Tourism

Wednesday May 7, 2014

Celebration Zone Versus Old Home Week

Posted by Bill van Asperen

Organizers of Old Home Week say they can't compete with free concerts from the likes of Matthew Good, Matt Anderson and Buffy Sainte-Marie. They worry 2014 celebrations will put a big hurt on their bottom line. But from the Tourism Minister's point-of-view it sounds like he's doing Old Home Week a favour booking free concerts while the celebration is on.

Angela Walker spoke with the general manager of Old Home Week, Rayanne Frizzell. Tourism Minister Robert Henderson was speaking with our legislative reporter Kerry Campbell.

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Categories: Event, Tourism

Tuesday April 1, 2014

Tourism Training - Preserving the PEI Accent

Posted by Bill van Asperen

Tourism PEI says PEI is losing its distinctive accents... and plans to train its travel counsellors to not only explain some of the Island sayings to visitors, but also to speak with a PEI accent when talking to tourists. Tourism Minister Rob Henderson joins us in the Island Morning studio.

Island Morning's Lindsay Carroll dropped into one of the training courses. It was led by the department's instructor, Frank Gallant.

We also hear reactions to the story, and how Tourism PEI is training its travel counsellors to speak with an Island accent... at a cost of $96,000. It appears some Islanders think the training is not worth the money.

Or is there more to the April 1st story than meets the ears?

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(We'd like to prank... er... thank Pat Martel who produced the segment. Click here for the video. Thanks to Tourism Minister Rob Henderson and to Dennis King - our "instructor" who helped us pull it off...and to the UPEI students for being such good sports.)

Categories: Culture/Tradition, Pranks/Fun, Tourism

Wednesday March 5, 2014

Where are all the Americans?

Posted by Bill van Asperen

Canada is losing more and more U.S. tourists every year, something the Tourism Industry Association of Canada says needs to stop. David Goldstein is the President & CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. He's on PEI as part of TIAPEI's annual conference. He says there is a way to entice more U.S tourists to all provinces and he has a unique idea as to how to make that happen.