Did you know: When the Kettle Valley Railway arrived in 1915, West Summerland (BC) was formed and when Highway 97 moved up to the plateau in 1955, the “West” was dropped and the entire area was then called Summerland.
To hijack a popular phrase, behind every successful traveller is a travel consultant. Busy people need a professional not just for guidance in travel choices, but to sort out all the complications during and after the trip. Those are "the things we do for love" at The Travel Group.
We treasure our clients - some of whom we have been fortunate enough to work with our whole career; and many we are working with into their retirement. When the pandemic hit, we spent the first few months working on refunds, insurance claims, and sorting out future travel...
As if you didn't have enough reasons to work with a trusted travel advisor, here's another reason. A lot of people are being misled by "fake reviews" in rating sites like Yelp, Trip Advisor, Google, etc.
On May 5th we celebrate National Travel Advisor Day! Don't let life escape you, travel well and travel often. And, when you book with a travel advisor, we help you do just that.
The pandemic will be doing more than changing our lives, it will change our travel patterns forever. Let's hope that's true, at least.
This is the first in a series of articles I am writing on the subject of positive ways travel may change due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I write this, we are on month #11 of the almost complete shut-down of the world tourism industry. As devastating as this crisis has been on the travel and tourism business, it can be viewed as an opportunity for a "reboot...
Some of our clients are asking if people are travelling again. Surprisingly, more people are flying places than you might expect – albeit mostly within Canada. Few are flying for the fun of it – mostly people are travelling on essential business or for urgent friends-and-family issues. That being said, many savvy travellers are taking advantage of future deals and the temporary...
In mid-July, two consultants from our offiice were invited to join media on an Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Edmonton in order to (a) experience flying during the COVD-19 period, and (b) try out Air Canada's brand, new Airbus 220 aircraft, which was developed in Canada by Bombarier.
The aircraft is beautiful; more spaceous in terms of seat pitch and aisle width than the 737 Max. Overhead bins rival the large ones on the Max and the Dreamliner, so far less chance of having to compete with a hundred other passengers...
So far, our articles on the future of travel (Airports, Airlines, Hotels, Cruise Lines) have been speculative in nature. Our final one on Tourism in the future is aspirational. How would we like to see tourism evolve?
First, a short editorial. Borders are starting to re-open; hotels and airlines are starting to ramp up. But tourism will...
As in the past articles, let’s dispense with what cruises will be like in the short term after the COVID-19 crisis dies down. Lots of articles have already been written about this; and everyone knows that - like airlines and hotels - cruise lines will be going out of their way to make...
We have referred to Airports as the gatekeepers and Airlines as the vehicle getting travellers back on the road. Now we come to Hotels, which are also a critical part of the journey. For many people the hotel/resort is the destination; but whether business trip or vacation, travel as we know it cannot resume until hotels re-open. Currently in Canada, up to 95% of hotel rooms are unavailable due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The situation...
In our third article we tackle the big kahuna – airline travel in the future. Until consumers feel safe and confident about getting on an airplane, it doesn’t matter when the rest of the world opens up again for travel. If we see airports as the “gate keepers,” the key to getting this show back on the road, airlines are the vehicle driving business to the rest of...
You might think that the logical place to start this series of articles about travel in the future would be airlines. After all, you won’t be taking that cruise, staying at a resort, or doing a business meeting in a far-away city without the airline. And a lot of media attention has already been on the steps airlines are taking to reassure...
Even before Marco Polo, human beings have had the irresistible urge to travel.That’s why the Polynesians colonized the islands of the South Pacific, why our indigenous people crossed the Bering Sea, and why early humans migrated out of Africa to populate the entire planet.It’s in our DNA to travel and explore new places....
When I was growing up in Southern Ontario, Prince Edward County (PEC) was a sleepy farming community with a few small villages and towns that no one had any particular reason to visit. In the past decade, however, Prince Edward County, located about 200 km east of Toronto and 200 km west of Montreal, has become a first class tourist destination, as well as a home of some very promising new wineries.
