Canada and tourism

Contents

Introduction_ 2

Canada in Brief 3

Canada as a country with developed tourism industry_ 4

Transportation in Canada 4

Accommodation_ 9

Catering service 11

Cousine 11

Caterers 12

Tourism industry_ 17

Conclusion_ 22

Literature 24

Introduction

Canada is the second biggest country in the World – it takes one week non-stop to drive across the country coast to coast. Only parts of this huge territory are unhabited, as most Canadians live within 200 kilometers of the USA border.

Although one can feel the American modern life influence, Canada generally is safer and quieter than the USA. We are not allowed to carry guns! Canada has a much smaller population and more wilderness than our neighbors to the south.

Canada is very multicultural, with over 100 ethnic/linguistic minorities accounting for 40% of the population. It has always prefered multiculturalism over assimilation, but now suffers identity problems: one multicultural nation, or many different nations in one country? Quebecer and natives, respectively 25% and 2% of the population, clearly (and legally) define themselves as a nation.

The main cities are interesting and very multicultural. Forests, mountains, coastlines, islands, vast wilderness, and arctic areas are also fantastic. The central Prairies will appeal to those that love big sky view and open plains.

The West coast is great, it has beautiful nature and laid-back people, but the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes valley has more history.

The canadian Hospitality Club network, proportionally to the population size, is the most important in the Americas. Otherwise there are lots of camping grounds and cheap hostels.

The climate is cold and icy in winter except on the West Coast. In summer it is warm to hot in the south, cold in the Arctic East side, warm in the Artic west coast.

Top Things to See and Do: Vancouver and Vancouver Island, Inside Passage to Alaska, Coast Mountains, Rocky Mountains, Lake Louise, Badlands, Yukon-Whitehorse dogsledding, Toronto, Montréal, Ottawa, Québec Old walled city, Sault Ste. Marie, The Canadian Shield, Gaspésie, Mont-Tremblant. Neighboring countries: USA and Russia.

Canada in Brief

Landscape: Mountains, Prairies, Desert, Arctic Tundra, Glaciers, Valleys, Foothills, Rivers, Lakes, 9,976,000 sq km (3.9 million sq mi).

Population: 30 Million.

Capital city: Ottawa, Ontario (pop: 1,010,500).

People: British descent (28%), French descent (23%), Italian descent (3%), aboriginal peoples (2%), plus significant minorities of German, Ukrainian, Dutch, Greek, Polish and Chinese.

Languages: English, French and 53 native languages.

Religion: Catholic (45%), Protestant (36%) and minorities from most of the world's major religions.

Government: Parliamentary democracy.

Prime Minister: Paul Martin.

GDP:  US$774 billion.

GDP per head: US$25,000.

Primary sectors: services 74%, manufacturing 15%, construction 5%, agriculture 3%, other 3%.

Annual growth: 3%.

Major products/industries: processed and unprocessed minerals, food products, wood and paper products, transportation equipment, chemicals, fish products, petroleum and natural gas.

Major trading partners: USA, Japan, EU (UK, Germany, Netherlands), China and South Korea.

Political Divisions: Key Attractions, Transportation, Wildlife.

Canada as a country with developed tourism industry   Transportation in Canada

There are five primary modes of transportation in Canada – air, road, rail, water and pipeline. Depending on the circumstances, one mode of transportation usually dominates over the others. Air transportation is becoming increasingly important in today's world. TransCanada Airline, which began in 1937 was Canada's first airline. In its humble beginnings, it had 10 passenger airplanes and one crop duster. In 1965 the company changed its name to Air Canada, and today has 157 aircraft serving 545 destinations around the world, and is Canada's largest airline. Air Canada's main competition --Canadian Pacific Airlines --began operation in 1942. By 1969, the new airline had links to the far East, Australia, and South America. In 1968, Canadian Pacific Airlines became CP Air. In total, Canada has 515 airports with paved runways, 878 with unpaved runways and 17 heliports. Ontario alone has more than 60 airports with scheduled flights and 20 that service jet aircraft. Ontario handles 40% of Canada's national passenger traffic through the Lester B. Pearson Airport in Toronto. This airport serves 45 different countries around the world. It is also ranked fourth in North America in terms of the number of international passengers using the airport. The heliports are used primarily by Helicopter Transport Services which opened in Timmins, Ontario in 1974, and now operate throughout Canada and the United States. The helicopters are used for news broadcasts, air ambulance services, executive transport, aerial construction, police aviation and sightseeing. However, they are used most extensively in the resource sector, serving the forestry and mining companies. While airplanes are very attractive for longer journeys, most people prefer the automobile for shorter distances.

