to be together during these trying times.

Star Travel man escapes from Tokyo, safe in Hong Kong. But the guilt lingers

This is a report from C. James Dale, a frequent contributor to the Star's Travel section, both online and in print. He's been living in Tokyo and files this report, post-earthquake/tsunami.

HONG KONG – When you’ve had an earthquake-tsunami-nuclear threat kind of few days, you get a good idea of who your friends are pretty quickly.

I’m writing from the guest bedroom of a cozy apartment in this city’s leafy Pok Fu Lam neighbourhood as my wife enjoys some much needed down time, reading and catching up on email. We wouldn’t be here without the help and hospitality of our good friends, Peter and Helen, British natives who’ve called Hong Kong home for several years

I think this calm and quiet is what we’ve been looking after an emotional rollercoaster ride that started at 2:46 p.m. on Friday, March 11. We’re survivors of Japan’s big quake, but we’re by far the lucky ones. Lucky enough to be away from the destruction caused by the monster tsunami, or the health risk posed by some of the country’s volatile and unstable nuclear power plants.

“I can’t believe we’re out of there. I can’t believe any of this,” my wife just said to me, looking up from her magazine.

It’s something we’ve both voiced and thought many times recently, and the word “surreal” is getting a lot of play, too. How to describe that feeling of helplessness and fear as our low-rise apartment pitched back and forth like a boat in rough seas, or the anxiety generated by the constant aftershocks? As these emotions played out, they were enhanced as the sentiment in Tokyo shifted from relief to dread, thanks to those runaway nuclear reactors and to the warning by Japan’s Meteorological Agency that another earthquake could strike in the coming days.

At a certain point it became clear that many people in Tokyo, ex-pats and Japanese alike, were planning their exit. The risks seemed too great, and the images of the misery from the country’s northeast weighed heavily. The time came when we started to think about what we would do.

My wife and I had been staying with our friend, Catherine, in Tokyo’s Hiroo neighbourhood for no reason other than we felt safer watching this crisis evolve together. But soon we were checking travel websites, calling agencies, and strategizing. Should we take a high-speed train west to Osaka? Should we go somewhere else in Asia? Should we just go back to Canada?

But when you’ve been running on three hours sleep a night, making decisions is tough work. In the end, Peter and Helen made it for us. They called their travel agent in Hong Kong and had found a flight out. Were we interested? Minutes later, it was booked.

By the time we got to Tokyo's Haneda airport Tuesday morning, we were doubting ourselves, even  though we’d been woken up by an aftershock at 5 a.m. Were things really that bad in Tokyo? Yes, some food supplies were running low, but it wasn’t anything like what people have been facing in the hardest hit areas, not to mention folks looking for loved ones (see  AP photo, couresty of the Star). The “abandon ship” guilt was gnawing away at our guts. So we asked the agent at the counter if we could put our ticket on hold until Friday.

“You can, but you’ll be on the waiting list,” she said. “The flights are all filling up.”

We looked at each other and decided to go. Turns out we weren’t the only ones with conflicting emotions. Before I sat down on the plane, I met Anil Kumar, a diamond seller who’s lived in Tokyo for 30 years. He was getting a connecting flight in Hong Kong to Delhi, heading home for two weeks or a month with his 13-year-old daughter, Arisa. His wife couldn’t get a seat on the plane so she left from Narita.

“I feel like a rat. I don’t feel good about it,” he said. “It’s like leaving everything behind when actually you’re needed out here.”

But Anil said family and safety come first.

Satomi Ito also seemed worried as I talked to her on the way to customs after we landed safely in Hong Kong. She’s taking a sightseeing trip to get away from Japan for a while. “I needed a rest,” she said.

I only came to terms with my own decision to leave Japan when Peter and Helen picked us up at the airport. Another nuclear reactor had experienced an explosion, they told us. Health officials had recorded low levels of radiation in Tokyo. The airports were filling up and tickets were in short supply. Some airlines, such as Lufthansa, were avoiding Tokyo altogether.

Now it’s close to midnight and this long day is almost over. My mind is racing after the events of the past few days. I’m worried about the friends we’ve left behind in Japan, Catherine and others, my fellow journalists who are working tirelessly to cover the developments of this disaster, and of course the people who are facing hardship in the northeast.

In the end, this kind of decision is never easy. I’m just lucky to have friends, family, and a wife who have my best interests at heart. I promise to pay it forward.