Australia’s tourism loss a boon for Canada

OTTAWA — An Argentine tourist got the city name right, but the continent wrong when she booked a vacation to Australia, and found herself in easternmost Canada this week, said local media.

Monique Rozanes Torres Aguero of Buenos Aires had wanted to travel to Sydney, Australia, but ended up instead in the former coal and steel mill town of Sydney, Nova Scotia.

The mix-up, due to inattention while booking flights online, became evident when she boarded a small propeller plane in Halifax that would take her on the last leg of her journey.

“She was taking pictures out the airplane window and said to herself, ‘Something is not right,'” local resident Christiane Tanner, who befriended the accidental tourist, told the Cape Breton Post.

But rather than make a fuss, Torres decided to stay and make the best of her trip. “When things happen, you let them happen,” she said through an interpreter.

Apparently, it is not the first time Canada has welcomed tourists intended for Australia.

In 2002, two Britons also mistakenly landed in Canada’s sleepy Sydney, instead of Australia’s bustling metropolis, a Cape Breton tourism spokeswoman told AFP.

And Sidney, British Columbia, in westernmost Canada has reportedly received stray tourists too from Germany and Czechoslovakia.