Jetting out of Winnipeg will leave your wallet a little lighter. Beginning April 1, 2013, the Richardson International Airport's improvement fee will jump $5 to $25.

"The airport improvement fee goes directly toward the planned infrastructure improvement over the next decade," said Christine Payne of the Winnipeg Airports Authority.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/cost-of-jet-setting-on-way-up-185151851.html

Year-end surveys by business organizations this year seem to indicate there is solid optimism business will pick up in 2013.

But the expectations employers have about hiring more workers seem to be tempered by their ongoing concerns about finding the right skilled people to fill the positions.

It's not a new issue and it is not specific to Manitoba.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/action-on-skills-shortage-expected-185513612.html

OTTAWA -- The first week of 2013 has brought more staff departures from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and its fundraising arm.

The Friends of CMHR this week lost its interim CEO and interim director of development. At the end of this week, the museum's marketing co-ordinator is taking her leave.

The departures add to at least three dozen others who have quit, been fired or had their contracts expire in the 28 months the museum has been operating. That includes the board chairman, chief operating officer and chief knowledge officer, the director of marketing and the manager of marketing and events.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/new-year-brings-new-departures-at-cmhr-185513602.html

Ray Hogg will be welcomed to Winnipeg this week as the new artistic director of Rainbow Stage by a theatre community unhappy with the company's hiring process.

The 35-year-old Toronto resident, making his first trip here since the announcement last month, will unveil the organization's 2013 playbill, but he likely won't hear the grumbling from actors, directors and designers who feel they were shut out of the search for someone to succeed the late executive producer, Ken Peter. Some are saying privately that they feel disenfranchised by the non-profit summer theatre over its failure to post the position and carry out an open search.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/arts/rainbow-stage-hogg-wild-about-artistic-director-185398222.html

Garth Smorang is the new chairman of the board of the Winnipeg Airports Authority Inc.

Smorang, a partner at the law firm of Myers Weinberg LLP, succeeds Tom Bryk whose term concluded December 31, 2012.

He is a labour and employment, administrative and human rights lawyer and had previously been vice-chairman of the board.

Tom Payne Jr., president and CEO of Payne Transportation LP, has become vice-chair.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/Smorang-named-chairman-of-Winnipeg-Airports-Authority-185438452.html

Ethiopia and the Global Village are in, while the French Canadian and U.S.A. are out.

The official pavilion lineup is set for Brandon’s 10th annual Lieutenant Governor’s Winter Festival, which runs Jan. 31 to Feb. 2.

The festival will feature a total of 13 pavilions, including Brazilian, Colombian, Salvadoran, English, First Nations, German, Irish, Mauritius, Métis, Scottish and Ukrainian.

Organizers are in full swing, as the festival is less than a month away.

"It is completely volunteer organized and driven, so there needs to be a lot of work behind-the-scenes that gets done," said Esther Bryan, past chair of the winter festival.

Typically there are roughly 1,000 volunteers involved to help make the event a success.

http://www.brandonsun.com/local/winter-festival-preparations-underway-185524422.html?thx=y

When Juan Ponce de Leon searched for riches in Florida, he unknowingly helped turn the Sunshine State into the first travel destination in the United States.

In April 1513, the Spanish monarchy contracted the explorer to find another island off of Cuba that was rumoured to have great riches. Instead he landed in Florida and named it "La Florida," after the "feast of the flowers" during Spain's Easter celebrations....     ..."He was the first visitor to the United States," said Will Seccombe, president and CEO of Visit Florida, the state's official tourism marketing corporation. "That's 500 years of explorers and they kept coming back."

Tourism is Florida's No. 1 industry, responsible for welcoming 87.3 million visitors in 2011, according to state official estimates.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/travel/viva-florida-sunshine-state-celebrates-its-spanish-heritage-throughout-2013-185452582.html

NEW YORK, N.Y. - The Big Apple is a bigger-than-ever tourist draw, welcoming a record 52 million visitors this year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Monday.

The estimate, up more than 1 million from last year, caps several years of effort to make the tourist trade into an economic development engine for the nation's largest city. After reaching a goal of attracting 50 million annual visitors in 2011, Bloomberg has now set sights on 55 million by 2015.

The 2012 statistic "keeps us on course to meet our goal," the mayor said in announcing the number at a news conference animated by some New York razzle-dazzle: It was held at the popular American Museum of Natural History, and Bloomberg was flanked by a half-dozen of Radio City Music Hall's Rockettes.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/travel/nyc-counts-52-million-visitors-in-2012-setting-new-record-mayor-says-185319032.html

(A complete article published originally in the WFP, Jan.  '53)

LONDON (Reuters) — The Daily Mail says Britain is testing a new airliner capable of making the round trip between London and New York twice in 24 hours. Sir Miles Thomas, chairman of the state-owned British Overseas Airways Corporation, is quoted by the paper as saying the plane is a civil version of one of Britain's new bombers. The bomber was not named. The Mail says the existence of the new ship was revealed Friday night at a meeting of the Insurance Institute by Capt. A. G. Lamplugh, leading underwriter for British aviation. To fly the 3,300 miles between London airport and New York four times in-a day without allowing for landing delays, refuelling and loading of passengers, the airliner would have to fly at 550 miles an hour.