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Islands & climate change: Storm surges & coral bleaching affecting tourism

April 12, 2019 by Forimmediaterelease

Since Greta Thunberg, a Swedish schoolgirl and climate activist, brought the topic of climate protection onto the political and social agenda with her strikes, the negative effects of climate change have been discussed more and more. While climate change affects all areas of life, rising sea levels combined with storms that are steadily increasing in severity pose a direct threat to islands. Recently, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced that the average sea level in 2018 was 3.7 millimeters above that of the year before and has reached the highest level since satellite measurements.

In recent years, rainfall, storms, floods, and coastal erosion have increased in intensity and frequency due to climate change. While not all islands are affected to the same extent by the shifting weather patterns, most are aware of significant changes – including the Green Pearls® Island Partners. Instead of sitting idly by and waiting for the land to literally be washed away from under their feet, they are actively working to protect their homelands and their fragile ecosystems from the effects of climate change.

Climate Neutral in the North Sea

The North Sea island of Juist has set itself an ambitious yet necessary goal: to be completely climate-neutral by 2030. Even today, the consequences of climate change are already being felt on Juist. The increasing number of dikes intended to protect the land from storm surges is a tangible measure, and the island is also actively avoiding greenhouse gases by switching to car-free transport. For some time now, the city has been offering projects and activities that bring the concept of climate protection closer to visitors, both young and old, such as the “Juistus Climate Saver” program and the “University for Children.”

Colorful Coral Gardens for the Maldives

Climate change has also left its mark on the Indian Ocean. According to marine biologist Smrutica Jithendranath, responsible for the underwater world around the Reethi Faru eco-resort, rising sea levels have so far had little impact on the Maldives. However, the consequences of climate change can be clearly seen in the corals. In particular, rising water temperatures and increasingly fierce storms are causing severe damage to these tiny, sensitive animals, leading to coral bleaching and even coral death.

Based on these observations, the Reethi Faru Resort has launched a coral conservation project on Filaidhoo. In specially created underwater gardens, the resort propagates corals and plants them back into the house reef after about a year. The underwater gardens and house reefs also provide protection for the beaches and prevent them from being washed away. Within another of the many atolls of the Maldives, the North Malé Atoll, guests from the eco-resort Gili Lankanfushi can plant young corals under water in the gardens themselves and actively participate in the resort’s Coral Lines Project. After the guest’s departure, they also have the opportunity to follow the development of their corals on the resort’s blog.

Koh Samui Against Climate Change

The sustainable resort The Tongsai Bay on Koh Samui focuses on strategies to avoid greenhouse gases including non-motorized water sports, bicycle rental for island tours, carpooling, and avoiding cars on the hotel grounds. The resort has also supported the Green Island Foundation since its inception ten years ago. The organization’s main objectives are to protect the island’s climate and valuable ecosystems. For example, the Green Island Foundation has already organized car-free weeks on Koh Samui with the help of partners, such as The Tongsai Bay, to raise awareness of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Travel News | eTurboNews

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Luxury boutique cruise line launching coastal fleet

April 11, 2019 by Forimmediaterelease

Scheduled to begin full operations in November 2019, an explorer class vessel will serve three new destinations with year-round departures. The full announcement on vessel name, facts, destinations and itinerary details will be released globally on May 8, 2019.

Boutique luxury cruise line, Aqua Expeditions, is set to enter the coastal cruise market in the fall of 2019, after operating as an Amazon and Mekong River cruise line for the past twelve years.

A month ago, Aqua Expeditions finalized the purchase of a long-range 200-foot explorer yacht originally built for Britain’s Royal Navy; the vessel is now undergoing a complete refurbishment designed to transform it into an ultra-modern luxury expedition cruise ship catering to affluent explorers.

The May 8 announcement will also unveil a brand-new, state-of-the-art, luxury river cruise vessel to consolidate Aqua Expeditions’ position as one of the leaders in the river-cruise market. Once this and the recently-purchased expedition vessel are in operation, Aqua Expeditions will have doubled its fleet from two to four vessels by mid-2020.

