The hotels hosting both the Toronto and Saskatoon African Hunting shows have backed out of their contract to host these events; bowing to pressure from anti hunters. They are searching for new venues now and hopefully a good lawyer to sue the hotels.

No end to it, they just keep pecking away from all angles.

While I am not shocked that this would happen in Toronto, as most big urban centres tend to be left leaning, a hotel in Saskatoon knuckling under does surprise me a bit. It is a huge hassle/expense for the shows and exhibitors this late in the game.

I imagine they will be able to find a different convention/hotel complex that can host it in Toronto, but Saskatoon may be a bit more difficult. I know it has grown, but you still need a fairly large facility.

We should get the message out there which hotel hotels did this and then encourage all hunters and tourism operators to complain and boycott.
They probably won't care, but better than doing nothing.

As for litigation........... might be a bit more costly than the show company/magazine can afford. This is especially true with them being based in Africa and probably having to retain a solicitor on either side of the pond.

This sort of thing should be illegal!

The huge hypocrisy is that the Saskatoon Inn is a regular stop over for hunters traveling in and out of Saskatchewan......or at least it was...hopefully!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
This sort of thing should be illegal!

I agree 100%!

As much as I dislike frivolous lawsuits, this would be a good time to hire an Attorney. I am sick and tired of people bowing to the Anti's

I wonder where the local SCI Chapter holds their annual banquet? Perhaps they will be of some assistance if they know this is occurring.

SCI is up to date on what's going on.

May I ask which hotels? When I go to Canada and sponsor conferences there, I want to make sure I don't give them any business.

Larry

Holiday Inn in Toronto and Saskatoon Inn in Saskatoon.

For those of you that would like to let the Holiday Inn know how you feel. https://www.facebook.com/Holid...ort-175029869201969/

The Saskatoon Inn has pulled their FB page down.

http://news.nationalpost.com/n...-trophy-hunting-show



‘The noose is closing’: Animal activists applaud hotel’s cancellation of African trophy hunting show

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press | December 11, 2015 10:05 AM ET
More from The Canadian Press

A Toronto hotel has cancelled an African trophy hunting show after animal activists protested the event in an online petition.

The Holiday Inn Toronto International Airport hotel says in a Facebook post it cancelled the African Hunting Events show, but didn’t provide a reason.

A spokeswoman for InterContinental Hotels Group, which owns the Holiday Inn chain, but not this particular hotel, says the Toronto hotel decided to cancel the show on Thursday.

But Birgit Johnstone, a director with African Events Canada, the organizer of the the two-day show along with others in Calgary and Saskatoon, says the event will go on because she has a legal contract with the hotel.


She says about 40 people have booked trips and secured visas to travel from Africa for the event, which is an important part of their business.

Animal Justice lawyer Camille Labchuk, who led the online petition, says Holiday Inn showed leadership by standing up against the “senseless slaughter of majestic animals.”

“More and more companies are stepping up to the plate and refusing to play any part in the trophy hunting industry,” Labchuk said.



Johnstone said there is a fundamental misunderstanding about the trips that are being promoted at the show.

“This is about sustainable utilization of wildlife in Africa,” she said. “It’s not about a mass slaughter of wildlife. These are legal hunting trips.”

The websites of some of the exhibitors promote hunting lions, elephants and giraffes along with photos and videos of the kills.

Johnstone said hunting is only part of what the exhibitors offer.

“There are also fishing trips, photographic trips, regular safaris, too.’

Johnstone is livid with the Holiday Inn.

“I’ve never tried to hide anything,” she said. “The hotel knew what the event was about for months and only now are they changing their minds because of public pressure.”

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/c...itics-urge-1.2699190


Link has television news video and story concerning the Saskatoon show.

wow, I have stayed at the Saskatoon inn several times on hunting trips

won't happen again

Also, Saskatoon inn has a web site and contact e mail.
I just sent them an e mail reminding them that I had stayed there on business and several times on hunting trips, and their refusal to allow a hunting show has caused me to not ever stay tree again.

I'm sure they would like to hear from you.

