‘I’d like to see a cloud so the sun could go behind it and come out again,’ sighed a jaded traveller. He got his wish on the very last day

Joseph Kula
Province

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico – Brad Pitt and I have something in common: we have both found that dream sun destination.

During the filming of Troy, Pitt, with his Hollywood millions, stayed in a palatial home with a view to die for high up on a hill overlooking the Pacific at the tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. I, on the other hand, have had to make do with an all-inclusive package at a five-star resort on the Sea of Cortes, just a short WaveRunner ride away from the fabulous homes of the the rich and famous, including those of Sylvester Stallone and Madonna.

But, hey, the sunsets from my balcony at the Riu Palace are just as spectacular and the margaritas just as tasty.

What brings out the stars and thousands of other winter-weary folk to enjoy la vida buena (the good life) here in Los Cabos is the sun.

Even when other resort destinations such as Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo got a soaking after a brush with a series of tropical storms, Los Cabos stayed mostly dry.

Because it’s a basically a desert between two seas, the long finger of land known as Baja California, receives less than 10 inches of precipitation a year. And there seems to be a permanent high situated overhead, deflecting tropical storms.

After five consecutive days of nothing but blue sky, one jaded travel agent on our familiarization tour with Sunquest Vacations out of Vancouver and Calgary had enough:

“I’d like to see a cloud just one time so the sun could go behind it and come out again,” he sighed.

The holiday resorts at Los Cabos — there are 17 capes in all — are like pirate treasures popping up here and there along the Sea of Cortes (which is actually a moniker dreamed up by some PR person as it is really the Bay of California).

And although most of them spill onto wide expanses of cream-coloured, sandy beaches, red flags warn visitors not to swim because of the strong undertow.

But, with seemingly acres of pools with swim-up bars, palm-shaded, bougainvillaea-draped grounds and sumptuous buffet areas open to the gentle sea breezes, who cares.

To swim and snorkel it is best to go up the coast a bit toward Jose del Cabo.

For 20 pesos ($2 US), I took a local bus to inviting, family-friendly Playa Chelano (Chilean Beach), where, with local kids and a few tourists, I swam and snorkelled to my heart’s content as zebra fish used my legs as underwater pilons as they darted here and there. Not quite Caribbean-style see-to-the-bottom snorkelling but, hey, we all can’t be Jacques Cousteaus.

But I knew that I had come to the right place when the water in the ocean was warmer than in the pool at the Riu Palace.

From the resort, a six-peso (60-cent) mini-bus ride took me to the marina at Cabo San Lucas, where I hopped on board a glass-bottomed boat to the Friars, standing like rough-hewn statues from antiquity.

Named for the missionaries who tried, unsuccessfully to convert the native Pericues and stop their polygamous ways, the Friars stand guard at Land’s End.

It is here that I found Lover’s Beach where the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortes come crashing together to form the weird and wonderful rock formations.

The area is a tourist magnet. Beneath the glass was a kaleidoscope of marine life. And when the boat operator threw some bread overboard, a feeding frenzy ensued.

“Those are Mexican pirhana,” he said with a chuckle.

Then, far below, air bubbles began to appear — telltale signs of scuba-divers searching for Nemo.

The boat took me past a colony of noisy sea lions — jostling for position on the rocks like so many linebackers — a flotilla of peckish pelicans and cruising cormorants.

Lover’s Beach, with its famous hole-in-the-wall type window to the Pacific as a backdrop, has a more sinister name in Spanish: Playa de los Muertes (Beach of the Dead) because it has claimed more than than one reckless swimmer.

During the Spanish colonial period, pirates used to hide out in one of the caves, ready to pounce on treasure-laden galleons as they tacked along the coast with riches from the Orient.

To get a feel for that era, I took a sunset sail aboard the Buccaneer Queen, a tall-masted ship that was built in Long Beach, Calif., in 1964 as a movie set.

As we sailed past the pirate hangouts of yore, we were treated with a fun re-enactment of those swashbuckling days when Sir Walter Raleigh and Cavendish struck terror in the hearts of the Spanish captains.

The attack came as the last rays of the sun sank beneath the horizon. Burly men dressed in Jolly Roger attire swung through the air just like in the movies. There was a clash of cutlasses and a woman in our party was taken captive. Aaargh!

Her would-be rescuer was made to walk the plank, plunging into the dark waters below. Aaargh!

Back at the marina the next day, I enjoyed a leisurely stroll past trendy restaurants with alluring names like Museo de Tequila, and toney shops set into terraced gardens, with the soothing sound of waterfalls, making the area an oasis in the desert of the Baja.

It’s quite a contrast with the vibrant, bustling downtown area of Cabo San Lucas, that becomes even more frenzied at night when the party animals descend to night spots such as El Squid Roe, the ubiquitous Margaritaville and the positively ingeniously named Cabo Wabo, owned by Sammy Hagar of Van Halen and Montrose fame.

Most nights, bands hailing from the U.S,, Europe, Mexico and Australia take to the stage, although Hagar himself has been known to entertain from time to time.

