Space pioneers dream of sending Hawaii tourists from the land up to the stars, transforming island-hopping into new levels.

Hawaii could be the very first spot where travellers can ride the planes for a real journey. Expert planners see the planes starting to take off in a particular place, journeying across space, then make a landing to another area, travelling from the Big Island up to Oahu. Within 10 years, space travellers could do island-hopping from Hawaii to the country of Japan within a mere 45 minutes.

Promoters also assure a unique view while soaring through the sky.

"Flying down the Hawaii island chain, it's a completely different view of the planet than you'll see when you launch from landlocked states", stated Chuck Lauer, the vice president of Rocketplane Global. "It's the blue planet view of the world."

Officials of Hawaii's tourism acknowledge the potential for inviting travellers with the guarantee of enjoying space travel; however, it is quite unclear if Gov. Linda Lingle will announce the licensing money during a period when the state is having big budget issues and probable government personnel layoffs. A new ruling authorises the state of Hawaii to spend about $500,000, to be used for a spaceport license which will be issued by federal government. This is the very first step toward legalising commercial space tour from the said islands.

With a bill landing on 6 or 7 figures, I at least expect to also find the outside world creature like Avatar or so.

A total of $4.6 trillion were added to the bulk of travel revenues in Asia in 2010 according to a research. This revenue was expected despite the fact that there was a recession in the US. 

An independent organisation concluded that this trend helped the stock market weather the instability it was experiencing. It also aided the US economy’s slowdown. They added that the Asia region was well-poised, and it was one of the major reasons why people were transferring to invest their businesses to Asia. One of the many famous things to do in Asia is diving. Similan, surrounded by the Andaman sea, is one of the major destinations in Asia where divers choose for diving.

Experts anticipated that there was an increase of about 7.51% of visitors in the area from 2006-2010. This was higher compared to the previous one which used to be at six percent. The aforementioned agency covered about 40 countries and regions, including the US, Mexico etc., and they have found out that about 64% of all the trips around the world were made in the Asia Pacific. The number of all the travellers exceeded 460 million in 2010, several millions up compared to their 2006 data.

The industry of tourism in Xinjiang, China has been hit hard again by a series of needle attacks in Urumqi, its capital.

The riot on 5 July killed close to 200 people, mostly composed of ethnic Han people and greatly affected the sector.

According to Chi Chongqing, chief of the tourism bureau in Xinjiang, the immediate recuperation of tourism in the province has been due to the subsidies of the government after the incident.

The high-class hotels’ average occupancy rate had mounted to 85% before the mass assembly of residents in dispute against needle attacks in the middle of anger and panic. The demonstrations left 14 injured and four dead.

Chi said that after the restored tension, the occupancy rate of the hotels has plummeted to about 25%. A total number of 76 tourist groups cancelled trips to Xinjiang which should have involved 3,358 travellers in September.

In order to aid the industry of tourism after the riot in Urumqi, the regional government apportioned five million yuan or $730,000 to finance travel agencies who fixed up groups of tourists to Xinjiang starting from July to August.

With the onset of the worldwide financial crisis, Asia has been on the verge of keeping their act together. Despite the numerous difficulties experienced by the economy, they remained optimistic that recovery would become possible by 2010.

For this year alone, the Pacific Asia Travel Association anticipates the decrease in travelling for an estimated four percent. Aside from the global financial crisis, the said difficulty may also be attributed to the fact that health issues came in hand. Swine flu was regarded to be one of the tourist’s scares of the year, and have contributed much to the decrease of tourists within Asia.

In this light, PATA director, John Koldowski, stated that the abovementioned factors were the primary reasons for the decrease in tourism. He added that despite the numerous changes employed, the perception of others is still difficult to alter. Although some of the passengers would still go on with their choice to travel, it will come as no surprise that they would still be nervous and scared of their predicament.

In Thailand alone, the decrease was felt accordingly. Instead of anticipating 14 million passengers, the numbers decreased by 2 million. The decrease was also affected by the numerous protests and rebellious violence from the provinces in the south. This, however, also led to the foreclosure of the airports in Bangkok and the cancellation of the leaders’ meeting in April.

Girlfriends' getaways, occasions where women tour with their fellow women and set aside the men back home, are becoming more famous.

Similarly, women are starting to take adventure trips, spa trips, as well as knitting travels. A series is established by the Fine Living Network to focus on this growing trend, and this is hosted by travelgirl magazine’s Stephani Oswald, the magazine’s editor-in-chief. Also, Marybeth Bond has written the “50 Best Girlfriends Getaways Worldwide” to highlight this development in women travel.

Bond has been monitoring information on this since 1993. She forwarded that a 230- percent increase in the volume of women-exclusive travel corporations has been registered seven years earlier. Furthermore, a great number of these women who go on girlfriends' getaways are already married. They leave their husbands at their homes during these travels.

One of the several things that are unusual among the ladies is golf. Although there's world championship in women's golf, I still don't see much of the women playing this kind of sport. 

Oswald, on the other hand, expressed that some of these women have guilty feelings on taking vacations with their fellows. However, Bond said that men most of the times push their partners to journey with other women so that they can partake of activities which boyfriends and husbands might not be concerned with.

Gutsy Women Travel’s April Merenda said that women who are already in their 40s and 30s that are pressured with their careers generally take these getaways. Moreover these getaways and women who journey alone manifest a changing culture. AdventureWomen’s Susan Eckert said that 30 years before, women did not take vacations without the company of their families.

Found in county of Wilcox in Alabama, it is called ‘The Billie Hole’, wherein in antebellum period, a female slave was punished to jump to a wooded pool for refusing to be sold.

There were stories made that during full moon, Billie appears to come out of the hole dressed with a long white gown.

Authorities in the historic Black Belt area of Alabama expected that story and other narrations like it would increase tourism as well. In order to cash in on the stories of things that could or could not appear during nights, officials of the city here and all over the US are turning to ghost stories and trails just to support tourism.

To create a ghost track stretching across the 18 different counties, the Southwest Alabama Regional Tourism and Film Office is now working to make swath throughout the centre of the state beginning this summer. Known for its cultivated black prairie land, the Black Belt was the place where cotton was considered king prior to and at the end the Civil War.

"The Black Belt is rich in the history and culture of the Scots-Irish settlers and the African Americans who toiled as slaves", Linda Vice from the tourism office said. "Both cultures valued story telling as a way to preserve their history, and both cultures understood the concept of second sight and a spirit world. So we have plenty of stories of ghosts and 'haints' to chose from for our trail."

For those who feel themselves threaten by this ghost craze, ghostbusters should be hired to take care of this problem for you.