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De
Todo un Poco: Carmen Miranda and Air Highways to
Latin America
by
Jerry W. Bird
 Songstress
Carmen Miranda's colorful biography was featured on
the History Channel recently, and I am sure it
brought tears to many eyes, and a smile to the face
of those who've captured her image in the theater
of their minds. For generations Carmen was not only
"Chiquita Banana" to millions of us kids (from 9 to
90), she was South America's unofficial Ambassador
to the world. And the pert, petite and peppy Miss
Miranda never faltered through the decades. Her
fruit salad headpiece didn't lose a single grape,
as she performed the tango, samba or a hip-swaying
version of "Cuban Pete, the man with the rumba
beat" ...and "South America- take it away"
Ole.
 The
history of travel from the USA and Canada on silver
birds, big bellied flying boats and cruise ships to
Central and South America, reads like a romance
novel, with a touch of mystery thrown in. All of
this travel happened during turbulent, earth
shaking times. Hopefully things will improve on the
political scene with a focus on better governance -
a key 'Summit of the Americas' topic
(see
page one).
While the number of visitors has increased in
droves, it still hasn't really tapped the bucket.
This section of our Aviation and Travel Web site is
dedicated to providing a small, but delicious taste
on this fabulous destination area, and provide
direction to carriers, accommodation and travel
tour operators. Like the title of my first High
School Spanish text book, "De todo un poco, " this
site will offer you a 'little bit of everything.'
The rest is up to you. Hasta la
vista!
For
starters with, here are some key connections:
Directory
of South American Web
sites
http://www.specialdepartures.com/samerican_tourism_links.htm
Saludos
Amigos! Fly Air Highways to the Americas, North,
South and Central
by
Jerry
W. Bird
Our
office received some interesting material on the
Vancouver Institute for the Americas, which
works on trade agreements, cultural ties and
business ventures with Latin America, just as we've
been doing for Africa as official publishers for
the last 8 years. We'll be featuring VIA's concept
in our magazines and web sites soon. As they say,
385 million people speak Spanish worldwide and
another 200 million speak Portuguese. Looks like I
will have to find my first Spanish reader from high
school , "De
Todo Un Poco
- a little bit of everything. For now the web site
is http://www.via.bc.ca
When
Canada hosted both the World Ecotourism and
the Summit of the Americas in
historic
Quebec City,
we covered both events in detail for our ECOTOURISM
SHOWCASE EDITION.
Our
Editorial Board Chairman, the late Joe Whitehead,
and former publisher of the Journal of Commerce,
believed in extended follow through on key events.
We carry on that great tradition. About the
Americas. The 34 democratically elected heads of
government from North, Central
and South America
and the Caribbean
gathered in historic Québec City for the
Third Summit of the Americas. At the Summit,
leaders addressed common hemispheric challenges,
including economic integration, improved access to
education, poverty alleviation, enhanced respect
for human rights and democratic
development.
Canada's
Role: Canada was chosen to host the Summit at
the 1998 Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile.
Over 9000 rooms were reserved by the organization
to accommodate the partici pants, escorts and media
representatives. The Summit is an extraordinary
window for our local tourist industry.
Other
Features: In North America, our team launched
Air Highways Magazine in 1996 to celebrate the
landmark USA -CANADA OPEN SKIES Air Agreement and
the continent's entry into NAFTA. Our second
mandate was to showcase the National Airports plan
that was sweeping Canada, setting the stage for
overnight changes at local and regional airports.
We laid the groundwork well in advance consulting
with top management at Transport Canada and getting
to know several dozen Airport Managers, who were
the key to our plan for input and later
distribution of magazines at their terminals and in
flight
At
the time our editorial content focused on 40
regional gateways in the US Pacific Northwest and
British Columbia, mainly on an inbound basis. We
covered scheduled and charter carriers, seaplanes,
business jets and the popular helicopter airline
that serves Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle. Then,
within months we were given the mandate to produce
a magazine on travel to Africa in partnership with
the African Travel Association, a 25 year old
nonprofit organization, whose offices are across
from the Empire State Building on New York's Fifth
Avenue.
It
has been a wonderful marriage and has broadened our
prospective on travel to such exotic destinations
as Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Mali,
Nigeria, Uganda, Namibia, Senegal, Tanzania,
Morocco and South Africa. These countries were
either hosts of ATA events or stopovers en
route.
Two
years later, thanks to Joe Whitehead, we launched
our first "Apec-Asia Pacific" edition to
celebrate the Apec Summit (of 18 world economies)
that was held at the Vancouver Convention Center, a
few blocks away from our Gastown office. This year
Air Highways coverage expands to the entire
hemisphere. with our "Summit of the Americas"
Edition of Air Highways. Rather than publish in
advance of the event, we will do a major follow up
edition, summarizing the results and looking upon
it as a 'roadmap' to the future.
While
we have an abundance of travel and tourism related
items on Canada and a growing number of US
features, our coverage will soon include Mexico,
Central America, the Caribbean and South
America.
Watch
for many new items in these areas.
We
invite individuals from various cities and
countries to send tourism related items for release
on this web site and in our Aviation and Travel
magazines. E-mail: airhwy@dowco.com
Maps, photos and
logo graphics courtesy of Summit of the
Americas.
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TRAVEL