From SCI:

We Need Your Help

This week two hotels have made decisions to back out of a contract with the African sporting events show, the first was to be held in Toronto at the Holiday Inn Toronto International airport location January 15/16. The second location is the Saskatoon Inn which was to be held in Saskatoon Saskatchewan Jan 23/24. This is a direct attack on hunting launched by the Animal Justice group and we believe it will only get worse before it gets better. This year the SCI Calgary chapter decided to move its planned fundraiser from the Calgary zoo because of protest and pressure from the anti-Hunting community.
That is why we are asking you to send emails, letters etc. asking these hotels not to succumb to the unfounded pressures of the anti-hunting community. We would ask that If they are not willing to rescind these decisions then you will have no choice but to no longer support the hotels and their affiliates. Below is the contact emails and addresses for the hotels and their affiliates.

Holiday Inn Toronto International Airport a part of IHG
970 Dixon Rd.
Toronto Ont.
M9W 1J9
www.holidayinn.com/yyz.intlapt
sylvain.gauthier@yyzia.com
lori.hughes@yyzia.com

Eastons Group of Hotels Management group for Holiday Inn
Gateway Centre
3100 Steeles Avenue East, Suite 601
Markham, Ontario L3R 8T3
eastons@eastonsgroup.com
905-940-9409

Intercontinental Hotels Group
P.O Box 30321
Salt Lake City Utah
84130-0321 800-621-0555
800-621-0555

Saskatoon Inn
2002 Airport Drive,
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7L 6M4, CA
www.saskatooninn.com
844-296-3620

Atlific Hotels
www.atlific.com Management group for Saskatoon Inn
416-674-3313 Christine Brandon cbrandon@atlific.com National Sales Manager
416-674-7955 Galit Ben-Ary GBenary@Atlific.com Director of Marketing

Emailed S Inn with my thoughts!

Since the Saskatoon Inn sold to a different group a few years back, it is not as nice as it use to be. The local SCI chapter use to use the Saskatoon Inn for their local banquet, but since the place sold, we have our banquet else where now. The last few years it's been at the exhibition grounds. I hope they find somewhere for the show, I enjoy going to it, but Saskatoon don't have many places for that kind of event.

Wow, posts on FB supporting this move are about 20+ to 1, I think we are in real trouble in the next ten years, also many species of animals will slowly disappear with out a murmur from these Dick Heads !

The real insanity of this is that they managed to cow the Holiday Inn with just 2,907 signatures on the petition. I can pretty much guarantee that there are more than that many hunters in both Toronto and Saskatoon.

Currently a petition against passing new gun control laws in the European Union, in the insane belief that it will stop terrorism, is at almost 300,000 signatures. How many believe it will have any impact at all?

email sent to the Inn

When it comes to the city of Toronto, nothing surprises me anymore. Didn't they elect a "crack smoking" mayor a few years back?

Email sent.

quote:

Originally posted by Cajun1956:
When it comes to the city of Toronto, nothing surprises me anymore. Didn't they elect a "crack smoking" mayor a few years back?

sounds a lot like Washington, DC!!

Move the thing to Calgary or some other "better" hosting place and get on with it.

There is a groundswell of anti-trophy hunting support out there.......... can you feel it? If you can't then you need to get your head out of the sand. It is everywhere.

There are vast numbers against all trophy hunting and the people who are running the campaign are far more efficient than the groups representing the trophy hunters........... total numbers of which are insignificant in the big picture.

The latest anti pushes have targeted the species that will garner them most support globally. The media frenzy has worked for them in spades because it not only has gained a lot of ground towards achieving some of their CURRENT goals, they have managed to create a far reaching fear amongst business owners who cater to trophy hunters.

They look at what is happening and decide, maybe they do not want protests and a three ring media circus at their front doors. They do not want bomb threats and death threats against owners and employees. They do not want social media campaigns targeting their businesses that will not only create turmoil, but drive business away.

We can complain and call them cowards all we want, but really............ can you blame them?
Be realistic and think about it........... if you owned a company and none of the owners are rabid big game hunters and most of the staff are tweeters and don't get closer to a gun than watching NCIS on TV, just how far do you think they are going to stick their necks out?

Any how, I think we have reached a tipping point, one that has been coming for a long time and many have been warning about.

^^
As I have said a number of times there is more hunting now than ever before. Just keep on, take young guys and gals hunting and shooting ( yes I did just that too ) and don't give your business to the ones that bow to pressure.

Cecil is history to me. I don't hear it or see it discussed too much in others places. Good.

Keep adding in new gun owners and hunters every year. It works. Several of my trips this year were with guys and gals that had never owned a gun until the past few years and hadn't been hunting ever.

