AIRPORT – Milan Linate Airport – Milan Linate airport is to close from July 27 until Oct 27, 2019, to allow for renovation works. Majority flights to be re-routed to Milan Malpensa Airport.
Link: https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2018/10/01/milan-linate-airport-to-close-for-renovations-over-summer-2019/
STRIKE – Milan – Some airport personnel in Milan Airports will strike for 24 hours, from 00:00 to 23:59, April 13. Check with your ticket office whether this affects your flight Details.
Link: https://www.summerinitaly.com/traveltips/transport-strikes-in-italy
Qatar Airways to Sudan
FLIGHT DELAY – Due to commercial reasons, all Qatar Airways flights to/from Khartoum, Sudan will be temporarily suspended effective March 31 until further notice.
Link: https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/14/03/2019/Qatar-Airways-to-suspend-Sudan-flights
BA suspends Saudi flights
British Airways has today suspended flights to Saudi Arabia because of “heightened security concerns in the region”.
The suspension, until further notice, followed discussions earlier today between the airline and the UK Department for Transport.
BA’s safety and security director Geoff Want, said, “As a matter of precaution we have decided to suspend all flights to Saudi Arabia for the time being and we will continue to liaise closely with the British government.”
BA normally operates four flights a week to Riyadh and four a week to Jeddah.
A Department for Transport spokesman said: “There is credible intelligence of a serious threat to UK aviation interests in Saudi Arabia.”
There are about 30,000 Britons in Saudi Arabia at any one time – most of them residents who are working there.
The Foreign Office said today: “We shall be drawing the British Airways announcement to the attention of the British community in Saudi Arabia through the warden network we have out there.”
The Foreign Office added that it did not intend to change its current advice about travel to Saudi Arabia. This already advises against all but essential travel to the Middle East country.
Two bomb attacks in Riyadh on May 12 killed more than 30 people and injured nearly 100 others.
The Foreign Office said that further large or small scale attacks against Western interests in Saudi Arabia remain likely.
Link: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-192255/BA-suspends-Saudi-flights.html
Lufthansa Strike
Deutsche Lufthansa AG will cancel at least 414 flights due to a strike on Tuesday by security staff at eight German airports, including the airline’s hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.
The cancellations include 386 flights within Europe and 28 intercontinental services, Lufthansa said on Monday. Airport-security workers in Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Hanover, Bremen, Dresden, Leipzig/Halle and Erfurt plan to walk out from 2 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday as the Ver.di union pushes for higher wages.
“Because employers have shown no willingness to make a better offer, the extension of warning strikes has become necessary,” Ver.di board member Ute Kittel said in a statement on Monday. Talks are due to start again on Jan. 23.
This article was written by William Wilkes from Bloomberg and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.
Link: https://skift.com/2019/01/14/lufthansa-cancels-flights-as-airport-security-staff-plan-strike/
Paris Updates Dec 8th 2018
Some Parisian sites may be closed today (Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, Garnier Opera House, Orsay Museum etc..) as well as the shops on the Champs Elysées Avenue. We highly recommend you to visit open spaces such as Montmartre, Luxembourg garden, Latin and Marais districts to make the most of the French Capital.
For more info: please click on the link: https://pro.parisinfo.com/actualites/actualite-touristique/Point-sur-le-mouvement-social-en-cours-%C3%A0-Paris/infos-pratiques#
You need more than your fingers on both hands to count all the awards received by Portuguese institutions and companies at the World Travel Awards, which took place last 1st December in Lisbon. In all, 16 awards were won.
Portugal was voted World’s Leading Destination for the second time in a row, surpassing strong competitors: South Africa, Brazil, Spain, USA, Greece, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, New Zealand, Kenya, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The Secretary of State for Tourism, Ana Mendes Godinho, commented in a statement that “we are very proud to receive this distinction again”. “Being the world champion in tourism for the second consecutive year is a sign of Portugal’s ability to gain a foothold internationally, thanks to the work of all the Portuguese. Portugal is indeed a must-see destination. This is, above all, a prize for the Portuguese,” the governor mentioned.
The Portuguese capital won two World Tourism “Oscars”, specifically World’s Leading City Destination and World’s Leading City Break Destination. Madeira is World’s Leading Island Destination and Turismo de Portugal the World’s Leading Tourist Board.
The World Travel Awards are awarded by industry professionals and are often considered the “Oscars” of tourism. They were first awarded in 1993, recognising the work developed in the tourist industry, in order to boost tourism’s competitiveness and quality. Winners are chosen worldwide.
Marriott Hotels’ Hacking
Marriott reports that there has been unauthorized access to its Starwood guest reservation database, which contained guest information relating to reservations at Starwood properties on or before September 10. These include hotels under the W Hotels, St. Regis, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Westin Hotels & Resorts, Element Hotels, Aloft Hotels, The Luxury Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts, Four Points by Sheraton and Design Hotels brands, as well as Starwood-branded timeshare properties.
On September 8, Marriott said that it received an alert from an internal security tool regarding an attempt to access the Starwood guest reservation database in the United States. The company engaged security experts to help determine what occurred. Marriott learned during the investigation that there had been unauthorized access to the Starwood network since 2014. The company recently discovered that an unauthorized party had copied and encrypted information, and took steps towards removing it. On November 19, 2018, Marriott was able to decrypt the information and determined that the contents were from the Starwood guest reservation database.