“Even as we grow, as an owner, I remain deeply involved in every aspect of the new vessels – from the minutiae of the design details to the intricacies of the itineraries — just as we did when we started out in 2007,” says CEO Francesco Galli Zugaro, “and, as with all Aqua Expeditions vessels, we are partnering both with renowned designers and critically acclaimed chefs to provide a world-class experience.”

Travel News | eTurboNews

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Gleam of hope for tourism

April 9, 2019 by Forimmediaterelease

On March 27, all roads led to Mombasa, Kenya, for a joint business meeting organized by Uganda and Kenya and the two Presidents of both countries actually attended. The meeting gathered ministers, key business persons from both countries to discussing topics of mutual interest for the growth. I was personally hesitated to go because my wife and daughter were traveling same week and did not want them to leave without me saying a goodbye.

I also do not like meetings where people talk and do not come up with real solutions for the existing problems. I only made the journey after my family blessed it. I took a morning flight aboard Kenya Airways to join two Kenya friends (Shivam Vanayak and wife) out of Nairobi to Mombasa and thankfully, they had managed to secure three tickets on Madaraka train. Securing seats on the train from Nairobi to Mombasa is an uphill task because of high traffic.

I had been to Nairobi a number of times with an aim of securing seats and failed because of the demand. The business class is even worse because the tickets are booked out first way in advance.

The staff of Madaraka train dress more like air hostesses with a proper Kenyan hospitality. The train carries about 1,500 people each way and there are two trains departing Nairobi daily for Mombasa and vice versa which means 3,000 individuals are dropped into Mombasa daily which is a massive business opportunity for the Mombasa service providers such as hotels, restaurants, taxi drivers, entertainment joints, boats, bars, etc.

The train goes through Tsavo National Park which is Kenya’s largest and oldest standing at 13,747 square kilometers. While on the train, we also saw the 300 kilometer long Yatta Plateau, the longest lava flow in the world. Tsavo is home to the larger mammals, vast herds of elephants, rhinos, buffaloes, lions, leopard, pods of hippo, crocodiles, water bucks, lesser kudu, genenuk and the prolific bird life.

At the business forum in Mombasa, I was given an opportunity to address the audience which included President Museveni and President Uhuru Kenyatta on behavior Uganda and Kenyan tourism group. My address focused on seven points we had agreed upon before the Presidents arrived at Sarova sands where the meeting took place.

The first point focused on the flights between the East African countries especially Kenya and Uganda. Our observations are that the tickets between Uganda and Kenya are very expensive because of the high taxes levied by both governments. Kenya for example charges $50 on every ticket and Uganda charges $57 which makes a total of $107. That figure is what should be the cost of a ticket between the two countries. We actually recommended that flights between the two countries be domesticated.

The second point focused on the East African tourists’ visas which have Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda working together. Our proposal was that the two presidents convince the Tanzanian leadership to join the good arrangements. Many tourists are finding it easy paying $100 for a visa that covers the above three nations which allows them to move back and forth.

Since some local airline operators such as coastal want to fly into Ugandan national parks, it would positively affect the tourism business between the four nations. The third point focused on politics. Overtime, we as the tourism operators in the region have seen politics affect tourism a lot especially during campaigns and since insecurity and tourism can’t co-exist, foreign tourists will fear to travel in the region.

The leaders were asked to remember what their actions mean to business and practice restrain. This particular point was well received by both leaders and we hope to see some change with time. The fourth point focused on trans-boundary tourism opportunities which focus on the shared tourism attractions such as Lake Victoria and Mountain Elgon.

The tourism fraternity feels we need a combined effort in exploiting the above because we miss out on potential billions of dollars that could come out of activities such as cruises, sport fishing, water transport, accommodations on the shores and the many islands found on the lake. We also talked about the joint marketing opportunities across the globe that would see millions flock to Uganda and Kenya hence more revenues.

We asked the presidents to go easy on the yellow card requirements for citizens from both countries because it inconveniences the business travelers most since they are frequent.