A number of people I know bought their first guns this year too. Cool.

Something bigger than this will come along. Probably a real and bigger financial crunch. That should give them even more to protest about than hunting.

Skyline, I disagree that there is a groundswell. As I pointed out earlier in this thread it took just 2907 people putting their name on an online petition (essentially hitting "like") to get the hotel to bail.

How many of those people do you think would actively come out and protest? I'm betting they couldn't get enough people standing in front of that hotel in mid-January to have a hockey game.

The internet makes it easy for people to be "activists". It doesn't mean they're committed to the cause, it just means they want to be attached to the cause du jour.

So, no groundswell. But the problem we have is convincing the hotel that they have more to benefit from paying hunters than from keyboard activists.

As a guy that I respect that is a prominent member here, says " Hunt more . . Worry less." Something like that . And as Saeed says, he isn't going to bow to PC. Another one to respect. There are many others too.

Is this a concern - sure. Is it a real worry - not so much.

You can go to DSC and purchase a hunt from a few dollars to a few hundred thousand. You can go on that hunt in complete enjoyment.

I was in Africa on a several week trip and then a hunt with my family when all of this broke in the news this July. Everywhere we went were treated in the finest fashion and with the utmost respect. Except for exactly one American in the JoBourg airport. That didnt take too long to get rid of either.

We went to schools and to hospitals. We met guys in villages. We couldn't do everything for everybody - but we made and left a good impressions. I am still getting mail and emails from them still. Fun.

So some of it is how you handle it.

I toook some college guys duck hunting. Then they came with their friends and girl friends and had chili and looked at safari pictures. One is getting a rifle from his Dad for Christmas. He never wanted to go too much before. At 4 am this Sunday we are going again.

There are lots of places to get in your message. In a lot of ways. You don't have to have Your Space, or Book Face, or whatever to get it done.

Two guys whose wives would NEVER let them own a gun, and absolutely never wanted any hunting because they though it was Bubba-stuff, are going with my wife and I to the safari show. The wives are going too and are looking forward to it too - by my special invitation delivered to them by me. Heck even my mail carrier wants to go too. I bet one of them buys a hunt. It wont knock Saeed out of his safari - but it is the way. Another set of great young folks going hunting in Africa that aren't bothered by some anti- talk. Action. So next year they can be counted as the guys that helped hunting in Africa. Oh yeah - they also now own guns and joined the NRA. Maybe they will join DSC too.

And get this - one of the above wives just set up and had the office lunch party, where she is the boss - - at Bass Pro Shop. She would never had sat foot in there - I love it!

All of this works. They will go back to the engineering center, the hospital, the mail room and other places and give a good message. Will my 2 or 22 people change it. No. But every 22 of them reaching another 22 will. But it will affect more of the best kinds of people right here where it counts more than any social media. That is a positive for us that no anti- can match. The power of experiences.

Well time will tell boys. If we are all still around in 10 years on this board we can compare notes and see where things are at.

In the mean time we can see what comes next. I doubt we will have long to wait. CITES will soon be upon us and the good old US of A's FWS will be back at it trying to help the anti's with polar bear, lion and who knows what else.

Personally I think they have found our achilles heel and they will continue to pound away at that from multiple directions.

quote:

Originally posted by TexKD:

Something bigger than this will come along. Probably a real and bigger financial crunch. That should give them even more to protest about than hunting.

Not sure how that would be a good thing. Knock a bunch more of the boomers out of the picture as more of their nest egg vaporizes....... the largest age class of globe trotting hunters. Kill off a bunch more lodges and outfitting businesses. No, not seeing a plus side to that for hunting.

Why did you pick that one part? How about the other good parts?

I sure didnt say it would be a "good thing." Nor is that inferred. I don't wish for such things to happen. It just does. And it doesn't have to be catastrophic - which is apparently what too many people respond to today. Just the normal cycles of the world tend to put things back into individual perspective.

Heck nobody has to tell me about having ups and downs. I have lived and worked through several oil busts now.

Here is another thing. Not too very long ago they said gun owners would just fade away and die off. The demographics. The aging. The old white guys. The yada yada yada. Make it unpopular. Whoops. What happened there? Somehow the gun owners ( in the USA) doubled.

