Willy Wonka may be coming to The Forks.

Forks North Portage Partnership CEO Jim August said a local party has expressed an interest in opening a chocolate factory at The Forks -- a thought that brings to mind the 1971 movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

August said the talks are preliminary, so he wouldn't identify the party or go into any detail. But he said it's an intriguing idea because it would give people another reason to visit The Forks.

"You want something you wouldn't find at a (shopping) mall," he said. "It has to be a different experience."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/sweet-treat-for-city-176724981.html

Manitoba is about to get another casino.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs announced Thursday that construction will begin next spring on the Spirit Sands Casino near Carberry.

It will be developed and managed by Hemisphere Gaming from Minnesota.

AMC Grand Chief Derek Nepinak says Hemisphere has a solid track record managing the very successful South Beach Casino and Resort, which has been making money since it opened in 2005 on the Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, near Scanterbury, Man.

“Furthermore, Hemisphere’s management team has developed solid relationships with the AMC and First Nations,” Nepinak said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2012/11/01/mb-casino-first-nations-carberry-manitoba.html

Kids in Yellowknife classrooms will soon learn human rights lessons inspired by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

"It's an absolute forward-thinking idea on their part for them to meet with people who write curriculum," said John Stewart, assistant director of early childhood and student services and social studies co-ordinator for the Northwest Territories Department of Education.

The museum recently flew in senior education staff from Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Prince Edward Island. Officials from Manitoba Education attended.

"It's very rare for people who write history and social studies curricula to meet with each other," Stewart said. It's even rarer for organizations to gather such experts together, Stewart said.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/cmhr-brings-educators-together-176724431.html

INGLIS — Asessippi Ski Area & Resort is busy getting ready for the winter season and finishing up the half million dollar upgrade in the beginner area, snow tubing park and more.

"The most significant purchase that shaped the plans for all of the work this season is the new 650 ft Magic Carpet," Spencer Reavie, president of Asessippi Resort, said in a release on Wednesday.

Similar to a moving sidewalk , the carpet is a conveyor belt that can move guests and their equipment all the way up to the top of the beginner run. This lift will serve both the newly expanded downhill snow tubing park and the reshaped beginner run.

"The grade of the slope on the bunny run was evened out this summer, that means a larger area devoted to the learning centre and greater up hill capacity for our guests," Reavie explained.

http://www.brandonsun.com/breaking-news/Half-million-dollar-upgrade-nearly-complete-at-Asessippi-Ski-Area--Resort-176615831.html?thx=y

THEY'RE older, they're affluent, they're highly educated, they're physically fit -- and they're visiting the Canadian Museum for Human Rights two years before it even opens.

The museum has struck a deal to include an afternoon at the museum on Road Scholar ecological tours to Churchill.

Formerly known as Elderhostel, Road Scholar is a popular North American tour company for people 55 and older.

Ecotourists, primarily from the U.S., are coming through Winnipeg this fall on their way to Churchill, where they'll spend five days up close and personal with polar bears and the wonders of Manitoba's far north.

They'll pay about $4,000 each, plus airfare to Winnipeg.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/cmhr-brings-educators-together-176724431.html

After five years of celebrating Ontario's only UNESCO World Heritage site, the Rideau Canal Festival has been suspended indefinitely, its board of directors announced Wednesday.

Decreases in government funding as well as difficulty in finding corporate sponsors led to the decision, said the festival’s executive director Michel Gauthier.

When the event was founded in 2008, the city contributed $20,000, the federal government’s heritage department gave $200,000 and Parks Canada chipped in $75,000. Last year, those contributions were down to $10,000, $98,000 and $0 respectively. Parks Canada, which originally offered a three-year investment, decided not to renew its support, Mr. Gauthier said.

Because the festival is not gated, without visitors paying admission or purchasing items within it, all revenues came from government and corporate sponsors. But as government funding decreased, the festival became less of a viable option for corporations to invest in.

http://www.obj.ca/Local/Tourism/2012-10-31/article-3111391/Rideau-Canal-Festival-suspended/1

Total room nights sold on P.E.I. in September fell 6.3 per cent compared to the same month last year, a month the Tourism Industry Association calls disappointing.

Golf courses reported a drop of 13.5 per cent in non-member rounds, visitation to provincial parks was down by close to 20 per cent, and national park visitation was down 1.9 per cent.

