On the road again…

Well I am off travelling again & this time I am visiting Washington State & Oregon (USA).

Today we travelled from Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) and caught the COHO Ferry to Port Angeles (WA), then onto Port Townsend (WA), Gig Harbour, through Tacoma and now I am sitting in Lacey which is just outside of Olympia (WA) writing this and watching Northwest Backroads (tv show - highly recommended).

Tomorrow we are off to Cannon Beach (WA) where we will spend a few days relaxing and chilling out. We might make a day trip to Portland and also down the coast…who knows?

Travel Tip from Seth Godin…

Here is a great travel tip from Seth Godin…

Travel tip

I never bothered to print out boarding passes in advance… after all, the machine at the airport takes about ten seconds.

Here’s the thing: at some airlines, the machine stops working 30 minutes before your flight. Leaving you at security to watch through the window as your flight takes twenty more minutes to board and leaves without you.

Tip 1: print your boarding pass out ahead of time.
Tip 2: if you forget, have them switch you to a later flight, then run to the gate of your original flight. Ignore them when they tell you that you’ll never get on. I did.

We shouldn’t need to share travel tips. “Have a good flight,” he says sardonically.

If anyone has any other travel tips they would like to share, simply leave a comment or send me an email.

Update on Storyeum Bankruptcy!

Well, the time has come and the Vancouver attraction Storyeum has now closed its doors. The last show was performed last night & unfortunately there are now 70 staff that are now out of work…plus they owe the City of Vancouver $5 million!

And in news about the BC Experience, it looks like they might make the BC Experience building an extension of the Conference Centre (behind the Empress Hotel) in Victoria which would be great for functions and events.

I’ll keep you all updated on what is happening with these attractions…

British Columbia attractions file bankruptcy!

In the last couple of weeks, two of British Columbia’s major tourist attractions have filed Chapter 11 - declared bankruptcy! Why??

Storyeum - opened on the 1st of June, 2004 (still trading - was given an extension to work on financial plans) and it is an interactive museum, with actors, songs, singing and lots of movement as you walk through the history of British Columbia. I attended an industry night and I was impressed but it definately required a lot of people to visit to keep it going. Cost = $22 Million

BC Experience - opened on June 26th, 2006 (closed September 2006)and it was called ‘A Living Experience’ where you actually looked over a huge map of British Columbia (worlds largest 3D Map) and there were also lots of interactive displays. Cost = $20 Million

So here we have two multi-million dollar tourist attractions, both very unique but what went wrong? Simple…the locals weren’t interested and they were solely relying on tourists who weren’t willing to pay the approx. entry $20-$30 per adult especially seeing as though Western Canada tourism is mostly outdoors experiencing what the land has to offer and not seeing it portrayed indoors.