George Mawadri, British Airways’ commercial manager in Kenya told the Business Daily that “There are great opportunities in Africa and we are eyeing the region keenly.” Likewise, Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank’s chief economist for Africa, had said in April, “Although Africa was the hardest hit by the crisis, its recovery has been so remarkable that we could be at the beginning of what history will describe as Africa’s decade.”

Major carriers such as Emirates, Qatar Airways, British Airways, Brussels, Lufthansa, Turkish Airline, Swiss International, and Delta have been introducing new African routes on their networks and increasing frequency to tap into the raising economic profile of Africa. In addition to the oversees airlines, domestic airlines like Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways, Egypt Air and the Royal Air Morocco have been increasing their presence in the region and connecting their hubs to other international routes.

This July Belgian airline, Brussels, launched four new African destinations to its network — Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo — and increased frequency to Ivory Coast. Emirates with 19 cities in its network and Qatar Airways with similar strong presence in the continent clearly indicate the Middle Eastern airlines will make at least many African cities as a stopover location to extend their airprint to other far-off international destinations.

Africa overcame the meltdown contrary to many forecasts including that of the World Bank, and it is estimated, at this pace of recovery, an economic growth of about 5 percent by the end of this year. Furthermore, in 2011, half of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies are expected to be in Africa.

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The report has also discovered that the ‘culture and heritage’ of the country in the widest sense – extending from theatres, galleries, to pubs, Premiership Football, castles and stately homes – generated £4.6bn in total spending by overseas tourists in 2009. It said Britain’s Monarchy played a pivotal role in making the country magnetic to foreign tourists by recording well over £500mn during the same period.

Last year, out of 30mn overseas tourists, 5.8mn visited a castle, 5mn a historic house and 6.4mn chose to visit a religious monument such as a cathedral. The Tower of London was most popular and received about 2.4mn tourists last year, an increase of 11 percent from the previous year.

Christopher Rodrigues of VisitBritain argued that it was clear that tourism, already Britain’s fifth largest industry and third biggest earner of foreign exchange, was going to be central to the health of the British economy for years to come. On the contrary, UKinbound, which manages inbound tourism of Britain, has challenged the findings of the report, claiming it painted an unrealistic rosy picture.

However, the report too reminds of the significance of government intervention for the success of the tourism industry as there is a host of market barriers need to be addressed. They include co-ordinating the marketing of SMEs that cannot afford to do it themselves, empowering of rural firms faced with higher costs of operating to adopt new technology, and to support many districts across the country that rely on tourism as a key source of jobs for low-skilled and part-time workers.

UKinbound chief executive Mary Rance had stated “With no plans to increase capacity at Heathrow or any other London airport and in the absence of a strategy to restore the competitiveness of the UK as a destination by addressing the barriers to growth, it is fantasy to suggest that such huge growth is attainable.”

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During the visit to the Portugal’s capital Lisbon, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with his Portuguese counterpart Luis Amado for the signing of the deal as well as to hold diplomatic talks. Davutoglu while signing the accord stated the bilateral trade between Turkey and Portugal had reached $826mn last year, and there was great prospect of improving from the current value.

Now the deal will go through a formal ratification process by both the countries’ parliaments. The effective date will be declared once the deal is approved by the respective houses.

The similar facilitation of the new deal has been a longstanding demand of Turkey with the EU as agreements signed by the EU and Turkey necessitate that Turks be exempted from visas. However, the EU’s recent nod to three Balkan states including Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro for visa-free travel to their nationals has heightened the Turkish demand for such relaxation is extended to its citizens too.

It should be recalled, last year, the European Court of Justice has issued a ruling paving the way for Turkish businesspeople providing services in the EU member states to enter the EU without having to obtain visas first under a 1973 deal called the Additional Protocol to the Ankara Agreement. While speaking at the occasion, the Portuguese Foreign Minister said that Portugal hoped the membership negotiations would be concluded as soon as possible.

At the sidelines of his official visit, the Turkish Foreign Minister also met up with the visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to discuss bilateral co-operation and trilateral agreements on exchange of fuel for the Tehran research reactor. A tripartite agreement on the exchange of uranium was reached May 17 between Iran, Turkey and Brazil.

