#Tourism

Jan 27, 2015
Sea to Sky Gondola

Touring the Sea to Sky Gondola

For a country that is as large, rugged, and beautiful as Canada, one might assume that the landscape would be inundated with sightseeing cable cars. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the Great White North has only a handful of gondolas (i.e. ropeways with fully enclosed cabins) located outside ski resorts. Luckily for those visiting the west coast, the Sea to Sky Gondola has...

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Jan 07, 2015
Emirates Air Line, Marketing Issues, Thoughts

Emirates Air Line: Success or Failure? It Depends

Over the holiday season, the British media picked up on the story that, apparently, the number of commuters on the Emirates Air Line has literally dropped to zero. Numerous publications (such as here, here, and here) argued this was evidence of the folly of the project and proof of how much of a white elephant...

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Dec 17, 2014
Thoughts

Scuba Diving, Conservation and Cable Cars

Can recreation and conservation co-exist?  Ask groups like the Grand Canyon Escalade opposition group Save the Confluence or the anti-Cheddar Gorge Cable Car circle at Keep Cheddar Gorgeous and the answer seems clear—no, they cannot.  Yet, of course they can. Recreation and conservation are not mutually exclusive. Look at scuba diving, for example. The current...

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Jun 01, 2011
Jan 25, 2011
Thoughts

Gondolas ≠ Tourists

You want to build an urban gondola transit system in the hopes of attracting millions of tourists from around the world? Good luck with that. If you build one, and if you have tourists, you may very well get tourists riding your gondola, but that doesn’t mean tourists arrived because of your gondola. There’s a...

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