Travel, not money or sex, tops Canadians’ fantasy

23 May, 2007

Canadians fantasise most about travel, shows a recent survey. A survey conducted by Expedia.ca/Ipsos Reid, asked respondents what they daydream about.

Surprisingly, 75% said travel, followed by money (73%), more free time (42%), sex (40%), shopping (24%), food (19%) and being famous (12%).

A total of 3,199 adults were surveyed over telephone, according to a news release from Expedia.ca/Ipsos Reid.

The margin of error is 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

And, even as most Canadians fantasised about travelling, the Better Business Bureau of the Maritime Provinces Incorporated has warned that there has been a surge in reports of tourism-related hoaxes across Canada. These frauds have been traced to fraudsters wanting to get their hands on some of the increasingly valuable Canadian ‘loonies.’

According to Dan MacKinnon of the Better Business Bureau of the Maritime Provinces Incorporated, the fraud typically begins with a telephone call, a fax or an e-mail that claims the recipient has just won a trip to the Caribbean and all they have to do is secure their spot by providing a credit card number.

The fraudsters say: “Give us the credit card number and everything will be taken care of.” Which means that one will be paying for something that one will not receive, says MacKinnon, CEO for the Better Business Bureau of the Maritime Provinces Incorporated.

The trip scam is one version of schemes designed to persuade naive people to part with their credit card information, warns MacKinnon. Another version of the fraud involves a contact from a call centre advising that the first 50 people to call a toll-free number will receive a free trip, or if you call you will have an opportunity to buy a trip to an exotic location at an absurdly low price.

These callers begin with a very low price and then start adding various costs until the total costs far exceed what would be available through traditional sources.

Complaints about the travel industry consistently rank in the Top 25 out of the 3,900 industries monitored by the Better Business Bureau of the Maritime Provinces Incorporated.