To save up to 50% on hotel and air costs, it is wiser to book for the holiday within the week. This is actually the message promoted by Beijing travel agents in preparation for the largest National Day holiday hustle in the history of Chinese tourism.

Authorities estimate over 200 million individuals will take a trip in the holiday, about 13% higher than the same time last year. Furthermore, revenue from tourism is anticipated to exceed about 100 billion yuan.

Interestingly, the record figure of travellers and the particularly long holiday time has created ideal conditions for the travel operators.

On the contrary, travel agents claim accommodation and transport costs will increase by up to 50% from this present weekend. In addition, the highly popular tourist destinations are most likely the most expensive. For instance, a five-day and four-night trip from Beijing, China to the resort city of Sanya, Hainan Province located in South China would soar by 50% to 4,680 yuan.

Marketing Manager Pei of TUI China, the first joint venture China-foreign travel agency, said: "Yunnan, Sichuan, coastal cities like Xiamen and Sanya, and the Three Gorges Dam Cruise are among the most popular destinations for foreigners".

However, holiday Service Director Tang Yibo, stated there were several opportunities to hit great deals. He said, "The coming couple of days are the best time to get the best deal before the National Day".
 

After meeting success in building SM malls around the country and acquisitions in the banking industry, SM Investments Corp. was targeting tourism. SMIC announced its plans to open the P2.6 billion Rasisson Hotel Cebu on December 1, 2009.

The five-star hotel has 400 rooms and is close to the SM mall Cebu in Visayas. The area is 20 kilometres away from Mactan airport and is also close to the business district. The hotel has a ballroom measuring 1000 sqm and includes 20 conference rooms, a fitness centre with spa, a 24-hour restaurant, and a lounge area.

Carlson Hotels Worldwide-Asia would be managing the Radissons Hotel Cebu. The hotel group would be handling two of SMIC’s other hotels in Metro Manila – the Radisson Manila Bay and Regent Manila Bay. Together, the hotels are worth P2.4 billion and planned to start operations in 2010.

SMIC also invested for the building of 14 more affordable or ‘businessman’ hotels which include 50-150 rooms. The construction would be carried out in five years time and would also be located close to SM malls.

SM Hotels Senior Vice President Merril Yu said that the company was excited for the potential in the tourism sector.

SMIC has over 100 malls nationwide. It also expanded in the banking industry with Banco de Oro. The company was at that time focusing on the development of its projects related to tourism.

SMIC is considered to be the best player for these ventures due to its land properties, cashflow, and capital base.

Just last night, troops of Greek firemen had a hard time battling the immense fire that struck Kefalonia, Peloponnese and other nearby areas. Reportedly, the fire had spread in those areas quite rapidly that it became uncontrollable. The fire devastated residences and inns in Kefalonia, groped to eat up villages in Peloponnese, and destroyed areas even reaching the northern border.

According to experts, the fire must have been triggered by the surprising temperature rise in the capital yesterday, as it peaked at 45C or 113F. Yesterday was recorded as Athens’ hottest day in its history. In addition to the high temperature, firefighters also had to struggle as the blaze quickly spread from one area to another.

"We will soon be asking which part of the country is not ablaze," a TV broadcaster mused—with pun unintended—while doing his report.

When the fire was doused, people saw its casualties that it was believed to be the worst of its kind recorded in modern history. It took only three weeks for the fire to destroy Greece—much worse than all those disasters in the past four years put together.

On a different note, the government also worries about the impact of the said fire on the tourism sector. Reportedly, the country gains the most revenue from tourism. For this week alone, several resorts failed to gain as much as usual, as forest fires also struck areas apart from Kefalonia.

Coloradans still intend to take the skies and roads in great volumes on the weekend of Memorial Day, despite the rising prices of gasoline, airline tickets, and car rental rates.

Journey bookings which were materialised through AAA Colorado for the weekend are similar with 2007, and it only exhibited a very minimal decline. AAA also forwarded this shows the projected 0.01 percent decline in the volume of people in the western part of the United States, who will go on over 50 miles journey during the weekend.

AAA Colorado spokesman Eric Escudero, said this illustrates the Coloradans’ eagerness to travel during this holiday and on summer.

“People are cutting out other expenses rather than cut out vacations. Just because some costs might be higher doesn’t mean they won’t travel,” Escudero said.

In line with this, the airline fares in Denver, Colorado have also increased by 8 percent. It is also observed that gas prices have increased 44 cents compared to last year. The additional costs are imposed due to the increase of road trips. However, the increase is more logical for outings to mountain towns which are located nearby.

Moreover, the AAA said the most identified increase in costs is related with the rates of rental cars. A 10 percent increase has been evident in Denver, while it increased to 45 percent on the nationwide level. Economy hotel rates have also increased by 34 percent in this location, while a 9 percent raise has been observed all over the US.
 

The week of Thanksgiving Day is usually packed with passengers and air traffic. In 2007, travel problems have compounded the busy week, making it even more hectic than usual.
A not so smooth start to the week leading up to Thanksgiving has been experienced by the air travel industry. The main suspect seems to be the weather disturbance which has caused many flight delays throughout the country’s airports. One airport in particular, Dallas Fort-Worth International Airport, was hit by troubles caused by interference from the weather.
During the early part of Monday, the radio communications at the two towers of DFW Airport (located at its east and west sides) were interrupted, thereby resulting in delays in many flights. The flights were delayed by an hour and became considerably annoying on the part of the passengers. It took about half an hour to repair the two towers.
The DFW International Airport had plenty of company on Monday as several other major airports were also hit by troubles. All were caused by disturbances in the weather, like fog located on the ground and low-lying clouds which made for almost no visibility.
Airports like the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the O’ Hare Airport in Chicago, and the Philadelphia International Airport were having flights delays from a little under an hour to over two hours.