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MHmobile is an optimized user interface that enables travellers to book flights and access up to date travel information while on the move. In a world’s first, MHkiosk employs touch-screen technology, and is equipped with passport and card readers for instant passenger recognition, and print 2D barcode boarding passes.

The introduction of the MHkiosk follows Jetstar’s recent debut as the first airline to use iPads as in-flight entertainment on their aircrafts. Jetstar Airways is a low-cost subsidiary of Qantas, the national airline of Australia.

MD/CEO of the MAS, Tengku Datuk Azmil Zahruddin claimed that there was huge interest in the iPad MHkiosks as it was so simple and user-friendly; and he later added that the MAS had plans of introducing more such kiosks depending up on the success. As part of the promotion, the customers using the newly launched kiosks will get a waiver on the administrative fee for travel during the six-month pilot project period.

The kiosks is understood to eliminate admin charges since the ticketing process is electronically managed allowing the customers to select their itineraries, credit card payments, confirmation via SMS and email sans printing material. “It will mean better queue management at our ticket offices during peak hours when customers can be re-directed to ‘stand-alone’ iPad MHkiosks,” said Zahruddin.

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The Sultanate of Oman is conducting this workshop to enhance its interest and scientific advancement in the fields of architecture control, eco-tourism and environment protection. In the past few decades, Oman has been able to leapfrog various eco-friendly projects including renewable energy, management of waste, water resources and anti-pollution drive on marine world.

The study meet which is jointly organized by Ministry of Heritage and Culture and French Embassy is expected to promote sustainable development programs with emphasis on green architecture and eco-tourism. Oman industry heads would be primarily interested in technology transfer and other inputs from France to take their green industry to the next level of development.

French Ambassador to the Sultanate Malika Berak is of the opinion that the three-day event will prove to be an opportunity to expand bilateral ties as 10 leading architecture agencies with good number of experts from France have agreed to take part in the workshop. The event will target French and Omani architects, researchers, institutional representatives and officials in charge of sustainable development affairs to put accent on an eco-friendly comprehensive plan for all future developments in possible sectors.

According to sources, Jean Gautier, Director of Architecture at French Ministry of Culture and Communication, will give a presentation on the urban planning project ‘Grand Paris’. Besides, the Muscat municipality projects are also likely to be featured at the event to draw expert feedback.

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Mary Lascelles Relocation Director at Moving Links 4 You commented “My son recently went to Kashmir, India where he spent three months working on a project. So many folks advised against it as it was an unsafe place, and the newspapers certainly lead us to believe it was nuts for going. He has now returned and he said he never felt unsafe while there. Goes to show that a lot of times fear is instilled by media hype. Still, it’s important to use your intuition – while still living life and not shutting out important experiences.”

Barbara Holtzman, Executive Consultant & Management Coach said she would follow her intuition and did not avoid any place based on an alert alone, and also endorsed Lascelles’ view. While Sally Shiff Social Network Coordinator at Maoz Inc. opined “I live in the Middle East (Israel) and have learned to be aware of safety. What we don’t have here is the theft and harm that I used to see on the streets in the US or as a traveler abroad.” She later added that the places which were unsafe to travel were often found barricaded, and was glad rather to comply with such warnings.

However, some participants in the poll are of the opinion that it would be unwise to overlook these advisories. Similarly, those in the travel and transport industry are also found to be paying attention to the alerts as they feared it would hurt their businesses.

The poll clarification on as to why ask this question read – It is observed that advisories are used these days as foreign policy. Instead of pinpointing the terror strike areas, and helping those countries to nab the perpetrators before the event, most governments just release a terror alert to put that country/ies and administration/s in all kinds of trouble.

The recent terror advisories issued by the US, Britain, Australia and Canada on the Indian capital has forced the government to turn New Delhi into a fortress with heavy deployment of security forces and also increased security checks. Furthermore, some analysts believe operatives under the guise of crank callers could be involved in hoax calls (the recent series of anonymous calls about bombs being planted at various locations in New Delhi) to destabilize day to day business of the city.