The company has not finished identifying duplicate information in the database, but believes it contains information on up to approximately 500 million guests who made a reservation at a Starwood property. For approximately 327 million of these guests, the information includes some combination of name, mailing address, phone number, email address, passport number, Starwood Preferred Guest (“SPG”) account information, date of birth, gender, arrival and departure information, reservation date, and communication preferences. For some, the information also includes payment card numbers and payment card expiration dates, but the payment card numbers were encrypted using Advanced Encryption Standard encryption (AES-128). There are two components needed to decrypt the payment card numbers, and at this point, Marriott has not been able to rule out the possibility that both were taken. For the remaining guests, the information was limited to name and sometimes other data such as mailing address, email address, or other information.
Marriott said it has reported this incident to law enforcement and continues to support their investigation. The company has also begun notifying regulatory authorities.
“We deeply regret this incident happened,” said Arne Sorenson, Marriott’s president and CEO. “We fell short of what our guests deserve and what we expect of ourselves. We are doing everything we can to support our guests, and using lessons learned to be better moving forward.”
Marriott said it has taken the following steps to help guests monitor and protect their information:
Dedicated Website and Call Center: The company has established a dedicated website (info.starwoodhotels.com) and call center to answer questions guests may have about this incident. The frequently-asked questions on info.starwoodhotels.com may be supplemented from time to time. The call center is open seven days a week and is available in multiple languages. Call volume may be high, Marriott warned.
Email Notification: Marriott will begin sending emails on a rolling basis to affected guests whose email addresses are in the Starwood guest reservation database.
Free WebWatcher Enrollment: Marriott is providing guests the opportunity to enroll in WebWatcher free of charge for one year. WebWatcher monitors internet sites where personal information is shared and generates an alert to the consumer if evidence of the consumer’s personal information is found. Due to regulatory and other reasons, WebWatcher or similar products are not available in all countries. Guests from the United States who activate WebWatcher will also be provided fraud consultation services and reimbursement coverage for free. To activate WebWatcher, guests can go to info.starwoodhotels.com and click on their country, if listed, for enrollment.
Link: http://www.internationalmeetingsreview.com/technology/marriott-reports-major-hack-starwood-database-104809?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=unknown&utm_content=104809&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTVdFd1l6TmlNelU1TXpsaSIsInQiOiJwUDc0SnVQTEFSbldpVVpSckJpZ1NHT1A1cmh3c0tJd0puang3VTNvMXlIOVl5SHFndkgyakU0cGNmU1Q1NTZ3OTZqWmp5SHR2Y05pcjY1c0k4Y1JZc3pHQ1dCK29FRU91ajJxUG9MXC81bWVQNXRnVytYelUzUHRsWFNqaDZ6ZE8ifQ%3D%3D
Four hundred years after the Bard’s death, we’re still using the same words he gave us to get stuff done and make money.
He is , William Shakespeare, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist.
While most of us know Shakespeare for his extensive repertoire of plays like Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet, few are aware of the profound impact he had on the evolution of modern English.
One scholar has identified as many as 15,000 different words that Shakespeare used in his plays, several of which he invented himself by combining existing words and borrowing words from foreign languages.
In fact, Shakespeare added hundreds of new words to the English language, including many commonly used words and colorful expressions that we still use today. While many of these words may have already been in use in the daily speech used at the time he was writing his plays, the Oxford English Dictionary credits 2,000 of them to Shakespeare.
1. Manager:
Businesses may be looking for more leaders these days, but they still rely on managers to get things done. Who would have thought this bread-and-butter word we use – mostly unconsciously – dozens of a times a week, came from Shakespeare? Yet you can find it in two of his plays, including Love’s Labour’s Lost and Midsummer’s Night Dream..
2. Marketable
3. Negotiate
4. Leap-frog (Henry V )
5. Employment (Two Gentlemen of Verona)
6. Investments (Hamlet)
7. Outsell ( Cymbaline)
8. Undervalued (The Merchant of Venice)
Link: http://www.incarabia.com/innovate/8-words-from-shakespeare-that-the-business-world-still-uses/
Inc.com
Coffee Conversation
Bird blues
Remember that cute little blue bird from the movie “Rio?” Sadly a new study says the Spix’s macaw is now extinct in the wild.
Treasure trip
Looking for buried treasure? You might want to take a trip to northern Italy, where archaeologists just unearthed hundreds of Roman gold coins.
Talking turkey
Meet the man who says he’s learned the vocabulary of turkeys. No, really. (Click to view)
The latest edition of its Tourism Highlights, published on Monday, shows international arrivals reached 1.323 million last year.
The figure represents an 84 million increase over 2016, and a new record, with the sector also recording “uninterrupted growth” in arrivals for eight consecutive years.
Europe and Africa led the regions with increases in arrivals, with growth of 8% and 9% respectively.
WTO added that tourism is the world’s third largest export category, earning $1.3 trillion in receipts in 2017: an increase of 5%.
Meanwhile, total exports from international tourism stood at $1.6 trillion, or an average of $4 billion a day: that is, seven per cent of the world’s exports.
“These strong 2017 results were driven by sustained travel demand for destinations across all world regions, including a firm recovery by those that have suffered from security challenges in recent years,” WTO said in a press release.
“Strong outbound demand from virtually all source markets, including rebounds from major emerging economies Brazil and the Russian Federation, benefited both advanced and emerging destinations”.
7 of the 10 top tourism destinations are also leaders worldwide in both international tourist arrivals and international tourism receipts: China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
China also was responsible for generating nearly one-fifth of the world’s total tourism spending in 2017. Citizens of the world’s most populous country spent $258 billion on international travel last year.
WTO added that so far, 2018 shows international tourism continues to grow, “with a year-on-year increase of 6% in arrivals between January and April.”