Tourism

• Friday, January 26th 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Sao Paulo celebrates anniversary with 453 meters long cake

  

  Brazil's Sao Paulo, South America's largest and most dynamic city celebrated this week its 453 anniversary with an eight tons cake shared by thousands of residents.

• Friday, January 26th 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Polished Valparaiso “invaded” by 8.000 cruise visitors

  

  Three cruise vessels including “Queen Mary 2” called Friday in the Chilean port of Valparaíso with thousands of tourists, following a similar situation the previous Wednesday with the “Discovery”.

• Thursday, January 25th 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Norovirus outbreak affects 300 on board QE2

  

  A Norovirus outbreak was reported to have affected more than 300 passengers and crew members aboard the world-famous Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) before the ocean liner docked in San Francisco Wednesday for a regularly scheduled stop, according to news reports.

• Sunday, January 21st 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Queen Mary 2 calls in Montevideo for 15 hours

  

  Queen Mary 2, one of the world's largest passenger ships and currently on its first ever world cruise, an 81 day circumnavigation of the globe, called in Montevideo last Saturday for fifteen hours.

• Friday, January 19th 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Chile's Valparaiso braces itself for massive tourist wave

  

  Nearly 16,000 tourists will flood the port city of Valparaiso over the next two weeks, with over half of the visitors arriving in a single day on four separate cruise ships. The huge ships are set to dock next Friday 26th, along with six smaller vessels throughout the week, bringing an unprecedented influx of visitors to the city of 280,000.

• Thursday, January 18th 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Growing complaints about Buquebus ferry service

  

  Hundreds of passengers waiting to travel on the ferry shuttle between Buenos Aires and Montevideo suffered this week unexpected delays because of lack of vessels and stricter migration regulations for minors, admitted Buquebus, the company which has a virtual monopoly of the River Plate crossings.

• Thursday, January 18th 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Wanted: holiday rep to sell joys of Falklands tourism

  

  The only direct flights are chartered by the RAF, and visitors to the beach are asked to keep an eye out for the landmines from the war, 25 years ago. But the Falkland Islands, with their clear skies, 500,000 pairs of penguins and an appealing sense of emptiness, have announced they are launching themselves on the world travel market.

• Thursday, January 18th 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentine Coast Guard rescues grounded cruise liner

  

  A cruise vessel with 1.612 passengers, mostly from Brazil, finally managed Thursday early afternoon to pull off from a River Plate sand bank where she was grounded for over twenty hours.

• Thursday, January 18th 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Air Plus Comet replaces Air Madrid in Latin America

  

  Spanish airline Air Comet Plus will operate in seven Latin American countries previously covered by the now closed down Air Madrid airline. The operation was allowed after Spanish Public Works Minister Magdalena Alvarez and Air Comet president Gerardo Díaz signed an agreement.

• Wednesday, January 17th 2007 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentine tourism in Uruguay drops 20% in first fortnight

  

  Uruguay's Deputy Tourism Minister Lilian Kechiciahn revealed that in the first fortnight of 2007 the number of Argentine tourists traveling to Uruguay dropped 20% compared to a year ago, mainly because of the ongoing controversy over the construction of the Finnish Botnia-Orion pulp mill.