The latest PATA figures show that the numbers of international visitors to the Asia Pacific region grew by 0.7 percent year-on-year in September 2009. Growth in arrivals for the region is still down by 5 percent year-on-year for the first nine months of 2009.
Bermuda’s 2010 International Love Festival will be held Valentine’s Day weekend. This annual weekend getaway includes a range of romantic touches from evening cocktails and rounds of golf to dining and dreamy music. From Feb. 12 to 14, couples will receive accommodations and amenities at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess while being treated as preferential guests all weekend long.
Next year, the region of Galicia in the northwest of Spain is planning a year-long celebration with hundreds of concerts, opera, dance and theatrical performances, photo exhibitions, food festivals, sports competitions and the first International Travel Literature Conference. In 2010, as they have done for the last 2,000 years, pilgrims and visitors alike will travel the Camino de Santiago to the Cathedral in Galicia’s capital, Santiago de Compostela.
Chatting happily with new friends around the bar at Boleros, the Latin music and dance spot on the Oasis of the Seas, Bonnie Simpson is having a good time. The ship is hours outside of the port of Philipsburg, St Maarten, but the party continues on the decks well into the night. On board Royal Caribbean International’s Oasis of the Seas for its inaugural voyage with some 4,000 other passengers, Simpson and husband Gary are making the most of their 39th cruise.
“Live the Deal,” a global campaign backed by the U.N. World Tourism Organization (UNTWO) to help travel companies and destinations respond to Climate Change, reduce their carbon footprint and move to the Green Economy, was launched this week during the Copenhagen Climate Summit.
It’s too soon for Americans to plan a Cuban vacation of beach, mambo and mojitos, but the US travel industry is gearing up for a return to its largest Caribbean destination before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.