It should be recalled that in February the Home Minister of India P Chidambaram had said about a US advisory then “I don’t think it was based on any new information nor do I think that it was intended to send any alarm signal. I think it was a routine advisory and it should be seen as such.”

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Peru’s National Institute of Culture (INC) informed that the local authorities were taking all precautionary measures to ensure the safety of the tourists. Early this year, the Peruvian government declared the whole region as an emergency zone after an Argentine tourist and a Peruvian guide were killed, the fallout of torrential rains. It had to evacuate by helicopter some 4,000 stranded tourists at Machu Picchu when part of the railway was buried in landslides.

The Lima Chamber of Commerce (CCL) is foreseeing 10 percent growth over last year’s 1mn visitors. More than two months’ closure of this historical wonder is reported to have increased bookings for flight tickets and hotels from across the world.

The President of the Tourism Committee of the CCL Alvaro Benavides said “there are a lot of expectations for the Holy Week this year we can see that bookings are increasing.” The government estimates the heavy rains of January and February has inflicted Peru’s tourism sector around $160mn in lost business.

Along with the local traders, who largely relied on revenues through tourism, the hotels are also believed to have braced for the upcoming season. The Trade and Tourism Ministry says Peru in 2009 boasts of 1,784 hotels, up from 1,358 in 2001. The number of four and five-star hotels has nearly doubled to 63 from 34 in the same period, with another seven hotels expected to be up and running by the end of 2011. The occupancy levels have considerably increased particularly because of the stupendous growth of the tourism industry.

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) ranks Peru as the fifth fastest growing country for business travel and tourism, out of 20 in Latin America. The WTTC estimates the real impact of travel and tourism in Peru will be worth almost $10bn this year, rising to $18bn by 2020.

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The CTTC is the representative body for Independent coach operators of Ireland which provides first class passenger transport to domestic and overseas visitors. Likewise, Mullins is one of the key figures who lobbies for change in national and the EU transportation policy.

As per current Irish visa regulations, a visa aspirant should provide documents including six months of bank statements, a letter from one’s employer or educational institution stating one would return, and a letter from one’s host. Mullins argues “Can you imagine booking a room in a Dublin hotel, and then asking the receptionist if the hotel would forward a letter saying they will support you during your visit?”

The CTTC chief criticized that “effectively, we tell them to go away, and spend their money in some other country.” During his tirade he felt the restrictions would not have made a difference in the past because many from the emerging tourist markets could not have afforded any such visits then. But he informed Ireland had not woken up to the reality that people from China and prospective new markets were travelling by their millions and becoming richer than them.

It has been noticed that business has significantly reduced owing to recession in Ireland’s traditional tourism markets such as the EU, the UK and the US. The Irish tourism industry feels there should be relaxation on visa norms at least to potential new markets to boost the economy. Incidentally, nationalities of 88 countries do not need a visa to travel to Ireland.

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At WEF, Zuma again downplayed concerns over security, which was sparked off by the recent deadly attack on Togo footballers in Angola. On the other hand, he stressed the mega event offered great business opportunities for investors to showcase their merchandise.

According to the FIFA, 2mn tickets have now been sold, around two-thirds of the total that will be available. The third ticketing sales phase, which will conclude with a random draw for oversubscribed matches on 1 February, saw a total of 1,206,865 applications from 192 countries.

In the wake of the attack on Togo players at the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola, many famous football personalities as well as the English and German media have been making concerted effort to brand SA as an unsafe destination. In response, Valcke on the premise of nowhere is safe in the world, argued “Where can we organize the World Cup? On the moon, where there is no one?”

Franz Beckenbauer, the former West Germany captain and coach who won the WC in both capacities, has said slow ticket sales were due to doubts over the cost and security. Likewise, the manager of Hull City, an English Premier League club, Phil Brown, has said the Angola incident put a “question mark” over the WC.

The FIFA blamed both the media and the football personalities for making potential investors and spectators to panic over the eagerly awaited global event of the year. Valcke urged the media to stop publishing articles such as, the WC is the biggest mistake by holding in SA, don’t fly to SA – it is dangerous and so on.