Before the revellers and sun-worshippers showed up on the shores of Baja California, there were the anglers, lured by some of the best game-fishing grounds in the world.

First it was John Steinbeck who landed on these shores in the 1940s, followed by the likes of John Wayne, Zane Grey of western pocketbook fame and Ernest Hemingway.

Every year in October, Cabo San Lucas hosts the world’s richest series of marlin fishing tournaments. But you don’t have to time your visit for that month as big-game fishing is available all year round.

You don’t have to be an avid sports fisher to enjoy a marine experience. A whale-watching excursion is another must-do if you are visiting from now until March, as the same grey whales that you might have seen migrating through B.C. waters to get to their summer haunts in Alaska, head down the California and Mexican coasts in the fall to reach their feeding and calving grounds in the plankton-rich lagoons on the Sea of Cortes.

So as the reputation of Los Cabos as a major fishing destination grew, big hotels followed and even the president of Mexico — also an avid fisher — got into the travel business when he and other investors built the first major hotel, the Finisterra, some 30 years ago.

With fancy digs and an endless summer, the elite of Hollywood — who also liked fishing — were hooked.

For families, the all-inclusive is the best bet. Most resorts, such as the Riu Palace, have programs and beach activities for all ages. There’s horse-back riding along the surf, jet-skiing, beach volleyball, scuba-diving and Latino dance lessons, not to mention pool-related fun things to do for the little tykes.

And Los Cabos has more golf courses than you can shake a club — all along the east coast from Cabo San Lucas to Todos Santos (where you will find the famed Hotel California popularized by The Eagles in their hit song.

But caution is in order. Accidents do happen, even in paradise. During my stay, two members of a wedding party were involved in a jet-ski mishap. One person lost control, was T-boned by the other with resulting internal injuries. The bill to airlift the injured party to a hospital in San Diego was enormous. Needless to say, travel insurance is a must.

The entertainment at the resorts is first-class. The nightly performances at the Riu — ranging from rock to folk music and superb dance routines — had the holidayers whooping and clapping. And the cervezas, margaritas and other exotic drinks kept coming.

Ah, la vida buena.

For shopaholics and souvenir hunters there are plenty of bargains to be had but you have to go to downtown Cabo San Lucas or up the Tourist Corridor to San Jose del Cabo to get them. The flea markets offer the best deals but be prepared to bargain. For high-quality merchandise, check out the Puerto Paraiso, a multi-levelled mall with shops, movie theatres and restaurants.

Or, you can do what some of the travel agents in our group did: They admitted — without a blush of embarrassment — to taking a taxi and heading out of town a bit to (gasp!) buy tequila at Costco.

But I didn’t come all this way to shop at Costco. I came here to to get a feel of the place. To see what brings the timesharers, the spring-break crowd, snowbirds from Canada, rockers like Hagar and actors like Pitt. And what I saw convinced me that Los Cabos is indeed worth consideration as a sun destination.

The stars glitter and the sun shines in Los Cabos — a perfect spot to hang out in winter and savour la vide buena.

And, by the way, some wispy clouds did show up the last day we were there — and our jaded travel-agent friend had his wish granted.

IF YOU GO

– Getting there: Sunquest Vacations has seasonal packages with daily service from Vancouver via Calgary starting at $1,779.

– Best time to visit: October to June, when the thermometer ranges from a low as 10 degrees C at night to a high of 28 degrees C in daytime. Temperatures from June to September can be searing.

– Accommodations: There is a wide range from timeshares, to apartments to all-inclusives such as the Riu Palace, where rates range from $187 US per person per night. The offer is valid until Dec. 25.

– Currency: $1 Cdn = 9.5 pesos.

– Info: For more information on Los Cabos, visit online at www.visitcabo.com; for Mexico, see www.visitmexico.com

© The Vancouver Province 2006

 

Plush digs zap the old stereotypes of hostels

Scott Petersen
Province

A new breed of traveller is finding his match in a new style of hostel nestled in the Rockies.

Hostelling International’s Banff Alpine Centre still fills the majority of its rooms with the youthful backpackers hostels are known for. But they’ve also branched out by providing more upscale private rooms and separated cabins, and launching programs to appeal to others who are looking to escape the city for fresh mountain air and some social buzz.

Ken Campbell, HI Banff’s general manager, has overseen the projects aimed at destroying the myth that hostels are just a haven for teenaged backpackers and bedbugs. He’s seeing the early results and thinks the best is yet to come.

“I’ve always found that our primary guest demographic is the backpacker but that group is becoming more sophisticated and a bit older,” he said.

“They’re not necessarily interested in the ’70s hostelling experience. Some are still fine with the dorms but others want more than that.”

HI Banff is graded a “superior” hostel by HI’s standards, sticking out from the others with a relaxed log-home theme and pine finishing that runs throughout both main buildings and the three cabins. The common rooms and cabins all have fireplaces and the two spacious kitchens have stainless-steel counters and are cleaned frequently by in-house staff.

Both a restaurant and bar are also on-site and become social traps where people congregate to swap travel stories, relive adventures of the day and pick up tips for future excursions.