Travel News | eTurboNews

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Saint Lucian taxi company receives international service excellence certification

March 25, 2019 by Forimmediaterelease

A Saint Lucian taxi firm has become the first tourism taxi company in the Caribbean to be Hospitality Assured (HA) certified, an international certification programme for service excellence.

Holiday Taxi Limited is among a number of tourism enterprises in member countries of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) that recently completely the rigorous qualifying process towards certification.

The taxi company reported that the certification process significantly improved the knowledge and skills of its employees, who are now much better placed to strengthen its performance and overall competitiveness through service excellence.

“I would recommend [Hospitality Assured] to anybody,” said Holiday Taxi’s Lucien Joseph.

The Castries-based ground transportation firm was one of four tourism service providers whose participation in the HA certification process was funded by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) through a US$265,000 grant to train key HA support personnel and to fund the participation of 30 tourism micro, small and medium enterprises in the programme. The others businesses are Sunbreeze Hotel in Belize – the first hotel on the island of Ambergris Caye to be HA certified – as well as Grand Coastal Inn and Old Fort Tours in Guyana, both of which said they are now better prepared to introduce a culture of service excellence in all aspects of their businesses.

Hospitality Assured promotes and rewards the highest standards of service excellence in the hospitality sector and is seen as the standard for service and business excellence in the industry. It provides nine key performance indicators – customer research, the customer service promise, business leadership and planning, operational planning and standards of performance, resources that are required to deliver customer service standards, training and development, service delivery, service recovery and customer satisfaction improvement – against which an organization can continually evaluate and measure its performance with respect to service quality, while promoting an organizational climate of continuous improvement.

To facilitate the certification process the CTO assigns a business advisor to each enterprise to help the companies meet the minimum requirements on the nine steps of the Hospitality Assured standard. Certification is for a two-year period and there must be continuous improvement in order for a business to be recertified.

Ninety-one companies from fourteen CTO member countries have signed on to the program, with thirty-nine currently possessing certification. The businesses involved are mainly in the accommodation sub-sector, but there are also several sites and attractions, restaurants and coffee houses, tour and transportation companies, a retail store and a hospitality training institute.

Hospitality Assured is a service quality management certification owned by the Institute of Hospitality in the United Kingdom, managed and operated by the Hospitality Limited, U.K. and developed specifically for the tourism sector, to promote and reward the highest levels of service and business excellence. Hospitality Assured in the Caribbean is managed and promoted by the CTO. Any hospitality, leisure, tourism or service-oriented organization is eligible for Hospitality Assured certification, be they large or small, single or multi-operational.

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Point Lookout Resort and Conference Center in Northport under new management

March 20, 2019 by Forimmediaterelease

Olympia Hotel Management announced today that they will assume management of Point Lookout Resort and Conference Center in Northport, Maine. The dramatic 387 acre conference center and resort property is set on mountainside terrain overlooking Penobscot Bay, in Maine’s scenic Mid-Coast region.

The new owner of Point Lookout is Deep Creek Grazing Association. David and Tami Hirschfeld, of Camden are the principals of Deep Creek Grazing Association. They are proud to take the helm of such a majestic property, one that offers guests, wedding couples and corporate clients an authentic Maine experience.

“The Hirschfelds look forward to welcoming new and returning guests to Point Lookout,” says Matthew Arrants, Executive Vice President of Pinnacle Advisory Group, on behalf of Deep Creek Grazing Association. “They are devoted to the region and deeply committed to the resort’s employees. As Maine residents, they intend to be good stewards of this remarkable property. It’s why they reached out to a Maine-based company like Olympia Hotel Management for their hospitality and operational expertise.”

For Portland-based Olympia Hotel Management, which currently manages such Maine hotels as the award-winning Inn by the Sea, Point Lookout is a welcome opportunity to partner with another iconic property in their home state.

“We’re thrilled to take over the management of Point Lookout,” says Sara Masterson, Senior Vice President of Olympia Hotel Management. “We have a deep and lasting commitment to the state of Maine and this remarkable coastal property aligns perfectly with our expertise in managing outstanding properties that play an integral role in the local community.”

Travel News | eTurboNews

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