Throughout the past couple months the Turks and Caicos Hotel & Tourism Association (TCHTA) has been actively promoting the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The organizers of Costa Rica’s Expo Manuel Antonio (ExpoMa) are launching a Costa Rica Travel Specialist certification (CRTS) program at the conference and trade show, scheduled for Sept. 24 to 27, 2010, in Quepos, Costa Rica.

Tourisme Tahiti reported that visitor arrivals from North America for the month of April were up 5.6 percent overall with 3,473 total visitors. Of those, 2751 visitors were on a land-based Tahiti itinerary, up 29 percent, with 625 more land-based visitors in April 2010 than April 2009. For January-April 2010 although the total North American arrivals of 12,069 were down a cumulative 3.2 percent from 2009, land arrivals are up a cumulative 13 percent.

Cruise companies are increasingly choosing Stockholm as their port of initial departure or final destination. During 2010, Stockholm will be the turnaround port for 37 vessels. Excitement is mounting in Stockholm prior to the royal wedding in 2010 and the celebrations to mark the city being named Europe’s first Green Capital. Ports of Stockholm has invested in a terminal at the port of Frihamnen, which opened in 2008, and a terminal at the Stadsgården quay in the heart of the city that will open in 2011.

A bumpy European economic recovery and battered currency have helped stall European tourism to North America especially the Caribbean and Mexico, though Canada is faring better, tourism experts say.

Opportunities for investment, trade and leisure were the focus of the Panama Road Show hosted by the Tourism Development Company of Trinidad and Tobago (TDC) on July 21 at the Marriott Panama.