The cabins have been an immediate hit with groups and even families. They sleep five and allow for increased privacy, with the option of getting involved in the hostel atmosphere and cooking your own meals.

Their addition seemed like a natural step to Campbell after finding the private rooms were always solidly booked.

A number of travellers liked the hostel atmosphere and the bonus of cooking their own meals, but wanted the guaranteed quiet of their own rooms at night.

© The Vancouver Province 2006

 

Planners try to rebalance after explosion of residential development

Frances Bula
Sun

Now, it looks like that may change to “living and working equally” as new data show that Vancouver could run out of space for jobs downtown within five years, and with planners and the business community saying there needs to be more balance.

“The ‘living first’ strategy has been very successful,” says the city’s new planning director, Brent Toderian.

“But we do now have a clear understanding that, around 2011, there may be a capacity issue in the peninsula. Residential is an important piece of the puzzle downtown, but there has to be balance.”

The living first policy resulted in the city’s downtown population doubling to 80,000 within just three decades.

A new, finely detailed analysis done by the city’s planning department indicates that Vancouver, if it sticks to existing zoning policies, could run out of space for jobs in its downtown core within five to 25 years.

As a result, planners are considering all kinds of possible solutions to the space crunch, including:

– Allowing higher towers.

– Putting a cap on residential development.

– Offering incentives for office developers.

Toderian, along with other city planners, said no one has made any decisions yet about which solutions are the best to make sure the city has enough room for jobs.

The city could choose to put a moratorium on residential development in certain parts of the downtown, but Toderian isn’t convinced that’s the right answer.

“There may be more clever ideas out there.”

Commercial brokers and the Vancouver Board of Trade have been sounding the alarm about a potential shortage of commercial space for several years, after the city allowed two sites — the Shangri-La tower on West Georgia and the Hudson, next to the Bay, on Granville — in what was supposed to be the commercial-only district of downtown to be developed as residential.

Two years ago, the city put a moratorium on residential developments in two areas right next to the central business district that had, until then, been optional areas where developers were free to build either commercial or residential.

Since then, a team of planners has been examining the city’s potential job growth and the capacity of the “metro core” — an area that includes the downtown peninsula, the industrial land east of False Creek, and the Broadway area.

Using projections developed by demographer David Baxter, senior planner Ronda Howard and her team calculated that the number of jobs in the metro core will grow to about 250,000 by 2031.

The biggest growing sector is professional and commercial services, which includes everything from computer-software developers to engineers to lawyers to accounting firms.

Based on the amount of space that an average job-holder usually needs, that means the downtown peninsula would need about 65 million square feet of room by 2031.

That’s almost 10 million more than there is capacity for under current building regulations, was the conclusion of her team of planners, who went out and looked at dozens of individual sites downtown.

If job-holders start to get less space to work in — a choice some employers may make — the city has just enough capacity to absorb all the new jobs until 2031.

Some developers, enticed by the high demand for office space downtown, are starting to add office space to existing buildings or retain office space rather than converting in optional areas.

Another reason the city is not panicking, says Howard, is that trends indicate companies are providing less space per worker.

But the analysis, one of the most detailed studies of jobs and commercial space yet done for a city, clearly indicates the city needs to look at options to maintain a balance of work and residential space throughout the metro core, she said. The Broadway area also shows signs of losing commercial capacity if the city maintains existing policies.

Dave Park, an economist with the board of trade, said his group likes the city’s thorough analysis, which will set the stage for talking about policy changes in the next few months — something the city is addressing just in the nick of time.

“It seems to be the living first policy has resulted in such a massive wave of construction that, if it continued, it would have been a danger.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

Maura Gallagher Ardis
Other

Why is good customer service so important? In short, it’s good for your business’ bottom line.

“Increased loyalty can bring cost savings in several areas: reduced marketing costs, lower costs in contract negotiations and order processing, reduced customer churn expenses, increased cross–selling, and more positive word–of–mouth, reducing acquisition costs,” according to the article Emotional Intelligence Takes Customer Loyalty to a Higher Level by Michael Greenbaum.¹

Following are ideas that will help you show your customers how much you really do care.

Communicate

Keep your customers informed. Regularly update them on the specifics of their relationship with your company, recent changes or news about your business, and what’s going on in the general marketplace of your industry. “One of the most important things to communicate to a customer is how they can use your product or service more effectively,” says Joanna Brandi, author of Winning at Customer Retention, 101 Ways to Keep ’em Happy, Keep ’em Loyal, and Keep ’em Coming Back.

Brandi recommends communicating via phone calls, emails, newsletters, direct mail, and postcards — all are valuable (and proven to be successful) ways to contact your clients.

Be sure all written business communications are clear, concise, and grammatically correct. Also, remember to include a line that states how much you value the person’s business.

Convenience

If you want people to keep coming back to you, you have to make it easy for them. Brandi summarizes the current consumer mentality as “It’s 24/7, you’ve got to give it to me where I want it, you’ve go to give it to me when I want it, you’ve got to give it to me how I want it.”

