Travellers told of Toronto’s “stench”
A travel warnings Web site is making a stink about Toronto’s garbage strike, and that means bad news for a hospitality industry that’s already hurting. World Travel Watch, which is syndicated to such papers as the San Francisco Chronicle, has warned travellers that Hogtown streets and parks are a smelly mess. While they don’t explicitly say to avoid the city, we think it’s pretty unfair to list Toronto’s strike alongside the coup in Honduras and an outbreak of bubonic plague.
He’s seen the unfavourable post, but Tourism Toronto’s Andrew Weir says that his main concern right now is dealing with the effects of the global recession. Even before the strike, Toronto’s hotel occupancy rate had been plunging 10 per cent year over year. Weir admits that the strike could have an impact, but he thinks recent nods from the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune should outweigh the negative publicity so far.
Besides, if our strike keeps tourists away for too long, we can always call Mick Jagger and organize StrikeStock in Downsview Park (assuming it doesn’t get turned into a dump).
I think Tourism Toronto SHOULD be worried. In the past Tourism Toronto has done a very poor job of promoting Toronto in places like New York City will ill-advised advertisements that didnt make sense. The comment from Tourism Toronto that they are more worried about the Global Recession I guess this person hasnt seen all the Lexus’s Mercedez and even Aston Martins on our streets as of late in North York which has a high immigrant population. Get it through your head, there is NO recession in Toronto. Only idiotic City Workers who for the most part ( other than the garbage workers) are overpaid. We have a contract with Outside Contractors from the USA to cleanup our garbage and it is not being honoured and the City of Toronto Managers are not enforcing it. Now is the time to see if the new people in control of Tourism Toronto really have any creative smarts for the large salary the head is being paid. Didnt he come from Miami ??
“Unfavourable post?”
Toronto should remain on this list, and we shouldn’t invite tourists to visit our city; this is more than just an embarrassment.