St. Petersburg/Clearwater International Airport now serves Toronto, and soon plans to provide service to Allentown, PA, and Havana, Cuba:  New non-stop charter service from Toronto, Canada, to St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport began this month with one Saturday flight per week. The flights are operated by Skyservice Airlines in partnership with Conquest Vacations. They plan to increase the service to three flights per week for the fall and winter seasons. For information, call 1-866-278-8499 or visit www.ConquestVacations.com. Starting in August, Southeast Airlines, Inc. will inaugurate new service to the Allentown, PA.  Service will be five days per week with non-stop and one-stop flights. For information, call 1-800-Fly-Seal (359-7325) or visit www.Fly2PIE.com  The third airline, Air Mar Brisa, will begin in August flying passengers and light cargo between Pinellas, Miami, Havana and three other Cuban locations. To learn more, call (813) 478-1586 or visit www.airmarbrisa.com 

Business Internet and e-mail addresses are an increasing trend: Pinellas County companies that have an Internet web site or home page increased to 47% in 2001, up from 40 % in 2000 and from 32 % in 1999. Businesses with an e-mail address increased 13 points from 2000 to 2001, up from 44% to 57%, and nearly doubling from 1999’s figure. If you’d like to be sent Tips, Trends & Technology and business news releases by e-mail, give us a call at (727) 453-7231or e-mail jriedmil@co.pinellas.fl.us.  And, don’t forget to keep your colleagues in the business news loop by sending us their e-mail addresses. For information, contact (727) 464-7332.

Business news is in demand on Pinellas County Economic Development’s Website: The total number of visitors to Economic Development’s web site – www.siliconbay.org - was 6,103 in June, up 46% from May. There were 777 downloads of the site’s statistics and forms. Since December 2001, Economic Development has had a total of 27,353 visitors to our web site since January this year. For more information, contact (727) 464-7342.

Calling all Business Assistance Surveys: The 2002 Business Assistance Surveys, mailed to 10,000 businesses earlier this month, are designed to investigate the opinions and attitudes of county businesses. Your input is critical to developing and identifying needed programs and key trends in education and job training, transportation, recreation, entertainment, tourism and quality of life, and business performance. Please send your completed forms to Pinellas County Economic Development by Wednesday, July 31. Didn’t get one? Call us! We’ll be glad to send you a survey. For information, contact (727) 464-7332.