Simple changes you can make include, not keeping customers on hold, reducing the number of buttons people must press when using an automated phone answering system to reach a service representative, and changing your voicemail to let people know where you are and when they’ll hear from you.

Do it on their timeframe

Ask customers when they need an item or service, answer phones swiftly, deliver packages promptly, and be sure your Internet pages are up–to–date and load rapidly.

Do it their way

We are in an era of mass customization. “Everybody wants it their own way. Everybody wants to be able to feel like what you’re doing for them is special, even if it’s not. It needs to look special for that customer,” says Brandi.

How can you possibly keep up with all of your customers’ needs and desires? Brandi suggests using a Customer Relationship Management system. These databases track essential information like contact information, purchasing history, and buying habits.

Consistent experiences

Yes, you want to surprise and delight your customers, but you also want them to know they can count on a certain level of service from you every time. To accomplish this goal, you need to understand customer expectations and then develop quality standards. Be assured, if you provide exceptional customer service, people will talk.

Ask customers

Consider establishing a customer advisory board to learn more about your customers’ wants and needs. Asking simple questions like what’s new in their businesses, what’s new in their lives, and what would they like to see from your company in the future can help you gain valuable insight.

Recovery skills

Customers will remember their last experience, according to Brandi, and they may or may not give your company a second chance, especially if you make a mistake. “We have a small zone of tolerance for screwing up,” says Brand, “but unfortunately, because of the pressure everybody’s under, the customer’s zone of tolerance is shrinking.”

Sit down and think about everything that could go wrong during a transaction with your company. Decide how you would solve each of these situations and then get this information out to your employees. Empower your employees, so customers won’t be passed from one person to the next to the next — a reality most find very frustrating.

Really care

One of the top reasons customers will stop doing business with you is because they think you don’t care about their business, says Brandi. She recommends treating customers with compassion and trying not to make them feel foolish.

Offering quality products and services is just the start to making customers happy, Greenbaum says “customers look for positive, emotionally sensitive, and memorable experiences. Delivering this gives you a competitive edge over those who merely offer high–quality service.”

Thieves make note of the identifying information displayed on gift cards being offered for sale, then periodically call to check if they\’ve been activated, and when they are, they drain these cards of the amounts they contain.

Other

Real fraud which typically costs its victims between $25 and $500.

Just a little warning before traditional gift giving time.

Well the crooks have found a way to rob you of your gift card balance. If you buy Gift Cards from a display rack that has various store cards you may become a victim of theft. Crooks are now jotting down the card numbers in the store and then wait a few days and call to see how much of a balance THEY have on the card. Once they find the card is \”activated\”, and then they go online and start shopping. You may want to purchase your card from a customer service person, where they do not have the Gift Cards viewable to the public. Please share this with all your family and friends…

Origins: According to the alert of the moment, unsuspecting consumers are being defrauded of the values housed in gift cards they purchase off the rack in stores. Swindlers make note of the numbers displayed on cards being offered for sale, then periodically check to see if these numbers have gone live; that is, that the cards bearing them have been purchased and loaded with monetary values. When they find ones that have, they use them to make online (\”card not present\” aka \”CNP\”) purchases and so drain them of their cash value before their rightful owners attempt to use them.

We\’re not sure how seriously to regard this warning, given what we\’ve seen of gift cards. Certainly the warning being circulated in e-mail (which was issued by the Jackson County [Oregon] Sheriff\’s Department as a 9 November 2006 \” Fraud Alert \”) does not apply to all gift cards, but only to those that can be used in \”card not present\” (aka \”CNP\”) situations, such as when making purchases online. And even among those, only the ones that don\’t offer additional security measures in the form of encoded PINs (that rightful cardholders have to acquaint themselves with in order to use their cards online) are undefendable against this form of theft.

While a value drainer could in many cases acquaint himself with an unpurchased card\’s number with great ease simply by looking at the back of the card (prying it from its cardboard base if necessary and then repositioning the plastic neatly back onto its placard), he could not easily conceal that he\’d been at the PIN incumbent to the card, a key piece of information he would need to have if he were to use the card online (aka in \”card not present\” situations). Many retailers who have been hit with gift card fraud have come to require that a specific PIN be keyed in along with the card\’s number in situations where the card itself is not being handed to a clerk. Said PIN is obscured on the card\’s back in a manner that requires a covering be scratched away to reveal it.

However, the thief\’s act of replacing the card onto its cardboard placard does serve to hide the defacement of the card\’s PIN-protection coating. If someone were to subsequently buy that card without first fully examining it (that is, removing it from its packaging to look at both sides of it), he would leave the store with a breachable card in his possession. Likewise, so would a consumer who looked at both sides of a card he was considering buying but failed to understand the significance of the card\’s PIN already being easily readable.