There was also a decline in motorcoach visits, Confederation Bridge traffic, and the number of people taking the ferry.

Air traffic was up one per cent and cruise ship traffic set a record with a 56 per cent increase over last September.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2012/10/31/pei-september-tourism-numbers-584.html

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Museums, the Empire State Building, Broadway theatres and many stores reopened Wednesday to the relief of tourists who'd been stuck in hotel rooms since the weekend due to superstorm Sandy. But parks, the 9-11 Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and other top attractions remained shuttered, some indefinitely as damage assessment continued.

"We tried to go to Central Park but it was closed," said Angela Walsh, here from Lincoln, England, with her husband and two kids, as they took pictures at Rockefeller Center Wednesday morning, where the rink was opening for skating. She said they'd spent much of the last two days in their hotel room. "Thank God for Facebook," she added. "That kept them entertained."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/travel/museums-theatres-empire-state-reopen-in-nyc-but-parks-statue-of-liberty-remain-closed-176620901.html

(A complete article published originally in the WFP, Nov.  '73)

Future travelling and tourism may well be limited "to the classes rather than the masses," a hotel chain president told a Manitoba tourism conference Thursday. Ernest B. Fletcher, president of Commonwealth Holiday Inns of Canada Ltd., was addressing about 200 people at a luncheon sponsored by the Manitoba tourism, recreation and cultural affairs department at the International Inn. Mr. Fletcher said recent economic and ecological developments could make tourism an expensive business, restricting it to richer people. Governments restricting travel abroad in an effort to ease trade deficits, the shifting values of world currencies and curbs on building new four lane highways are all factors influencing tourism, he said. "These are elements in the future of tourism over which we have no control, but make no mistake; (they) will affect us greatly." Noting that Canada's major tourist market is the United States, he urged Canadians not to sneer at current U.S. problems or to ignore that country's energy crisis. Fear and uncertainty about the atmosphere toward them in Canada will keep U S. tourists away, said Mr. Fletcher. Canadians should tone down their anti-Americanism, and not make it obvious in this country's mass media. More than 75 per cent of U.S. travellers in this country, are professionals and businessmen and 83 per cent have better than high school education, he said; "This means they can read. Also, being businessmen and women does not mean they are insensitive. We business people know that.” Mr. Fletcher said it is sad arid paradoxical "to see arid hear the mindless criticism and watch the malicious glee that some of we Canadians seem to gain from our neighbors' problems." The hotel chain president also had a suggestion that he said could help out his non-chain hotel competitors. If independent hoteliers were to spend their marketing dollars as a group, he said, it could lead to "a healthy reduction" in the competitive advantage enjoyed by the hotel chains because of the chains' advanced reservation systems. It could also spur airlines and travel agents to seek more tourist dollars, Mr. Fletcher said. He also suggested that regional and provincial tourist bodies join in their sales efforts. When the Winnipeg Holiday Inn opens Jan. 14 as part of the downtown development that includes convention centre, there will be 50 outlets in the Commonwealth Holiday Inn group. Looking at the total hotel industry in Canada, Mr. Fletcher said "reasonably conservative" estimates predict spending on new hotel facilities in this country between 1972 and 1975 will approach a billion dollars. Such spending is justified by the fact that in the past 20 years, tourism has grown 12 percent across the world, and will have tripled between 1968 and 1980, he said. Tourism earns Canada more than a billion foreign dollars a year, he said, most of it from the U.S. Some 40 per cent of U.S. adults who travel abroad come to Canada. But with tourism growing at this rate, Canadians must decide how much of it they want, and where and when, said Mr. Fletcher. He said too many foreigners in Canada's recreation areas could well inconvenience Canadians who wish to enjoy them. He complimented Manitoba businessmen and government officials for the "dramatic changes that have made Winnipeg so well known across Canada as a city of' achievers." He said the building of the convention centre "indicates a seriousness of purpose for making Manitoba a meaningful entrant in the tourist and convention market of North America." Opening the morning session of the conference, Tourism Minister Larry Desjardins told the audience that new development in the province's tourist facilities must be good, and existing facilities must be upgraded. He urged a high standard of accommodation and tourist services, and described his department's efforts to attract travellers to the province.