Zuma as a rebuttal to the criticism said that no security breach has ever happened in previous international sporting tournaments hosted by SA. He expressed confidence by saying that SA was truly ready for business and football fans from across the globe.

The SA president told that what happened in Angola would not happen in SA as the former had just emerged from a war. He informed his country was prepared for the big event with the backing of its police force, army and other security elements.

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Penelope Borland, CEO of the Screen Production and Development Association of NZ (SPADA) said the success of Avatar would resonate around the world and alongside NZ’s huge advances in intellectual property in the film industry. She added Criticism of Avatar’s box office success relative to the NZ Large Budget Screen Production Grant (LBSPG) it received was short sighted.

Since the inception of the LBSPG in 2003, overseas movie and television productions have spent more than $1bn in NZ, which has resulted in grant payments of $134mn. The industry has received total revenues of $384mn from overseas film companies in 2008, and makes NZ number 3 in the world for foreign exchange revenues behind Canada and the UK.

Under the LBSPG scheme, a 15 percent rebate on total qualifying production expenditure is allowed for movies crossing $10.6mn on expenditure in NZ. The Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee says “Attracting large budget film productions here offers wider benefits to the economy, including increased opportunities for citizens as well as tourism benefits from having NZ locations shown to an international audience.”

The NZ industry is agog with particularly Avatar’s success as many such projects will now move to the country not only for its locales but also to seek technical talents. NZ’s acclaimed visual effects company Weta Digital (WD) is behind the technology that has created the new generation 3D special effects for the movie which, according to the global film fraternity, is the biggest event in the history of film-making since colour film.

WD is already popular with their works in Hollywood blockbusters such as Lord of the Rings and King Kong. WD’s senior visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri claimed that Avatar was the first major international film came to NZ purely for the technological filmmaking knowledge built up there, rather than primarily because of country’s advantages as a location for shooting.

WD’s general manager Tom Greally said around 60 percent of the $218mn spent on Avatar in NZ would have gone on crew costs, with the rest going towards “technical infrastructure”. While Film NZ acting CEO Sue Thompson said for the Kiwi industry to continue growing it had to keep marketing itself as a destination for high quality filmmaking.

The success of Avatar and several other movies shot in NZ is expected to give a fillip to the country’s tourism industry too as its tourist destinations are showcased to the global audience in a very tempting manner. However, the NZ film industry feels that any attempt to withdraw grants will discourage overseas film projects coming to the country, and may go elsewhere as some countries offer 30 percent grant upfront whereas NZ paid after the project completion.

Brownlee feels “NZ’s connection to the success of Avatar will continue to deliver huge benefits to the country and will help to attract larger budget productions here in the future.” He adds “it is unlikely these productions would have decided to film in NZ if this grant had not been available as most locations offered an incentive to film in their territory or country”.

Recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers research: Economic Impact of the Film and Television Industry (2009) in NZ found that the film and television industry contributes $2.5bn to the New Zealand economy and contributes additional financial benefits to the country by enhancing international awareness and equity in the NZ brand.

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Though no one guarantees there would not be any flare up once again in the future, but today’s Rwanda definitely depict a picture of living harmoniously by burying the emptiness of violence. Furthermore with a hope of restarting their lives all over again though they had to live among the same people who killed or maimed their loved ones. The people of Rwanda have come to terms to discern that the conflict had left behind only a trail of destruction and despair which they themselves had to rebuild with limited resources.

Today Rwanda is all set to re-write history as the economy is growing at a faster a pace despite not having diamond mines, oil reserves or minerals as compared to its neighbors. Tourism is the vital industry, and Rwandan government is inclined on pursuing eco-friendly projects to power the economy.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president understands there is a lot of work to do to reboot the economy, with the per capita income being less than $550 and daily wages hovering around $1.25. Towards this goal, he has ordered everyone to begin work at 7 AM and to come in for a half-day on Saturdays. Besides, all adults are asked to do community service on one Saturday of every month, often president joining them in work.