While the e-mailed alert suggests selecting cards only from areas rendered inaccessible to the public (that is, in situations where the check-out clerk has to hand them to you rather than removing them from the rack yourself), keep in mind that store clerks have themselves been known to steal, and don\’t count on the isolation of the cards as surefire and certain protection against this form of fraud. Whether you choose a card from a rack or have a clerk hand it to you, always examine both sides of what you\’re buying before paying for it, even when that means removing the item from its packaging to do so. If you see signs of tampering, or you see that the card\’s PIN has been exposed, don\’t purchase the card. Instead, hand it over to the store\’s management, pointing out what you saw.

If the card itself is of the sort that can\’t be used in \”card not present\” situations, you need not worry about it nearly as much, because for a thief to drain it he would have to have the card itself, not just its number.

Here are some other ways criminals have been known to enrich themselves with gift cards: Employees at stores where gift cards are being vended steal them off the rack, activate them with the stores\’ scanners, then go on their own shopping sprees, sometimes using plastic stolen in this fashion to purchase other cards, thereby laundering their ill-gotten goods.

 

Thieves pretending to be customers engage in a bit of sleight of hand by swapping blanks (stolen on previous trips) for cards activated by clerks during the sale, then regretfully change their minds and cancel their purchases. Those manning the cash registers are none the wiser because it looks like they got back the same cards, but the fully charged cards ride out of the stores in the thieves\’ pockets. In December 2002, two Tennessee men pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges after they were caught running this scam in an operation that stretched across six states and cost Wal-Mart more than $35,000.

 

Cards filched directly from store racks find their way to online auction sites, where the unsuspecting will bid on them, thinking they\’re getting a deal. The National Retail Federation advises consumers to purchase gift cards online only through reputable retailers and never through online auction sites, which may be dealing in stolen or counterfeit cards.

 

Crooks will unobtrusively slit open bar code-bearing gift card packaging to remove new unsold cards and replace them with old used-up ones. When these nil-value cards are sold, the activation of the packaging\’s bar codes loads the real cards (which are in the thieves\’ possession) with the values they\’ve been bought for. The hapless purchasers, the ones who forked over money for the cards, leave in possession of worthless bits of plastic.

 

As for the potential for thievery that gift cards offer the unscrupulous, consider how popular these easily transportable bits of plastic have become. The National Retail Federation\’s annual Gift Card Survey projects gift card sales will total $24.81 billion for the 2006 holiday season, a $6 billion increase over 2005\’s $18.48 billion. Furthermore, says the NRF, the average consumer will spend more on gift cards than they did in 2005: $116.51 versus $88.03.

The popularity of gift cards have caused them to become such a large a part of festive season giving that there is even the potential for their markedly lowering the total dollar figure reported by stores for the 2006 holiday shopping season, making it temporarily appear retailers have been badly let down by the consumers they counted on to swell their sales figures and carry the year well into the black. Why? Because gift cards, unlike other baubles shoppers will pick up for their loved ones, are counted towards store sales only when they are used, not when they are bought. This creates what is known as the \”gift card effect\”: the value of gift cards sold in November and December but not used until January works to fatten January\’s reported numbers rather than those of the closing months of the year.

Barbara \”claus and effect\” Mikkelson

How to Avoid Gift Card Scams: Purchase gift cards only from reputable sources, preferably directly from the store.

 

Don\’t solely rely on a clerk\’s selecting cards for you from publicly-inaccessible stock as your one and only protection against being defrauded. Also examine both sides of cards yourself, keeping an eye out for signs of tampering and/or the exposure of the cards\’ PINs. Refuse to purchase cards where either is evident.

 

If acquiring cards on the Internet, buy them from the online versions of the stores they are to be used in. Never buy them from auction sites, even if it looks like you could score a real bargain by doing so. Remind yourself that cards sold through auction sites have often turned out to be stolen or counterfeit.

 

Keep your receipt as proof of purchase for as long as you have value stored on the card. Should you ever lose that gift card, use that receipt to ask the retailer to issue you a replacement. (Not all retailers will do this. But at least some do, so ask.)

 

Immediately after buying a gift card in a store, ask the cashier to scan the card itself to ensure the plastic you bought is valid and bears the proper value. (This will protect you against the card\’s having been swapped out of its packaging for a zero-balance one.)

 

Bear in mind that reputable companies will not ask gift card buyers to provide their Social Security numbers, bank account information, or dates of birth. If when trying to purchase such cards you\’re asked for this, walk away from the deal.

 

If the card\’s issuer offers this option, register your gift card at that store\’s web site. Doing so gives you the ability to periodically check your card\’s balance online and so catch on to any misuse of the card far earlier than you otherwise would.

 

World’s largest passenger jet will visit Vancouver tomorrow

Ashley Ford
Province

Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a . . . plane?

Tomorrow morning, Lower Mainland airplane buffs will finally get a chance to see what all the fuss is about when the Airbus A380 super-jumbo — the world’s soon-to-be largest passenger jet — arrives at Vancouver International Airport. The behemoth is flying in from Sydney, Australia, for a brief stopover as part of a round-the-world, 17-city flight test.

The massive, 560-tonne aircraft that’s capable of cruising at 1,062 km/h with more than 800 passengers, is supposed to usher in a “new century” of high-capacity air travel.

