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New sales leader at Kimpton Hotel Monaco Washington DC & Kimpton George Hotel

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Kimpton Hotel Monaco Washington DC and Kimpton George Hotel announced the hire of Katherine Saad-Loman as director of sales and marketing for both boutique hotels in Washington, DC. Saad-Loman brings a strong resort, catering, and luxury hotel background to the position, as well as nearly 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry.

In her new role, Saad-Loman will drive all sales and marketing activities for Kimpton’s Hotel Monaco Washington DC and Hotel George. Saad-Loman’s day to day as director of sales and marketing for the two hotels will be spent with an emphasis on working with key corporate accounts while also leading the hotels’ expert sales, catering, and events staff. Under her guidance, the team will continue to create ridiculously personalized meetings, weddings, and creative event experiences, offering seasonally-inspired food and beverage in partnership with the hotels’ talented restaurant teams. Saad-Loman will also spearhead strategy for all sales segments and oversee the approach toward revenue, digital marketing, advertising and public relations efforts for the hotels.

Saad-Loman joins Kimpton with varied and impressive experience. She began her career at Hilton Singer Island Ocean Front Resort where she increased catering sales 350% across her three year term. After learning the ropes of a conference hotel, Saad-Loman gained experience as a director of food and beverage at Imperial Lake Golf and Country Club in Mulberry, Florida. She then cut her teeth in a number sales and operations roles throughout central Florida and Baltimore before joining the team at Walt Disney World’s Grand Floridian Resort as a senior sales and catering manager. She continued to advance her career at top hotels in the Florida market before returning to the Mid-Atlantic as a director of sales and marketing at Bethany Beach Ocean Suites in Delaware. Prior to joining the team at Kimpton, she was task force director of sales and marketing with Crestline Hotels & Resorts in Fairfax, Virginia.

A world traveler and graduate of Catham College in Pittsburgh, Saad-Loman has called the greater DC area home for the past seven months. Outside of work, she can be found planning her next trip, finding places to use her fluent French and recommends everyone live abroad at least once in their lives. Saad-Loman is a member of Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) with a passion for mentoring those looking to hone their sales and leadership skills, and she also volunteers, teaching financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship to first graders through Junior Achievement of Greater Washington in her spare time. Saad-Loman brings a stylish sense of leadership and a wide range of sales and marketing experience to both Hotel George and Hotel Monaco Washington DC.

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Seychelles receives honor of hosting FINA CNSG Open Water World Series 2019

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The excitement was palpable at Beau Vallon Beach on Saturday, April 13, 2019, almost a month before the Seychelles hosts for the second consecutive year the FINA CNSG Open Water World Series 2019.

This year’s event is being held in collaboration with Chinese based company CNSG and Seychelles is once again the second leg in the series of eight.

The organizing committee’s partners including the Seychelles Tourism Board (STB), officials and local swimmers gathered at Beau Vallon Beach where a trial run was organized to test out the facilities, the technical requirements and of course, the local swimming talents.

Principal Secretary for Sports, Fabien Palmyre present at the trial run mentioned his satisfaction to see that the FINA CNSG Open Water World Series 2019 is materializing with the support of all local partners.

“I am excited to again, be part of such an event. I am proud of all our young swimmers who have made an effort to be present today. I am grateful to all the partners and volunteers and I am definitely looking forward to this year’s event,” said PS Palmyre.

15 swimmers competed in the Beau Vallon waters in three main races, 2.5 km, 5 km and 7.5 km. According to the Seychelles Swimming Association (SSA) officials, the reasoning behind the distances selected is to enable the swimmers to test out their abilities to see which category would suit them best for the May 11, 2019 event, which will be opened for the public and other swimming enthusiasts.

The 2019 Mass Open Water event will take place on Saturday May 11, one day prior to the Elite event.

The May 11 Mass event will comprise of four distances, Group A (500 m), Group B (1 km), Group C (3 km) and Group D (5 km). The only age restriction will be for Group A where students aged 13 years and under can participate. The others will be open to all ages and there will be two races, a male and a female race for each distance.

“Mass participation is crucial in making the Mass event a success and the Seychelles Swimming Association is calling on all swimmers to register for the event,” said David Vidot, SSA Chairperson.

Mr. Vidot indicated that the forms for registration are available on the SSA Facebook page and website. The deadline to return the registration form to the Swimming Association is May 1, 2019.

The Seychelles is honored this year to have four Seychellois swimmers qualified to take part in the Elite 10 km race, which will take place on Sunday May 12, 2019.

Joining the 2018 swimmers, brothers Bertrand and Damien Payet, will be Matthew Bachmann and Alain Vidot, both of whom completed the 7.5 km race finishing second and third consecutively behind Damien who crossed the finishing line on Saturday first.

The Elite event which is broadcast to a global audience via the FINA network, exposes Seychelles in another light, similar to that of the annual Eco-Marathon event, which strengthens Seychelles’ potential as a Sports Tourism destination.

“It is such a privilege to be hosting the event again on our shores; as announced earlier this year, STB is committed to promote Seychelles as an ideal sports destination. Our collaboration with Seychelles Swimming Association and other partners for FINA CNSG Open Water World Series 2019 is an ideal platform for us to showcase our beautiful destination and its pristine waters,” said Mrs. Sherin Francis, Seychelles Tourism Board Chief Executive.

