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Canadian Resort & Travel Association

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'The whole country is not on fire': Canadian tourism industry struggles as fires rage

Source: Canadian Press News

Beth Potter, president of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, says there are direct effects for certain tourist areas when bad weather hits.

But she says the biggest challenge is that many international visitors see a headline about wildfires in one part of Canada and don't understand that they are having no impact on most of the country.

Potter says she heard from tourism operators in southwestern Ontario last summer about cancellations due to fires largely more than 3,500 kilometres away in British Columbia.

Canada’s tourism sector rolls out road map to boost visitor numbers to pre-pandemic levels

Source: Global News

The tourism industry rolled out a road map Thursday it hopes will bring more visitors to Canada after the bruising it took during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the country’s largest annual tourism convention being held in Edmonton, Destination Canada and the federal government unveiled a plan that aims to extend the travel season, increase the length of stays and attract more locals, foreigners and business people to a broader range of sites.

Google Unveils Gemini’s New Trip Planning Capabilities

Source: Phocuswire

A day after OpenAI announced its newest artificial intelligence model, Google unveiled big changes to its search engine among numerous other AI-driven product updates that include new trip-planning capabilities that travel insiders are already saying could represent an improvement in the sector.

 Gemini Advanced, Google’s premium AI chatbot service, already had the attention of travel thought leaders. Tuesday’s product updates at the company’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, showed how Gemini Advanced can use spatial data and reasoning to prioritize and make decisions while building a personal itinerary.

Mexico’s building tourism infrastructure

Source: Travel Weekly

With major highway, airport and rail projects coming online at the same time, Mexico is preparing for the benefits and drawbacks of a rapid influx of travelers to formerly off-the-beaten-path destinations.

The Oaxaca highway was one of the infrastructure projects that debuted in Mexico starting at the end of 2023 and into this year and also include a new international airport in Tulum, the launch of the Tren Maya and a highway connecting Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta.

The projects are expected to help disperse tourism from Mexico’s most popular destinations, which are more crowded than ever.

US President Joe Biden Signs New $105 Billion FAA Reauthorization Law

Source: TravelPulse

According to Reuters.com, the legislation includes several key regulations for U.S. airlines, including prohibiting carriers from charging fees for families to sit together, requiring planes to install 25-hour cockpit recording devices, and increasing maximum civil penalties for airline consumer violations.

The legislation prioritizes investments that will strengthen aviation safety, boost consumer protections, grow the aviation safety workforce, advance technology and innovation, and modernize the national airspace system into the future.

U.S. airlines sue the Biden administration over fee-disclosure rule

Source: Travel Weekly

U.S. airlines are suing to block the Biden administration from requiring greater transparency over fees that the carriers charge their passengers, saying that a new rule would confuse consumers by giving them too much information during the ticket-buying process.

The U.S. Transportation Department said Monday it will vigorously defend the rule against what it called "hidden junk fees."

How airports, including Canada’s busiest, are adapting to travel’s ‘new normal’

Source: Toronto Star

The pandemic marked a dividing line with the industry finding itself in a new normal. Different people — ‘bleisure’ travellers, experience-seekers, Generation Z — are travelling to different destinations (conferences, leisure capitals and the sunny south). The International Air Transport Association forecasts that in 2024, airlines will make $25.7-billion (U.S.) in profits on a record $964-billion (U.S.) in revenue. It expects most regions will have hit pre-pandemic passenger levels by mid-2024.

State Of Florida Says First-Quarter Tourism Set Record

Source: Tampa Free Press

Florida announced record tourism numbers for the first quarter of 2024, as totals for international visitors continue to move closer to pre-pandemic levels. Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said Thursday an estimated 40.6 million people traveled to Florida during the first three months of the year, a 1.2 percent increase from the same period in 2023. The state also issued revisions that increased totals for all of 2023.

The first-quarter numbers for this year were dominated by an estimated 37.187 million people traveling to Florida from other states, the most ever for a single quarter. An estimated 2.13 million overseas travelers and 1.284 million Canadian visitors also traveled to the state.

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