The double-decker plane is 73 metres long, 24.1 metres high with a wing span of 79.8 metres. Powered by four Roll Royce Trent 900 or General Electric-Pratt & Whitney GP-7200 turbo fans, the A380 has a service ceiling of 13,100 metres and a range of 14,800 kilometres.

Some $14 billion and 12 years in the making, the magnificent beast is still not quite ready to make its international debut with Singapore Airlines.

Unfortunately for plane spotters, the giant plane will likely not be visible from a public area of the airport and the best possible viewing spot will likely be at the Flight Path Park on Russ Baker Way at the eastern end of the south runway or on Templeton Road near the east end of the north runway.

The A380 is scheduled to touch down tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. and depart at 4:30 p.m. on its way back to its home base in Toulouse, France. Vancouver is the aircraft’s only North American stop during the test flight.

A magnificent engineering feat, the A380 has been plagued by setbacks and technical hitches that have infuriated customers, seen the firing of major Airbus executives and the loss of at least one large order.

U.S. cargo giant Fedex announced earlier this month that it had dec-ided to abandon the A380 and order 15 Boeing 777s from Airbus’s arch- rival.

The latest glitch has been installing the aircraft’s 500 kilometres of wiring.

Still, Airbus expects to receive certification for the A380 from both European and U.S. authorities on Dec. 13 and the first aircraft is set to be delivered to Singapore Airlines in October — 20 month behind schedule.

Despite its problems, there remains a great deal of faith from international airlines in the plane, including Emirates, Lufthansa, Qantas and Air France. But Emirates, which has ordered 43 aircraft, the largest individual company order, warned Airbus recently it views the delays as a “serious issue and will review its options.”

© The Vancouver Province 2006

‘Forestry sector contracting while others grow’

Gordon Hamilton
Sun

The shock wave caused by the bursting U.S. housing bubble is hitting British Columbia faster and harder than the rest of Canada, and is expected to drag down the total value of B.C. exports by three per cent in 2007, according to an outlook prepared by Export Development Canada.

Declining forest products revenues are already bogging down the province’s export economy as demand for building products shrinks in the U.S.

Forest products account for 40 per cent of the province’s total exports and the decline in that sector is darkening the export picture, according to EDC senior economist Stephen Poloz.

“We continue to see a significant split in the province’s performance, with the forestry sector contracting while almost all other sectors continue to grow,” Poloz said Tuesday.

He said declining forest revenues in 2006 are holding B.C. growth this year at two per cent. The three per cent decline next year will be largely caused by continued erosion of forest products prices, he said. The high-flying Canadian dollar is also a factor.

The EDC forecasts that the value of Canadian exports will decline one per cent in 2007. However, it also released an alternative downside scenario if the housing downturn brings on a recession in the U.S. In that case, provincial export revenues will drop deeper and Canadian exports overall would be expected to fall 3.4 per cent.

Poloz was skeptical that a recent upturn in lumber prices is indicative of the bottom being reached for the forestry sector.

“Show me the proof,” he said. “Right now there is no evidence that it is over.”

How far the economic ripples will spread into demand for metal, energy and manufactured goods is still an open question. Economists should get a glimpse into the mood of consumer spending — which will affect demand for other commodities and goods — over American Thanksgiving weekend, Poloz said in an interview.

Poloz was in Vancouver Tuesday advising business leaders of his forecast. He said the U.S. housing bubble fed an expansion in American consumer spending over the last four years.

“And now that channel of spending has been cut off.”

U.S. consumers account for 15 to 20 cents out of every dollar in the world, he said, and the shock wave caused by the collapse of housing will ripple through the global economy as American consumers start spending less. “Our judgment is that it is unlikely to pull the U.S. or world economy into a recession. But we have to be honest about this. We don’t really know.”

Poloz said other economic sectors in B.C. are expected to feel some impact of reduced economic activity in the U.S. The value of B.C. energy exports, which accounts for 23 per cent of export revenues, is expected to grow by two per cent this year and then decline by two per cent in 2007. Industrial goods, at 15 per cent of export revenues, will post a solid growth rate this year of 16 per cent before coming off five per cent in 2007.

The Export Development Council does not foresee a global recession as a result of the housing downturn in the U.S., but Poloz cautioned that the full impact has yet to be felt. The problem with bubbles, he said, is that they don’t deflate; they burst.

He likened the impact on the world economy to be similar to the condition of a person whose head is in an oven but whose feet are in a freezer.

“On the average, it’s alright. But it’s extremely uncomfortable for the head and the feet.

B.C.’s forest industry, he said, happens to be one of those extremes.

Don Cayo
Sun

Most North Americans are oblivious, but a lifestyle-changing energy crunch is coming soon, according to a Calgary-based energy analyst.

“In the next five years, 10 at most, something has to give,” said Peter Tertzakian, chief economist at ARC Financial Corp. He’s also author of A Thousand Barrels a Second: The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World, and he was in Vancouver on Tuesday for a breakfast lecture sponsored by ARC-owned Nexterra, a Vancouver-based high-tech energy company.

