Entrepreneurs from the cruise sector will fork over almost $10 billion in Mexico in the next three years with the hope of creating over 120,000 new jobs.
Benjamin Mendez Aguila, communication coordinator for British company Seatrade Cruise, informed this investment package will bring about knock-down-drag-out competition between Mexico and Caribbean nations as far as this sector is concerned.
According to Mr. Aguila, national service providers should take their offer and quality up one peg to draw in hard-currency markets and generate new jobs.
Caribbean leaders agreed to forge regional airlines LIAT and BWIA together next June in an effort to make it up for the financial problems that now bug these two carriers.
The decision was approved in a meeting held between Barbados prime minister Owen Arthur and his counterparts Lester Byrd from Antigua and Barbuda, Ralph Gonzalvez from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Patrick Manning from Trinidad & Tobago, who weighed an action plan aimed at giving regional aviation one mighty leg up.
U.S. giant Carnival Corp. said its shareholders have approved the acquisition of British enterprise P&O Princess for $5 billion to clinch the berth as the world’s largest cruise company.
Miami-based Carnival said in a brief press release that the stockholders of P&O Princess –a cruise company famous for its “love boats”- are planning to hold a meeting Wednesday in London to officially announce the transaction.
Taca Group’s announcement of cutbacks in plane ticket sale commissions has put travel agencies in a jam that, as many experts believe, could pave the way to bankruptcy if other airlines follow suit.
Panama’s Travel & Tourism Association (APAVIT is the acronym in Spanish) says Taca’s decision –scheduled to go into effect next April 16- deals a deadly blow to the travel industry.
Financial group Banorte will grant a $93 million credit line all through 2003 to back up small and medium enterprises linked to Mexico’s tourist industry, said Othon Ruiz, the group’s president.
Mr. Ruiz explained Banorte’s confidence in the development of tourism-oriented companies in the country was key in its decision to funnel that lump sum into a sector that stands for one of the nation’s major economic boosters.
According to the banking official, tourism is by and large one of the fastest-growing economic fields in both the mid and long run.
American travel agencies dealing with Asian destinations have pretty good chances of going belly up given the massive avalanche of cancellations triggered by the hard-hitting atypical respiratory syndrome (ARS), sources close to the sector informed.
The number of U.S. tourists flying to Asia dropped from 80 to 90 percent in the last couple of weeks. “It’s a catastrophe,” said Golden Yuan, owner of Perfect Transportation and Travel Service, an L.A.-based company specialized in sending groups of travelers to China.