It has been estimated close to 1mn people or 20 percent of the population was killed fifteen years ago when the Hutu majority perpetrated genocide against the Tutsi minority. Mostly women bore the brunt by falling victims to rape, revenge and HIV/AIDS; and the genocide orphaned about 100,000 children.

Ironically, the country has now a higher female representation among legislative bodies of 2008 elections to become the only legislature in the world where women are in the majority. On gender issues, Rwanda now ranks first in the global gender parity ratings, followed only by Sweden and Finland.

Though the country faces a host of issues such as poverty, poor infrastructure and low power generation, the government has set ambitious goals to overcome these soon with the support of international organizations including the UN, the Commonwealth and various other non-profit ones. One of the notable achievements is that Rwandan education system has recovered remarkably well, at least quantitatively to register rapid growth of enrollments at all levels.

Moreover, Rwanda has drawn investments from companies as diverse as Costco, Microsoft and Starbucks, which opened an office in Kigali to train farmers to grow high-end coffee more efficiently. Korea Telecom’s $7.66mn project to provide broadband wireless service in the capital town of Kigali is another example to the increased presence of several companies vying to utilize business opportunities in the country.

Rwanda is looking to export dairy products, software, computer services, fruit and juices, silk and fresh-cut flowers in addition to the shipments of coffee and tea. However, the resolve of 10mn population to palliate the feeling of vendetta within the old enemies of Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups will decide as to how this East-Central African state will rise from the ashes of its own people.

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In November 2008, the state-owned airlines had signed an agreement with Bombardier Aerospace to purchase eight Q400 NextGen turboprop airliners. Wake said that they had placed orders for more airliners due to the expectation of higher traffic in 2010. He acknowledged that Bombardier’s performance including longer range, higher payload and lower operability cost were the major factors which compelled them to opt for the same airliner once again.

EA saw a turnaround in profits ever since it won Best African Airline Award in 2006. The airlines recorded just about $16mn profit in 2006-07 fiscal but the profits soared ever after its sustained efforts on marketing Ethiopia began in large scale since early last year.

EA is one of the largest airlines from the African continent, and one of the few flight operators that has made profits in the current global financial mess. It should be noted, EA’s profit story came especially after last year the International Air Traffic Association (IATA) predicted major downward shake-up in the profits of many air carriers from the region.

Several African air carriers suffered losses owing to decline in traffic from Europe last year. Africa being described as the major growing power in aviation industry saw close to 9 percent slide in total traffic and flights to Europe registered around 10 percent decline.

EA feels if the fuel prices remained stable; it would not be a problem to generate same kind of profit this fiscal too. The air carrier is embarked on a massive marketing drive in the US to attract tourists to its country including roping in the services of NBA legend Manute Bol as brand ambassador of the airline.

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The ESI statement said except Macedonia none of the other Western Balkan states were able to meet the benchmarks to come under visa-free regime. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s speedy liberalization process in the areas including document security, internal stability, re-enforcement of the borders in terms of asylum and migration and strict adherence to human rights issues makes them eligible candidate for visa-free travel across the EU states. Besides, the country is understood to have issued 40 percent biometric passports, a mandate needed to be fulfilled by all EU member-states by July this year.

Macedonians spend 5mn Euros every year on Schengen visas which help them to travel across 15 countries in the EU. Visa-free travel is expected to eliminate not only the expenses incurred while application but also the cumbersome procedure involved in obtaining visa to each and every country of one’s travel.

It should be recalled that last month, foreign Ministers of Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania sent a joint letter to the EC urging them to include all Western Balkan states that met the criteria to the visa-free regime by early 2010. Visa liberalization to these countries is expected to boost trade and tourism of several European countries closer to these states.

Only country that has visa-free access among the Western Balkans is Croatia. Though Serbia has met all the benchmarks of the roadmap is being held up by the Netherlands over Belgrade’s cooperation with an international war crimes court. However, since last year the Serbians enjoy the ease of obtaining visas to students, athletes, journalists, people visiting family or working with companies in the EU.

The visa restrictions were imposed as an aftermath of Yugoslav wars in 1990’s. Currently, the citizens of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia need visas to travel to the EU.

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