Business Contacts Mobile phone hire Cellular Mobile Services at 604 647 6696.
Car hire All the major car rental chains have reservation kiosks and fleets parked throughout Greater Vancouver. Among the most conveniently located in the downtown core are Avis at 800 879 2849 or www.avis.ca; Budget at 604 668 7000 or www.budget.com; and Enterprise at 1800 736 8222 or www.enterprise.com.

Office rental The first seven floors of Viva Tower at 1131 Howe Street offer fully furnished packaged offices. Call 604 669 6686 or email info@vivatower.com. Website: www.vivatower.com. Floors eight to 17 offer extended-stay residential accommodation. See www.vivaluxurysuites.com; same phone number.

Secretarial services Viva Tower staff can arrange for in-house secretarial services, as well as secretaries and translators for off-site meetings.

Excursions
Whistler, which along with Vancouver will co-host the Winter Olympics in 2010, is a two-hour drive up the serpentine Sea to Sky Highway. Victoria, the provincial capital, which likes to think of itself as 'the most English city outside of England' (complete with double-decker buses), is a ferry-ride away on Vancouver Island. Both constitute complete day trips, although an overnight stay is recommended. If you don't feel like driving, the Gray Line company offers sightseeing tours to these two locations, as well as other themed trips such as whale-watching, Vancouver by Night, sunset dinner cruises, etc. For complete details, call 1 800 667 0882 or visit www.grayline.ca/vancouver.

Local Press
The Georgia Straight is the equivalent of Time Out magazine. Published every Thursday, it has evolved from its early days as a cutting-edge alternative newsweekly into a dependable source of mainstream entertainment and restaurant listings and arts reviews. Its restaurant coupons and advertisements for retail sales are as much a draw as its editorial section.

Business in Vancouver, published every Monday, is aimed at local 'business decision makers' and provides solid analysis of the latest issues affecting entrepreneurs in Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley – what's known in these parts as the Lower Mainland.

The city's two daily newspapers are The Vancouver Sun, a broadsheet that publishes an entertainment supplement called Queue every Thursday, and The Province, a picture-heavy tabloid aimed at twenty-somethings. Both papers carry movie reviews and listings every Friday.