Just a few weeks ago our elected president gave a speech on TV that Americans should have a discussion about guns at Thanksgiving. Hey apparently they did - because the next day there was the largest single day of gun purchase back ground checks in history. That was nearly 200,000 in a day.

Ten years ago here on AR I am pretty sure we had this discussion. In between there was more hunting by more people than probably ever before.

And then there are things like this.

Right to Hunt and Fish Ratified by Texas Voters, Amended to State Constitution

On November 3, more than 81 percent of Texas voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 6 -- a constitutional amendment that guarantees Texans the right to hunt, fish and harvest wildlife. With the passage of this Proposition, Texas became the 19th state to amend its constitution to ensure the protection of its hunting, angling and trapping traditions.


Dallas Safari Club , along with the support of the National Rifle Association and the Texas Outdoor Partnership, among others, worked to shepherd this constitutional amendment from conception to the ballot box.

Texas has one of the largest sportsmen’s communities in the country, with 2.7 million hunters and anglers spending more than $4 billion annually and supporting more than 65,000 jobs statewide.

This passed 111-1 in the Texas House. I don't think anything short of free money and free beer has passed so convincingly.

So there is good news too.

Told the Saskatoon Inn my feelings on recommending them to clients traveling through there.

Mark

Well like I said, we will see. I do not have time to go into this more and have to go and do something constructive.

Your info on gun ownership........ well i won't bother with that at all as there is the US and then there is the rest of the world. There are also a lot of perceived negatives by people that contributed to this don't ya think?? Also, do not forget that over the last decade or two you guys have had hundreds of thousands of young people joining the armed forces and getting introduced to firearms. Constant war status has created all kinds of new firearms owners...... this was also the case post WW I And WW II, Vietnam, etc.

Not sure how you come up with more hunting by more people? Do you have stats that show that in the US or is this just your perception of those around you? Curious.......... cause around where I live I would have to say less people doing less hunting. Even when it comes to my clients, I would say the majority do less hunting because they can't afford to do more.

But then African discussions typically do not revolve around people who fall into the Joe Average category that never goes on an outfitted hunt and thinks they are doing good going away for a week end or two.

Cheers!

Don't know how the Canadian legal system works: in the US there is breach of contract against the hotels and tortious interference with contract against Labchuk. Perhaps a hefty judgment and legal fees will discourage future actions. But I doubt it.

I am not trying to win anything here. We are on the same side. I am saying that we as sportsman have do have more good than we may realize when we get too focused on antis. I am sure there is disappointment over the development in Canada.

But I have seen over these years western US tags be unavailable for years. Hunting trips sold out for a couple years in advance - granted for the best trips. A lot more guides and outfitters are in business now. And many more African safari operators. Argentina sure had more than before from 10-15 years ago.

Then look at the size of the SCI Convention. All that adds up. And a lot of growth was in it over the past 10 years - certainly more than 20 years.

Last year at DSC ( who is of course doing a spectacular job ) there were what over 60,000 attendees. That was a record. Not everyone was hunting every year but a good portion of those were either hunting or at the least interested supporters.

There is a down side to it too - I think my buffalo trophy fee in the mid 1980s was about $900.

This is just one little part - from 2011 showing hunting ( in the USA ) is somewhere around 16 million participants. That is a lot. That isn't Africa of course. Nor in Canada. But it just shows that there are good numbers on our side too to be harnessed.



HUNTING IN AMERICA -

An Economic Force for Conservation


"The even better news is hunter numbers and spending are growing! Between 2006 and 2011, the USFWS reports that the number of hunters in our country increased by 9 percent. Spending on hunting-related products and services grew by more than 30 percent in that same time frame."

http://www.nssf.org/pdf/resear...eforconservation.pdf

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Told the Saskatoon Inn my feelings on recommending them to clients traveling through there.

Mark

Well done Mark. I remember British Airways refusing to freight trophies and then there was the gun nonsense and all our visiting hunters jumped ship. The result is that BA lost business and had to close a number of their flights.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Told the Saskatoon Inn my feelings on recommending them to clients traveling through there.

Mark

I hope every outfitter and booking agent does the same. There needs to be serious financial ramifications for this poorly thought out decision.

Agreed. I did my part and have passed the info onto other outfitters I know who will be completely unaware of this situation.

That's the real key to this. These businesses have to learn that it's much more expensive to piss off paying customers than to scurry for cover when hit by a BS social media campaign.