It’s not that the world is running out of oil. It’s that, as cheap conventional supplies dwindle, new oil tends to be locked underground in places that are geographically at the ends of the earth and geopolitically in the midst of seething hot spots.

And North America’s oil addiction, Tertzakian noted, hasn’t stabilized like Europe’s or Japan’s.

In fast-developing China and India today, oil consumption increases about 90 million barrels per day for each $1 billion of additional GDP.

Most developed countries used to be just as dependent on oil for growth, but since the oil crisis of the 1970s most have managed to break this link. Japan and most European countries now can expand their economies while using no more oil, sometimes even less, than they did in the 1970s.

The United States — by far the world’s largest energy consumer, using three times as much as second-place China — has managed only to reduce its dependency on oil to fuel its growth from about 90 million barrels to about 45 million per each additional $1 billion in GDP. Canada, which uses even more energy per capita than the U.S., has improved even less. We still use about 60 million extra barrels of oil for each additional $1 billion in GDP.

Why the difference between North America and other developed countries?

Because, unlike us, after the oil shocks of the 1970s those countries made permanent lifestyle adjustments — they drive far less than we do, or they’re much more judicious with their thermostats.

Not that the ’70s didn’t change anything in North America. Here, as in most of the world, it spurred a massive change away from burning oil to produce electricity, boosting both nuclear and coal industries to the point where oil now produces just two per cent of all electricity, down from 20 per cent 30 years ago.

And North American cars, like cars everywhere, got smaller and more fuel-efficient.

Tertzakian calls these things the “low-hanging fruit” — things that were affordable and fairly painless. But he warns that such successes can’t be repeated when the next crunch comes. Those magic bullets are spent.

Even more worrisome is that North Americans may grump a lot about energy prices, but they haven’t changed their spots. Today’s trend toward inefficient SUVs and pickups — the choice of 53 per cent of people who buy new passenger vehicles — is negating fuel savings obtained through technology, he said. And as suburbs sprawl and commutes lengthen, North Americans drive about 20 per cent farther every year than their parents or grandparents did in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, old fields continue to produce less and less each year as reservoirs run down.

So even if the world — the gluttonous North Americans and the thirsty up-and-comers in the developing world — could suddenly curb their insatiable appetite for more oil each year, two new oil fields the size and richness of Iraq’s would have to be brought into production every year just to maintain today’s flow, he said. And easy to find and exploit oil fields — like easy steps to reduce oil dependency — are already history.

Like every analyst, Tertzakian noted that it’s not the amount of oil that’s the limiting factor, it’s the amount of oil at a price that the world is willing to pay.

His short-term prediction is that oil will hover in the $60-$65 US per barrel range, but he sees it moving fairly quickly to a level where it’ll become what he calls a break point — a trigger to change human behaviour.

He’s optimistic that, despite the way fast-developing countries slurp up oil to fuel their growth, they may — like Europe and Japan — be able to lessen their dependency quickly and gracefully.

Countries like India and China are new enough to prosperity — and authoritarian enough — to be able to shape their growth and their people’s habits in energy-efficient ways.

In North America, where limitless cheap energy is seen as a birthright, he sees a tougher challenge, and ultimately a need for government intervention. It would take a market price in the region of $135 a barrel — nearly twice the level that gave Lower Mainland drivers the heebie-jeebies for a few weeks last summer — to prompt a permanent change from market forces alone, he said.

But higher taxes and/or tougher regulations are only second-best solutions, he said. Best would be moral suasion.

“People have to wake up and realize it’s just not cool to drive a six-wheel Hummer. It should be seen like smoking in a restaurant.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

‘Perfect storm’ confronts trade centre expansion and budget shortfall likely

Jeff Lee
Sun

VANCOUVER – The massive $615-million Vancouver Convention Centre expansion, now halfway through its four-year construction plan, may need more money from the provincial government, Tourism, Sports and the Arts Minister Stan Hagen has acknowledged.

But he said the extent of any future cash infusion won’t be known until later this year or early next year.

Hagen said the government company handling the redevelopment of the Vancouver harbour west of Canada Place is working continuously at trying to keep project costs down, but is also being pushed around by price escalations in materials and labour.

“I don’t think they know whether they will need more money until later,” Hagen said Friday. “At this point they are trying to be mindful of the costs, and they are trying to keep them under control.”

He said the government has made no pledge to invest more money beyond the $272.5 million it has already committed.

But he said it also knows the project must be completed on time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, so Victoria may need to invest more if the costs can’t be contained within the current budget.

Hagen made the comments after Ken Dobell, chairman of the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project company, told The Vancouver Sun he is unable to say whether it will be built on budget. He said the development continues to face extraoZrdinary pressures that make it hard to keep the project under control.

“It’s big, it’s complicated, it’s challenging and it’s being built at the worst possible time in the marketplace,” Dobell said. “It is in many ways going well, but it is being built at what the construction industry would call the time of the perfect storm.”

Dobell, Premier Gordon Campbell’s former deputy minister, said the convention centre project is “a little bit late” by perhaps two or three weeks, but he’s optimistic it will be finished by late 2008.

