The world's largest cruise liner began Friday its maiden voyage to Florida, gliding out from a shipyard in Finland with an amphitheatre, basketball courts and an ice rink on board. The 16-deck Oasis of the Seas spans 360 metres from bow to stern. Its 2,700 cabins can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew.
The Gibraltar Tourist Board held a tourism workshop in Madrid, Spain this week, in conjunction with Ándalus Líneas Aéreas, as part of the Rock’s government’s commitment to an ongoing joint marketing drive with the airline in Spain.
The Chilean National Service of Tourism (SERNATUR) in November will open a new route through the Torres del Paine National Park, in Chile’s Patagonia, that will offer geologic and physical information about eleven specific sites within the park.
The final pieces are falling into place for “Oasis of the Seas” with the ship's future owners Royal Caribbean and homeport Fort Lauderdale in Florida State poised to introduce the world to the largest cruise ship ever built.
Pluna, Uruguay’s flag carrier began this month commercial cargo flights between Santiago and Punta Arenas in the extreme south of Chile and has plans to incorporate passengers in the near future, reports La Prensa Austral.
Uruguay tops the 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index in South America and is only second to Costa Rica in Latinamerica and ahead of Chile and Argentina. However Latinamerica’s best placed countries in the index which defines prosperity as wealth and wellbeing are in the thirties out of a total list of 104.
With the official tourist season starting on October 31, Chile’s main port Valparaíso tourism leaders say they are expecting 85.000 tourists cruise ship tourists this coming summer season. This figure is a considerable drop from previous years and could result in lower prices for tourism related services.
Brazil’s main opposition party demanded responsibility from President Lula da Silva in combating the wave of violence rocking Rio do Janeiro and which has left at least 35 killed in shootings with the drugs’ gangs that even downed a police helicopter.
The Falkland Islands Tourist Board this week launched the nation’s first ‘Tourism Satellite Account’ (TSA), a United Nations endorsed international standard for measuring the true economic impact of tourism.
The Chilean TAG service (an electronic toll road payment system) has been implemented in Santiago’s Arturo Merino Benítez airport in the Pudahuel borough, thus making it easier to enter and leave the international airport.