Business leaders joined public officials at a Capitol Hill rally to call national attention to the growing crisis of America’s declining image abroad.

For long, Canada has been eyeing an increment in visitors from China. In a new move, labeled as one to “ease criticism of Ottawa’s cooling relations with Beijing,” senior government officials from Canada are planning to travel to China in the New Year. According to information available, Canadian International Trade Minister David Emerson and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay are gearing up to visit China.

Chile launched Wednesday an ambitious four year plan to promote tourism with the target of having three million foreign tourists visit the country by 2010 and income generated topping the $2 billion mark. The plan announced by President Michelle Bachelet includes a $40 million loan from a multilateral financial organization to create a Tourism Promotion Fund plus elevating the current Tourist Office to an Under Secretariat.

Asians are traveling all over Europe in droves, reaching 14 million in 2005, and the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe are unprepared to meet their specific demands, a report launched at World Travel Market 2006 revealed. Produced for World Travel Market by Euromonitor International, the WTM Global Trends Report 2006 warned that many European countries need to address gaps in their infrastructure and service provision, if they are to safeguard future tourism revenue from high-spending Chinese and Indian travelers.

Traditional hotel check-in counters are hurriedly on their way out. Hotel chains are replacing them with smaller desks or individual pods that take less space and let employees provide more personable service. The pods are individually manned stations equipped with a computer and a room key programmer. Many Embassy Suites, Hyatt and Westin hotels now feature such pods. Wyndham, which recently hired designer Michael Graves to redo its hotels, will introduce them in late 2007.

Baby boomers are retiring earlier than the previous generation, and the affordable luxury of Panama’s Vista Boquete is attracting them because it offers luxury real estate at very affordable prices. Boquete is rapidly replacing Costa Rica and other popular Central American destinations for fun in the sun and luxury retirement, according to a recent news article in USA Today.