CANADA PUTS ITS BEST FOOT FORWARD IN LOS ANGELES

The Canada Media Marketplace, the Canadian Tourism Commission's flagship event to showcase Canada to the US media, was a successful event again this April. The BC night, held at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, was a night to remember. Delegates were treated to cocktails by Vancouver's Chambar, entertainment by a troupe from Cirque du Soleil, and hugs from the chubby mascots that adorn 2010 merchandise. Jayne squeezed between Miga, Quatchi and Sumi!

Meetings with US journalists, scheduled from early morning till dusk, gave us plenty of opportunity to entice writers, bloggers and broadcasters to British Columbia to experience our piece of paradise. Four colleagues enjoy breakfast: Jane Ince, Kristine George, Nora Weber and Kelly Reid.






The RCMP were on hand to add a dash of colour to the formalities.

Jayne also found time to meet with an editor at Bon Appetit to introduce her clients. Together they noshed at LA's Pizzeria Mozza, known for numerous accolades and was recently featured in LAX Magazine's list of the 75 best restaurants in LA.

Watch this space fro your next thrilling installment from the SI team !!

Messing in Texas !!

1500 miles, 37 Travel Agencies and over 150 Travel agents and we survived!

Peter headed south on March 23 to the Lone Star State on the SLH ( Small Luxury Hotels) road show representing Hastings House on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.www.hastingshouse.com

I met up with the rest of the crew at the ultra hip W Hotel in Dallas whose motto is Whatever Whenever should probably been better left as just plain Whatever !!! There was our fearless leader Jon D. Makhmaltchi, Director of Global Sales at SLH and the rest of the crew who I was to spend the next five days with: Elizabeth Gullickson from the Sanctuary at Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale,Arizona,JJ ( We never did find out what those initials stand for) Doran from the Malmaison Group of properties based in Prague, Adriana Chardí Cobo representing two properties: Esenzia on the Riviera Maya and CasaNova in cosmopolitan Barcelona and last but not least Barbara Schmaelzle from the Sky Lodge in beautiful Park City, Utah.

Over the course of the next five days we met with many friendly Texas Travel Agents who all assured us that SLH was the best thing since sliced bread and that they would send us more business than we could cope with ! From the biggest little town in the west , Fort Worth to the shining metropolis of Dallas and the state capital, Austin we ended in the oil town of Houston.

The weather gods were kind this year ( apparently last year it felt like the second coming of Noah!) We met with two very special dogs in Dallas, bats in Austin and full size Chinese warrior statues in Houston.!We sampled the Texas cuisine from Burgers in Dallas, Tex Mex in St Antonio to Chic - filet's (Yum!) in Austin . We even visited Jon's ancestral home in St Antonio that once had been a whorehouse!

It was a great trip and we are all busy following up with all who we met !

We messed with Texas and survived ! Yeeeha !