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
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.
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
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.”
Did you know that demand for both passenger and freight traffic grew favorably compared to the year before? Passenger comfortably outdid the 10-year average annual growth rate of 5.5% by reaching 8.2% while freight demand more than doubled by reaching 13.7% growth.
Source: IATA Infographic
www.iata.org
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Link: http://info.skift.com/accors-dealmaking-strategy-travelport-embraces-blockchain-icelands-overtourism-plan?ecid=ACsprvsaM-Cw_SgVsnUm7q6Nz48NQYTQaF8_MhMBxVxsOtgAOJseZRDvFcZS2z6NYs7IH8KLJoOu&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=63958561&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_KxjL_XUTubSJPihBBfYBYZ7-dcQgeIQx_C7Krk6xEK0YWzi51GquFRhyqxYrhqGSi3JaZQKs2uYjF8fcKtVdwFrGxgQ&_hsmi=63958561
Air France Strike
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Air traffic control agency Eurocontrol has warned airlines to exercise caution in the eastern Mediterranean due to the possible launch of air strikes into Syria in next 72 hours.
Eurocontrol said that air-to-ground and/or cruise missiles could be used within that period and there was a possibility of intermittent disruption of radio navigation equipment.
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-11/airlines-warned-about-possible-air-strikes-into-syria/9640132