Investors Group Field plans to serve up bison in the stands as well as on the field this summer. The $200-million new home of the Winnipeg Football Club and University of Manitoba Bisons plans to sell bison burgers, sushi, shawarma, vegan hotdogs and salads this summer as part of a plan to drag concessions at Bomber games into the 21st century.

According to a newsletter emailed to Blue Bomber season-ticket holders on Tuesday, "two dozen portable and permanent concessions" at the 33,500-seat stadium at the U of M's Fort Garry campus will offer traditional ballpark fare such as popcorn, mini doughnuts, french fries, smokies and Salisbury House nips alongside new menu items such as a "half-pound Blue & Bold burger," grilled chicken breasts, "Mexican casual foods," perogies, pizza, bratwurst and gluten-free options....          ...The first paid event planned for the stadium is a Taylor Swift concert slated for Saturday, June 22. The maximum capacity for the concert has not been determined, as city fire officials have yet to issue the venue an occupancy permit. The expectation is Investors Group Field will not be able to host as many fans in a concert configuration as Canad Inns Stadium used to accommodate.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/game-days-yummier-at-new-stadium-191971451.html

Complete: City council has voted to reinstate $50,000 in funding for Renaissance Brandon, which was originally slashed from the tentative 2013 budget.

The downtown development corporation will receive the full $250,000 in funding from the city this year, the same amount that has been provided since Renaissance Brandon’s inception in 2008.

"It’s a great commitment to downtown Brandon, and we’re starting to turn the corner there as far as growth and this builds on our opportunities," Renaissance Brandon board chair Shaun Cameron said following the vote.

During city budget deliberations on Jan. 12, council voted to reduce the Urban Renewal funding to $200,000 in the 2013 budget. The full loss would have been $100,000, as the province matches the dollars the city provides.

Cameron said it would have been a "major blow" to the organization.

"With a reduction in place like that we had to look at it from a board standpoint, we were looking at some of the programming that we provide down there, as well as some of the esthetic appeal to the downtown with the funds in place, so now it does allow us to move forward in a more positive way," Cameron said.

Coun. Murray Blight (Victoria) brought the motion of reconsideration to council.

"Seeing that we have an opportunity to have funding from the province … I think it’s straight-forward, a no-brainer that we should pursue in getting the funds that are available to us, in helping towards the downtown development," Blight said last month.

Councillors Blight, Corey Roberts (Rosser), Jeff Fawcett (Assiniboine) and Mayor Shari Decter Hirst voted against the motion to reduce $50,000 from Renaissance Brandon’s funding in 2013.

Coun. Stephen Montague (Meadows) and Coun. Shawn Berry (Linden Lanes) voted in favour of the reduction. Councillors Len Isleifson (Riverview) and Garth Rice (South Centre) abstained from voting, while councillors Jeff Harwood (University) and Jan Chaboyer (Green Acres) were not at the meeting. Coun. Jim McCrae (Meadows) recused himself.

The city’s director of finance, Val Rochelle, said the additional $50,000 in the 2013 budget would have meant the mill rate would increase from 0.98 to 1.11 per cent. For a property assessed at $200,000, that would mean an additional $2.25 in property taxes.

However, several councillors expressed concern about increasing the 2013 mill rate and came up with a solution to keep the mill rate increase at 0.98 per cent.

Council voted to reduce $25,000 from the 2013 budget, which would have gone to the planning department to focus on building equivalencies in the downtown.

Council also voted to task administration to find a further $25,000 reduction to the budget.

http://www.brandonsun.com/local/ren-brandon-gets-50k-back-192000861.html

Karen San Filippo believes volunteers are an integral part of the Festival du Voyageur family. The St. Boniface resident and volunteer co-ordinator at Festival — which runs until Feb. 24 — says more than 1,000 volunteers from across the city step forward every year, although they are not all necessarily francophone.

"It’s one of the misconceptions about Festival that you have to speak French, and speak French well, to be a volunteer," San Filippo said. "You want to give the ambiance of a French festival, so you need to have a good francophone volunteer base, but Festival is about being all-inclusive, especially when you consider all the tourists coming in, so you need a lot of English volunteers, too."

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/lance/Festival-volunteers-a-key-part-of-Festival-family-191905041.html

The world's expanding middle class is flying high, taking advantage of a kaleidoscope of captivating destinations - all of which pose a challenge for Canada's tourism sector.

Canada used to be No. 7 in terms of top travel destinations, according to the Ottawa-based Tourism Industry Association of Canada. Now, it is No. 18.

That matters. Tourism accounts for two per cent of Canada's GDP and 3.5 per cent or 600,000 direct jobs. Those jobs often are badly needed ones, in remote and rural areas.

They help generate a non-polluting stream of revenue - $80 billion in 2011.

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/structure+funding+cuts+take+toll+tourism/7988953/story.html

Tourism in North Korea has "steadily increased" over the last decade, with "a large number" of visitors "from some 50 countries and regions over the last year," according to a report from North Korea's propaganda machine — a report that came on the same day that a North Korean diplomat took a U.N. conference on disarmament as an excuse to call for the "final destruction" of South Korea.

Hmmm. Now, we're used to fluff pieces from North Korea, like their uncovering of a unicorn lair and whatnot, but it's sort of hard to imagine that tourists are flocking to the country. Still, that's what North Korea's state-sponsored Korean Central News Agency insists in its report today: 

The number of arrivals from European countries is also on increase. The increase is fueled by many attractions. Eye-catching achievements made by the country in the effort for building a thriving socialist nation in recent years are one of the attractions.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/02/north-korea-tourism/62274/

(A complete article published originally in the WFP, Feb.  '32)

Prime Minister R. B. Bennett's statement that- revenue from tourist travel in Canada Is exercising a powerful Influence in the adjustment of financial relations between the Dominion and the United States, is given full support by Col. G. F. C. Poussette, executive secretary of the Tourist and Convention Bureau of Winnipeg and Manitoba. The facts speak for themselves, said he, in the $300,000,000 brought into Canada in 1929 and the $289,000,000 brought in 1930.