Road transportation is most competitive over small distances and offers the most spatially unrestricted form of transport in Canada. Following World War II, large sums of money were poured into the construction of a road network in Canada. In 1962, the TransCanada Highway was officially opened. At 7 821 kilometers, the TransCansda Highway is the longest national highway in the world stretching from St. John's, Newfoundland to Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The highway varies from a two-lane road to a limited access divided highway, which breaks into two different routes in northern Ontario and out west. The main southern route stays within one hour of the Canada-US border and runs along the northern shores of the Great, while the more scenic route runs farther north along wild rivers, untouched lakes, many small towns and various kinds of wildlife. At Portage- la- Prairie just west of Winnipeg, the highway breaks into two routes again with the main route crossing the southern edge of three prairie provinces and the northern route running up through Yorkton and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan where it becomes the Yellowhead Highway. Throughout its entirety, the TransCanada Highway is marked by highway signs bearing a green and white maple leaf. Mile zero is marked by a monument in Victoria on Vancouver Island. Starting here and traveling east, the highway passes through the Kicking Horse Pass in the Rocky Mountains, Kamloops and the prairies, the forests of the Canadian Shield and the Atlantic provinces.

The only province that does not have a portion of the highway is Prince Edward Island. Along with the TransCanada Highway, Canada has numerous smaller provincial highways and roads. In 1995 there was an estimated 1 million kilometers of highways in the country -- 358 371 kilometers paved and 662 629 kilometers unpaved. In Ontario, there are 72 000 kilometers of paved roads and highways, putting 40% of the total population of North America within a 24 hour drive of the province. Highway 401 is Ontario's main highway, allowing people to travel from Windsor, Ontario to Montreal, Quebec. It has a minimum of four lanes but reaches 14 lanes in Metropolitan Toronto. Secondary highways (502 - 673) exist only in northern Ontario, and are often not paved and are used to connect remote areas to major provincial roads. Tertiary highways are also exclusive to northern Ontario, are mostly gravel and connect all the remote areas that secondary highways do not reach. Territory highways have a tendency to end suddenly at a river, lake or other feature. Before highway travel and automobiles became the main ways of traveling, the train was widely used as a means of getting goods and people from one place to another.

The first railway began operation in 1854 and was the primary method of moving unprocessed resources from remote areas to industrial centers. In 1881, Canada's first transcontinental railway -- the Canadian Pacific Railroad -- was established by a Calgary-based company. This railroad covers 25, 000 square kilometers and connects the Atlantic and Pacific coasts with the interior of North America. It links major Canadian cities and 16 Midwest and northeastern US states. Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) is a freight railway that transports food (sugar, canned goods, molasses, fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables etc.), consumer manufactured products (firebrick, concrete, girders, household appliances, rubber, cotton etc.), and also handles larger volumes of two-way traffic within North America for importers and exporters. The second transcontinental railway in Canada is the Canadian National Railway (CNR) . Established between 1917 - 1923, the railway incorporates the Old Grand Trunk Railway, Grand Trunk Pacific, Intercolonial, Canadian Northern and National Transcontinental Railway. CNR connects Halifax in the east to Vancouver and Prince Rupert in the west with the Gulf Coast through Chicago and New Orleans. Covering some 72 963 kilometers of track, the railway has more than 85, 000 railcars and carries mainly coal, grain and petroleum. Canada also has railways that specialize in passenger transport.

