Apple to Open Flagship Store in Montreal

According to numerous reports circulating the web (here, here, and here [en français]), the flagship Canadian Apple Store will open in Montreal this coming Friday, July 25 at 5:00PM.

It is located at 1321 Ste-Catherine Ouest, near by to upscale Ogilvy's.

There are some blocks on Ste-Catherine street, the primary shopping street in downtown Montreal, that are in need of serious transformation and revitalization (I hesitate to use the word gentrification), and I hope the Apple Store will do just that to the neighborhood.

Montreal Tourism Board Launches New Website

According to today's (May 15, 2008) Montreal Gazette, the Montreal Tourism Board has launched a new $1.5 million website that highlights and showcases the city's many charms in an effort to boost a sluggish tourist season and, more importantly, to reach out to far away travellers (i.e. Americans living on the West Coast and Europeans) interested in visiting the city.

Technically sophisticated and visually appealing, the new Tourisme Montreal website, offered in both official languages (English and French) and customizable to the needs of select groups who have made Montreal a popular destination, aims to bring Montreal to the world with a very slick user-friendly navigation system and plenty of multimedia content.



The website also boasts a few cool features such as personalization, RSS feeds, Google Maps integration, among other features. I was surprised I did not see any user-generated content or solicitation for such.

Tourisme Montreal prepared a video explaining how it created this online project.

Visit the site. It's so full of information, you may not want to leave your computer.