A significant slash in the price of airfares offered by Brazilian airline Gol –that reported a 120 percent increase in gains at the end of 2004- could drag rival company VARIG into bigger financial woes at a time when the administration of President Lula da Silva is demanding fiercer competition in the aviation sector.

Unreliability, extremely high prices, and poor infrastructure are the major problems in air transport that hinder the development of tourism in Africa, according to a news analysis in e-Turbo News service. Speaking on the role of airlines in a 21st Century vision of African tourism at the recent Third International Institute for Peace through Tourism, Ethiopian Airlines chief executive officer Girma Wake said: “Air transport in Africa is characterized by unreliability, service is less frequent, erratic, and there are too many stops.”

Cozumel´s tourist sector keeps reeling in more tourists and putting larger amounts of cash into the state´s coffers, even though the figures are way below the numbers posted by the industry in previous years.

After becoming one of the underpinnings of the tourist inflow in Cancun over the past decade –following the devastation left behind by hurricane Gilbert in 1988- this travel destination of the Mexican Caribbean is willing to snub the so-called spring breakers that come to these shores by the thousands every year.

Tourism in South East Asian countries that were virtually swept away by the December 26 seaquake could be back on its feet only if tourists resume their travels to Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives Islands, said Jing Xu, representative of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) for the Asia and Pacific Region.

The First Caribbean-China Economic & Trade Cooperation Forum, held in Jamaica´s Kingston, helped strengthen strategic ties between the two parties. An agreement on bilateral economic and trade cooperation was inked during the event, and China renewed its pledge to collaborate in the development of small insular states in the Caribbean and outside its boundaries.