Canadian Passenger Rail Service provides rail transport to many places in Canada through its connections with other passenger train companies in the country. The Algoma Central Railway provides passenger service from Sault St. Marie to Hearst, while AMT operates in Montreal. The Ontario Northland Railway offers travel from North Bay up to Moosonee and the Quebec North Shore and Labrador, and the West Coast Express services western Canada. BC Rail is the third largest freight/passenger service train behind CNR and CPR. Formally know as the Pacific Great Eastern Railway in 1912 and the British Columbia Railway in 1972, it became known as BC Rail in 1984. It has 1 573 kilometers of line from North Vancouver to Fort Nelson and operates mainly on the west coast. VIA Rail runs trains throughout Canada on a need only basis.

There are four main categories of VIA Rail trains operating within Canada: 1) corridor trains that run from eastern Quebec City to Windsor, Ontario 2) western trains that make trips from Toronto to Vancouver, stopping in Sudbury, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Jasper and Kamloops -- a journey that takes three days 3) eastern trains -- the 'Chaleur' and the 'Ocean' which travel between Montreal and Gaspe and Montreal and Halifax, respectively. 4) northern trains -- Skeena, Saguenay & Abitibi and The Hudson Bay --that run in Alberta, Northern Quebec and Manitoba respectively. Water transport in Canada occurs mainly on the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Seaway System, which is a series of locks, canals and channels which link the Atlantic Ocean and the St. Lawrence River to Ontario and the upper Great Lakes.

The system extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the city of Lakehead on the west shore of Lake Superior. The seaway provides access to 15 major and 50 minor ports from late March to early December, and consists of more than 245 752 square kilometers of navigable waters. The seaway directly serves Canada's two largest provinces, Quebec and Ontario, as well as a number of US states including New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. More than 40 provincial and interstate highways connect the seaway ports with key cities in the US and Canada, and nearly 30 railway companies serve the ports by moving bulk, break-bulk, and heavy cargo. Approximately, 90% of the cargo carried by ships on the seaway is bulk cargo such as grain, iron ore, coal and petroleum (10%). Grain is the largest cargo by volume (40%) as it is primarily a US and Canadian export. Iron pellets are also shipped from mines in Labrador, Quebec, Ontario and Minnesota to mines located on the great lakes. Approximately 60% of the traffic in the seaway is from overseas. Canada Steamship Lines operates 12 vessels on the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System. Their vessels consist of self-unloading bulk carriers with inland, coastal and deep-sea traveling capabilities.

The company has the largest fleet of self unloading vessels in the world that carries 30 million tonnes of bulk load annually; one ship is capable of discharging 6 000 tonnes per hour in a continuous operation. The company is headquartered in Montreal and has offices in Halifax, Winnipeg, Burlington and Singapore. Since 1845 it has been supplying North America with raw materials for their steel and thermal station power plants. In the beginning, Canada Steamship Lines served only the Great Lakes regions but has now expanded to the east and west coasts, the Caribbean, South America, Europe and the far East. The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association represents companies who transport more than 95% of crude oil and natural gas in Canada. Its member companies, which include Foothills Pipe Line Ltd., NOVA Gas Transmissions and Trans Canada Pipelines Ltd., operate more than 100 000 kilometers of Canada's 540 000 kilometers of pipelines. The company has operations in British Columbia, NorthWest Territories, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, and in 1997 the total volume of natural gas exported was 5. 6 trillion cubic feet. Pipelines are important because they connect oil and natural gas producers in remote areas of Canada with urban markets. They allow gas produced on one side of the country to be used to heat homes on the other side. For example, much of the crude oil produced in the western provinces is shipped by pipeline to Quebec and eastern Canada. Pipelines are also the most cost efficient way of transporting oil and natural gas. The cost of moving oil through a pipeline is 10% of the cost of the barrel, which in 1997 was $27. 00 (Cdn). Oil and natural gas travel through pipelines under pressure. From here the raw materials are sent to transmission lines. These in turn carry the oil and gas to large oil and gas corporations which then send it out to homes and businesses through smaller distribution lines. One of the companies that is a member of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association is Foothills Pipeline Ltd. . Formed in the mid-70's in Calgary, the company is now one of Canada's largest transporter of natural gas; it can transport up to 2. 5 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day through its 927 kilometers of pipeline.