Datuk Seri Dr. Ng Yen Yen, Malaysia’s Tourism Minister, says local favourites such as bak kut the, laksa and nasi lemak, should be named as tourism products of the country, not as ‘patented’ products.

Ng, who fired up a debate the previous week by stating Malaysians should demand claim to their food, explained that she absolutely did not suggest ‘patenting’ food or the dishes because that will not be possible.

"I never talked about patenting food", she stated after presiding over a media meeting today on the Malaysia Tennis Open 2009 in her office.

She claimed she was clueless how media reports cited her as stating the local foods should be patented.

She said, "What I meant was that laksa, nasi lemak, bak kut teh and other local favourites must be branded as Malaysian tourism products".

She believes that Malaysians should know the origin of their local foods. In addition, about 500 Malaysian dishes recently have been classified as a heritage food. However, the Tourism Ministry would not venture on branding them all.

She said, "We will carry out a study...and see which dishes we can identify as tourism products and use them to promote Malaysia".

In addition, she emphasised that even though other nations could have the same type of dishes, the focus should be on those that have roots in Malaysia.

The numerous terrorist attacks worldwide have paved the way for people to become more cautious of their actions. For the longest time, it has been evident that global meltdown has taken its toll especially in the airline field. In order to keep their company afloat, the ministry of tourism has stated that they planned to improve its security and safety measures.

In so doing, Secretary Sujit Banerjee, from the tourism Union, stated that a new process was being employed. The new process aimed to show more improved security measures. These were evidently reviewed and observed accordingly, and would be executed first in West Bengal.

Moreover, Mr. Banerjee also stated that the Centre aimed to show an equal partnership amongst states for the first three years. In turn, the government would present 50% of the total costs. After three years, the partnership would be changed to 25:75 with the state covering 75% of the expenses. He also added that through such predicament, the government would have the capacity to set up their own TSFO in West Bengal. In this regard, the government would be able to appoint the former CPOs and former servicemen in helping tourists and foreigners, especially when sharing information with others.

Currently, there is an estimated 6.63% GDP and an estimated 8.89% employment rate in India. According to Mr. Banerjee, several other schemes are being employed in order to improve the quality of tourism in the country.

Expedia Inc. and Priceline.com Inc. are just among the many travel websites that tighten up on false consumer reviews of hotels, which could weaken a development area.

Reliable sources of fact are at times difficult to locate on the Internet, and several sites have become totally enticed with the reviews provided by users, which often show unbiased opinions – paying only low amount to the Web provider.

However, the accuracy and authenticity of the information is not frequently reliable.

"We have certainly seen instances with other properties where insiders have put reviews up for a particular hotel or a particular thing and it's not a legitimate review", said Priceline.com's Chief Executive Jeff Boyd.

"It's somebody who's in effect been paid to make the property look good", said Boyd during the 2007 Summit in Los Angeles that was held at the Reuters Hotels and Casinos this week.

According to comScore, a research agency, around $69 billion was used up in 2006 at online travel sites, an increase of 13% from 2005. The biggest hotel review site, Expedia’s TripAdvisor, said that 97% of reviewers go back to the site to set up their next travel.

Priceline.com said that they address the problem by determining if the reviewers have indeed stayed at the hotel, only then are they allowed to post their opinions.

The Thanksgiving Day celebrations may have been over, but the weather problems which have caused numerous flight delays, are still very much around. Air travel has consequently been slowed down and even grounded.

Much of the troubles in air travel have been due to the storm raging across the Eastern seaboard, particularly in New York. The terrible weather has become so bad that nearly all the airline companies were affected. Both the arrival and departure of flights were severely delayed and this was very evident in the three major airports operating in New York City. The delays lasted up to two hours.

The delays were not unique to New York however, as airports located in the cities of Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte and Philadelphia had similar incidents, although on a somewhat lower scale. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that the delays notwithstanding, the flights both before and right after Thanksgiving Day went relatively fine.

A spokesperson for the Air Transport Association revealed that the last few days have actually been good. The ATA is a group composed of the largest carriers in the country. It admitted the weather did indeed cause some setbacks, but not to any extent which the industry could not recover from.

Statistics from the FAA showed how the past year featured more delays in flight than previous years. This year has in fact recorded the most number of flight delays ever.

Tourism Calgary, a multimillion-dollar marketing agency, voted out its complete board of directors composing of 22 members and restructured its operations.

A new board was voted comprising of 11 members; six out of the 11 members have no direct affiliations with the industry. Also, none of the prior board members were re-voted to the new board.

This move has occurred following months of allegations and squabbling of vested interests declaring the organisation, which was commonly known for its feeble Internet presence than for its victories at events like the WorldSkills competition.

George Brookman, a famous Calgary businessman, will chair the reorganised agency. He said that the past board was too huge with too many people. He added that his initial two goals will be to overhaul the website which would cost about $1 million and look for a new Chief Executive Officer.

During their annual meeting, the members of Tourism Calgary approved the hand-picked nominees chosen by Brookman. Among the members of the new board are communications specialist Maureen Payne, lawyer and executive recruiter Adam Pekarsky, consultant Janet Salopek, property expert Larry Ryder, and Dan Pigeon from Pengrowth Energy Trust.

In the previous years, Tourism Calgary was beset by critiques for its lack of sparkle, incompetence, and a lack of balanced account of city benefits.

Tourism Calgary is composed of 515 members who represent all facets of the industry of tourism, although it is strongly geared toward hospitality and hotels.