Author: News Team

Yosemite National Park in the USA has received a large number of cancellations after tourists were discouraged from visiting by the prospects of contacting the hantavirus. The national park’s visitor numbers are suffering after news spread that some tourists staying in the national park’s cabins contacted the rare and sometimes deadly hantavirus. It was reported that two visitors staying in cabins in the Boystown section of Curry Village, had been infected. On Thursday, the number of infections was reported to be six, triggering the consternation among potential visitors. It is believed that deer mice transmit the virus, and humans come…

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The states of Taiwan and South Korea are to collaborate on building medical tourism facilities in the nation. The two nations have agreed to enhance cooperation and collaboration to improve medical tourism, after they identified their comparative strengths within the growing market and set about creating a cooperative to mutually maximise those strengths. Recently, a Taiwanese group visited South Korea to learn how to expand medical tourism, and in the interests of helping each other in the common initiative, health and travel professionals in both nations have agreed to expand such exchanges. The Taiwanese delegation visited local hospitals and learned…

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Tourists visiting Vietnam could face problems with restrooms, as it is believed that the nation does not have enough to cater to the increasing number of visitors. It is believed that restrooms at tourist destinations in Vietnam only meet about 30 percent of demand, and that this could affect tourists’ perceptions of the country as well as affecting the environment. The issue has attracted the attention of the nation’s top tourism officials. During a videoconference that was held recently between tourism officials and experts from Ha Noi, HCM City and Da Nang, it was decided that the matter would receive…

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Reports are claiming that a mystery consortium is assessing the feasibility of creating a new four-runway airport near to Heathrow. The consortium, comprising a group of unnamed businesses, us believed to have commissioned an infrastructure firm to assess possible locations on the outskirts of north and west London, according to reports in the Daily Mail and the Independent on Sunday. Financing has also reportedly been on the consortiums agenda, with claims that it is negotiating with Chinese sovereign wealth funds with regards to funding for the £40bn to £50bn project. The Independent on Sunday quoted an industry source as saying:…

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Some of the best known hotel groups operating in the UK have been accused of excluding VAT from the headline prices on their on-line booking sites. The omission of the VAT element from the shown price has drawn accusations that the hotel chains are misleading their customers and breaching regulations, following an investigation by consumer watchdog and magazine publisher, Which?. According to Which?, 11 of the 24 hotel chains used by its readers did not initially show the tax in their pricing, an omission of 20 percent on the price of a room. By not showing VAT in their pricing,…

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A UK based online cruise travel agent, www.cruise.co.uk has acquired the domain name www.cruises.co. The new domain has been acquired for a payment of around $80,000, and the company can use the new name from 2013. Seamus Conlon, the managing director of Cruise.co.uk, said, ‘People may have thought that we were crazy in spending so much money on the purchase of www.cruises.co.uk but it has certainly paid for itself as it is now the largest cruise community in the UK. As the Internet develops further, it’s becoming more and more important to have the right URLs and that’s why we…

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Marketing Great Britain as a premier tourist destination for the world traveller will be all the easier for the warm welcome that the nation extends to its incoming visitors, which appears to be the message from visitors to the 2012 London Olympic Games. VisitBritain, the official tourism website for Great Britain, has released the results of a recent survey of outbound tourists from the 2012 Olympic Games in London. The survey appears to confirm that the nation has improved its image as a travel destination, as around 80 percent of the people surveyed are likely to recommend the country to…

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Dubai, in the UAE, is proving a major draw for British tourists as a travel destination. The number of tourists travelling to Dubai has increased in 2012 from 2011, bucking the trend for the general decline in outbound travel. The Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) has announced an 11 percent increase in guest numbers from the UK, during the second quarter of 2012, compared to the same period last year. A DTCM report suggests that in the 2012 second quarter, hotel and apartment bookings in Dubai have increased to 170,452, from 154,180 for the same period in…

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VisitEngland, the official travel promotional agency for England, has released new guidance for online destination sites aimed at improving information for travellers with reduced mobility and other access needs, to coincide with the commencement of the 2012 London Paralympic Games. As well as helping websites offer a warm welcome to the participants in, and visitors to, the Paralympic Games, the new ‘Winning More Visitors’ resource is designed to assist websites provide access information for visitors to the country that have access needs. Previously, a survey conducted by the agency reported that around 83 percent of people with access needs had searched for access information…

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ScotRail, the railway network in Scotland, is offering two extra trains to Glasgow, from Ayrshire and Renfrewshire in Scotland, during the morning peak period. The trains will provide around five hundred additional seats. The railway is also offering an additional four services from Glasgow For the evening period, with same number of extra seats. The company is expecting the new additions to increase its passenger traffic by 500,000 additional passengers in a year, or a 12 percent increase on the current traffic. Jerry Farquharson, the director of business planning at ScotRail, said, ‘The new timetable is carefully designed to encourage…

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