Nicaragua announced Wednesday plans to build a waterway linking the Pacific and Atlantic that would carry bigger ships than the existing Panama Canal. President Enrique Bolaños addressing in Managua the meeting of Defense ministers from the Western Hemisphere said the new route, at a cost of $18 billion and twelve years, was needed given the rise in world shipping.

TravelCLICK’s quarterly eMonitor outcomes indicate continued robust health for the hotel industry based on electronic distribution performance for the second quarter of the ongoing year. The data shows that worldwide electronic hotel revenue from the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and key Internet sites increased 13.7 percent over the second quarter of 2005.

Jamaican exports have reported a 39 percent growth for the period between January and May 2006, with earnings moving from approximately $641 million to $827 million, that according to Andre Gordon, President of the Jamaica Exporters Association (JEA). Giving a breakdown of the sector’s performance, Gordon said that food export “has recovered nicely and is up. Beverage export, which is a major growing segment of the food business, has increased significantly at over 39 percent”.

While headlines are trumpeting a deflating of the housing real estate bubble, the market in hotel real estate continues to boom. Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, a hotel real estate management company, recently reported that through the first six months of 2006, the total volume of U.S. hotel sales of $10 million or more set a record of $21.8 billion. That surpasses the previous record for an entire year, $21 billion in 2005.

Puerto Rico is said to be one of the countries in the region that now suffers from a critical trade imbalance, therefore the island nation is now seeking to increase trade in goods and services with Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and other countries in the region. Communications, transportation, and technology are some of the areas identified for a boost. On other matters, Puerto Rico continues to enjoy a healthy relationship with Trinidad and Tobago.

Barbados has been identified as one of the most competitive countries in the world to do business. In a list compiled by the World Economic Forum, the country comes in at number 31 out of 125 countries. The ranking is based on a survey of over 11,000 business leaders in those countries.