Niagara Heritage Study

• Just spoke to a nice reporter from Toronto Star about a proposed increase in US passport fee. We'll see if she includes any of my thoughts #
• I took a video that I will post a little later… #
• It "makes her eyes water a little bit" #
• Here she goes!!! #
• There must be 70+ people in here now #
• It's cold in here! She must be freezing! She said she can feel it inside her stomach when the blade is cold #
• Someone is here with a professional HD camera recording everything #
• She's talking to the kid with the DS #
• She's on the stand raedy to go #
• Looks like she has just one sword with her today #
• The renovations in the Ripley's lobby will look great when they are done. #
• Some kid is using his DS to record her #
• She "won't do fire" #
• Vanessa the sword swallower looks like a belly dancer #
• I'm at Ripley's in the lobby with about 40 other people listening to Vanessa the sword swallower. #
• http://twitpic.com/15ok10 – I guess the man who climbs up the rope outside Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum has gone inside… #
• Wow, it just keeps on snowing! If you are driving, slow down so you don't splash slush up on the people walking (it happened to me at lunch) #

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From the Niagara Falls Review:

It’s not a holiday yet, but sword swallowers have made today their own.

World Sword Swallowers Day will see performers send steel down the hatch at more than a dozen Ripley’s Believe It or Not museums throughout the world, including Clifton Hill.

Toronto’s Vanessa Neil does the deed at 2:27 today, symbolic of Feb. 27.

It marks the second straight year a female sword swallower — a small portion of an already slim group of professionals — appears at Ripley’s in Niagara Falls. Last year saw Rochester, N.Y.’s Riley Schillaci perform on a bitterly cold day.

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1. She’s a rarity among sword swallowers, and that’s no gag From the Niagara Falls Review: The first time Riley Schillaci…
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From the Niagara Falls Review:

The Niagara Parks Commission wasn’t the only business to struggle in 2009.

The tourism industry as a whole had to scratch and claw its way through a year hampered by unseasonable weather, new passport requirements and a deadly influenza strain.

“It’s extremely bleak out there,” said Niagara Falls Tourism chairman Wayne Thomson.

“And the parks commission is always a good barometer. If the parks commission is not doing well, then we in tourism in general aren’t doing well.”

Thomson said some of the remote areas on Lundy’s Lane saw a 20 to 25% drop in business.

“They were extremely badly hit. The key tourist areas — Clifton Hill and Fallsview, depending on the property, location and branding — you’re probably talking 5 to 15% down from the previous year.”

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From the Niagara Falls Review:

It was a year to forget for the Niagara Parks Commission.

The provincial agency saw a dramatic decline in foreign visitation in 2009.

Whether it was H1N1, which literally stopped international travel for a period of time, the coolest and wettest summer since 1992, rising fuel prices, or the rception of traffic delays at the border, the parks commission had a rough 12 months.

From May through November, Niagara saw a sharp drop in cross-border travel from the United States.

A 23.6% decline in June resulted in a 13% drop in revenues from U.S. customers in that month alone, said Joel Noden, an executive director with the parks commission.

For the whole year, U.S. border crossings were down, on average, 12.1% — 16.1% for same-day crossings, 7.7% for overnight trips.

He said the launch of passport requirements in June also hurt border travel last year.

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