In May 2018, open water swimming made its debut in Seychelles, as the small island nation became the second host in the FINA World Cup Series 2018. The iconic Beau Vallon beach was the chosen venue to launch Seychelles in the open water swimming world, making it the first country in Africa to host an event of this caliber.

As part of the FINA mandate, the host country is required to host a mass event alongside the elite 10k m event, in order to encourage and mobilize the local community to appreciate and take part in the sport.

Travel News | eTurboNews

Follow travel journalists of “The Bucket List Family”

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The Bucket List Family is a family of five, including three small children, who travel the world together documenting and sharing their adventures. The family will travel with LATAM Airlines throughout the South American region, checking off places from their bucket list with some of the most popular destinations in the region.

In addition, LATAM is bridging a partnership between The Bucket List Family and TECHO, a nonprofit organization that seeks to overcome the poverty situation that millions of people live in across Latin America through the joint work of its inhabitants and young volunteers.

During a yearlong adventure, LATAM will take the family to key destinations in South America to explore the variety of cultures, and via their partnership with TECHO, present the family with the opportunity to give back to the communities by collaborating with local leaders and share their efforts and accomplishments for building better communities.

“We are thrilled to fly with LATAM to amazing destinations and work with TECHO to help in its important mission of fighting poverty throughout the region, said Jessica Gee, matriarch of the Bucket List Family. “In every country we visit, we try to find local service opportunities where we can not only give back but impart valuable life lessons to our children. That’s why we feel this latest adventure is perfectly aligned with our mission and family values.”

Felipe Bogotá, General Director at TECHO added: “TECHO is proud to join LATAM in making The Bucket List Family´s tour an opportunity to build bridges and share on the disparate realities of life in Latin America with the world. Sharing stories is a substantial part of our work, which we have developed in part thanks to LATAM´s foundational contribution to our organization.”

The Bucket List Family will begin its tour in March of 2019, running through 2020. They are expected to visit Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Peru.

“LATAM is thrilled to take the Bucket List Family on this amazing adventure of discovery and purpose,” said Pablo Chiozza, Senior Vice President USA, Asia, Canada and Caribbean at LATAM Airlines.

Follow the journey and join the conversations at The Bucket List Family and use the hashtag #TheBucketListandLATAM.

Travel News | eTurboNews

Italy travel: Extraordinary opening of hidden treasures to the world

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An extraordinary opening is about to take place of over 1,100 sites in 430 locations in Italy, from the Palazzo della Consulta in Rome to the Castle of Melegnano (MI), from the Center for Space Geodesy in Matera to the city of Pontremoli (MS). This is the Italian Environmental Fund (FAI), the National Trust of Italy.

The organization was founded in 1975 on the model of the British National Trust. It is a private non-profit organization with 60,000 members in early 2005. Its purpose is to protect elements of the Italian physical heritage that could otherwise be lost.

The splendid paradox of Italian beauty is being together both every day and extraordinary, sometimes sumptuous and explicit, others hidden and wounded, but always so deeply Italy’s as to define who the country is and remind of the countless plots that have woven the nation’s origins, leaving footprints in Italy’s cultural heritage as if they are clues.

On Saturday and Sunday, March 23 and 24, 2019, the FAI invites everyone to participate in the FAI Spring Days to look at Italy as never done before and build an ideal bridge between cultures that will make travel around the world a goal and a delight.

Now in its 27th edition, the event has turned into a grandiose mobile party for a vast public, which awaits every year to take part in this extraordinary collective ceremony, an unrepeatable appointment in the cultural panorama that since 1993 has enthralled almost 11 million visitors.

Year after year, the FAI Spring Days exceed themselves: this edition will see 1,100 places open in 430 locations in all regions, thanks to the organizational thrust of the 325 groups of delegates scattered in all regions – regional, provincial, and youth group delegations – and thanks to the 40,000 Cicerone Apprentices.

Hundreds of sites and thousands of people that the soul of the FAI lights up, will take everyone by the hand and accompany the Italians to reflect themselves in the astonishing variety of the most beautiful country, opening places that are often inaccessible and exceptionally open to visitors this weekend, during which it is possible to support the Foundation with an optional contribution or with registration.

For 2019, the novelty of the largest square festival dedicated to the cultural heritage of Italy will be a FAI bridge between cultures, the FAI project that aims to amplify and tell the different foreign cultural influences scattered in open goods throughout Italy. Many of these places bear witness to the wealth derived from the encounter and the fusion between Italy’s tradition and that of European, Asian, American, and African countries.

This is why in some of these sites and in some FAI assets the visits will be handled by over a hundred volunteers of foreign origin who will tell the historical, artistic, and architectural aspects typical of their culture of origin which, in contact with Italy’s, contributed to give life to the country’s heritage.

Examples are the Carlo Viganò Library of the Catholic University in Brescia, a “journey” between the Latin, Greek, Arabic, and vernacular languages through manuscripts, sixteenth-century works, and printed works that document the development of algebra, astronomy, the physics, and other sciences.

There is the Piazza Sett’Angeli in Palermo, an open book where one can read the millennial history of the city, and the Chinese Cabinet of Palazzo Reale in Turin, covered with lacquered panels  from China. Also, there is the connection between Venice and the Dalmatian School of Saints George and Trifone, which still maintains the spiritual and cultural bond between the Dalmatians and Venice.

The catalog of goods that can be visited during the FAI Spring Days is available at giornatefai.it and contains a proposal so varied and original that it is impossible to summarize.

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