He repeatedly refused to answer whether the project is on budget, leaving open the possibility taxpayers will be asked for even more money.

Dobell said a report is being prepared for the Treasury Board for later this month or early next year that will clarify the project’s financial situation.

“We’re reporting back to the government where we stand on budget and on schedule, as part of the regular report to Treasury Board. At this point I am not going to speculate about where we will be or what we will be reporting to the government. That is something for the government to report after we’ve talked to them.”

Dobell said he’d “like to be able to [say] that the world is perfect; the world is never perfect and there are always issues to deal with. And I have to report those [to Treasury Board] first.”

One of those issues will likely be the flat refusal by the federal government in September to consider contributing more money to the project.

In September, Dobell approached Louis Ranger, head of Infrastructure Canada, to ask for more money. It was the second time in six months he’d approached the federal government, he said.

“I was looking for some opportunity for the federal government to participate in some of the cost increases,” he said. Before he could discuss how much money was needed, Ranger told him the answer was no.

Under the current funding agreement, Ottawa and the province each provided $222.5 million, with Tourism Vancouver contributing $90 million through a hotel tax, and $30 million to be generated through private management contracts. In September 2005, the province kicked in an additional $50 million, increasing the overall budget to $615 million.

But the project continues to be beset by a series of issues that have affected the entire construction industry in B.C.

They include rampant price increases for steel and concrete and a shortage of skilled labour. The project insulated itself somewhat from some increases by locking in some steel and concrete prices early on, said Russ Anthony, the convention centre expansion project’s president.

The sheer size of the development, and the place it is being built, present unique problems, Anthony said.

It is the equivalent of building a 400-house subdivision and is being built over both water and former industrial land filled with remnants of concrete, wood and steel.

Asked if the convention centre expansion would be reduced in scope to save costs, Dobell said that was no longer an option because the massive platform for the building has already been installed. The facility’s first official use will be as the media and broadcast centre for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

New Democratic Party MLA Harry Bains said taxpayers should be surprised and angry if the project is planning to ask the province for more money.

He said the project should not cost taxpayers more and that he believes it is suffering from poor management.

“If they are over budget on the convention centre, it is because of mismanagement and incompetence,” he said.

The private sector is still able to build major projects despite market conditions, he said. “If this was the case in the private sector, then no one would be able to come within budget. But that’s not the case.”

Bains said that like the Olympics, which increased its construction budget by 23 per cent at taxpayers’ expense, the convention centre has become a major drain on the public purse.

“It isn’t any surprise to me if they are considering going back to Treasury Board asking for more money.”

The possibility that more tax dollars will be needed comes on the second anniversary of the start of construction on the project.

The convention centre will be the largest building of its kind in B.C., with costs exceeding even the Olympics’ $580-million venue construction budget.

Two years ago, workers began tearing down the old wharves next to Canada Place in preparation for the installation of more than 1,000 steel and wood piles that will support the 1.1-million square-foot convention centre.

The piledriving job fell five months behind schedule because of complications, including the discovery of massive boulders, discarded concrete and the shell of an old Customs house buried deep in the mud.

“There was just an incredible amount of material we had to contend with in this disturbed area,” Anthony said.

Piledriving was completed in May and the concrete foundation is now almost complete. That’s good news, as far as Anthony is concerned.

“Getting up out of the water is a major step. It now turns this into a regular building project,” he said.

Anthony said the project will quickly get back on schedule, as the entire project is being built in overlapping phases from east to west, he said. Workers are already erecting the steel structure at the east end of the platform as the concrete platform is being finished on the west side.

The project has had to cope with a severe shortage of equipment; two of the four cranes being used to build the platform and erect the steel had to be shipped in from Germany. Anthony said the reconstruction program in hurricane-devastated New Orleans created a shortage of large cranes.

Skilled labour is also in short supply; there are seven provinces represented in the 200 employees on site, and the project is having to pay a housing subsidy to many of them to prevent them from working elsewhere.

Anthony said his office struggles daily with trying to keep costs down, and has tried to lock in needed commodities where possible. For example, it ordered much of the 20,000 tonnes of steel needed directly from steel mills, and also bought concrete at fixed prices before a concrete installer was hired.

The project managers have also scaled construction to take place in overlapping waves in order to keep the project rolling along smoothly, Anthony said.

For example, steel fabrication of the building is already starting on the east side of the platform, while the concrete slab is still being laid at the extreme west end. The glass walls will be installed starting next spring on the east, as building fabrication moves west.

MASSIVE PROJECT

A look at some of the stats that indicate the scope of the convention centre expansion.

Site size: 9.2 hectares

Total floor area: 77,000 square metres (convention centre: 48,000 sq. m.; exhibition hall: 21,000 sq. m.; retail and services: 8,700 sq. m.)

Steel building piles: 898

Foundation deck concrete: 25,000 cu. m.

Foundation deck reinforcing steel: 6,200 tonnes

Structural steel: 20,000 tonnes

Labour force onsite: 200

Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

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