Of all the natural gas exported from Canada to the US, Foothills Pipeline transports 1/3 of it and in 1998, moved 938 billion cubic feet of natural gas into the United States. TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. is also one of North America's leading natural gas transporters. It has 13 955 kilometers of interprovincial pipelines, numerous pumping plants located all over the country and supplies 45% of North America's natural gas. By the year 2000 a new pipeline will be built called the Alliance Pipeline. It will be 3 100 kilometers in length and will be used to transport natural gas from western Canada to Chicago, Illinois. The pipeline will begin at Fort St. John, British Columbia and will extend through Alberta to Chicago where it will join the North American pipeline grid. The Canadian portion of the pipeline will consist of 340 kilometers of 1 067 millimeter and 1 220 kilometers of 914 millimeter diameter steel pipe. There will be seven main compressor stations and mainline block valves spaced every 32 kilometers These five main modes of transportation -- air, road, rail, water and pipeline --are extremely important to the Canadian economy. At one time or another each dominated the Canadian transportation sector. Because of Canada's large geographical area one type of transportation cannot provide service to every part of the country. Therefore all five modes necessary components of Canadian transportation.

Accommodation

A wide range of hotels is available for temporary stays upon arrival in Canada. A Canadian hotel is defined as having inside access, private rooms, and daily cleaning service. It is always best to make reservations in advance, and during the peak tourist season, it is essential. From May until August, hotels are booked most heavily (90 per cent full), and finding a reasonable place to stay without a reservation can be challenging if not impossible. Although most reservations can be made with a week's notice, be sure to check ahead for any major festivals or events as it will be more difficult to reserve rooms during these times.

Hotel services, price and quality vary. Rooms in larger cities will generally be more expensive. In general, however, you will find hotels in Canada to be clean, comfortable and reasonably priced. Most hotels accept major credit cards, and reservations can be made either directly or by a travel agent in your home country.

Here are some general estimates for the cost of hotel accommodation per night. Please note that prices vary according to occupancy rates, location and season.

Low price range: $45-$75 CDN (It is advised to carefully check accommodation in this price range, as good quality hotels at these prices can be difficult to find, particularly in large cities.)

Moderate price range: $55-$135 CDN

Expensive price range: $135-$250 CDN

Five-Star Hotel price range: $250 CDN & upwards

Bed-and-Breakfast

Another temporary accommodation option is the bed-and-breakfast. Rooms are located in private homes or locally-run establishments, and the cost includes your own room and a generous breakfast. Many rooms do not have private toilets and baths. Bed-and-breakfast accommodation comes in a variety of forms - it can be in a heritage home, modern townhouse, rural farmhouse, or seaside home. Most establishments are registered with a professional association, and are a great way to meet local people.

Average cost of a room in a bed-and-breakfast: $35 to $105 CDN per night.

Youth Hostels/YWCA/YMCA

Hostelling is a temporary and inexpensive way to stay in major cities. Accommodation is basic but economical, and primary facilities (toilets, baths and kitchens) are shared. Rates are calculated daily, and costs are less than other accommodation choices. A Canadian hostel must be inspected and approved by the Canadian Hostelling Association.

Average cost of a room in a hostel: $10 - $20 CDN per night.

For further information, you can contact the International Youth Hostelling Association in your own country; or for information on hostels in Canada, contact:

Hostelling International - Canada

400-205 Catherine Street

Ottawa, Ontario

Canada K2P 1C3

Tel: (613) 237-7884 or 1-800-663-5777

Fax: (613) 237-7868

E-mail: info@hostellingintl.ca

The YWCA/YMCA hotels are also inexpensive, clean, safe and comfortable. Many of these establishments also have pools and fitness centres. Keep in mind, though, that hostels and YWCA/YMCAs fill up quickly during the summer months, so you should plan ahead.

Average cost of a room in a YWCA/YMCA: $24 - $45 CDN per night.

For more information contact:

YWCA of Canada