New York._ The traffic of U.S. passengers dropped 8.7% in May 2002 compared with the same month in 2001, while airfares also went south by 6.6% in the same period of time, the Air Transportation Association (ATT), whose affiliated airlines engulf over 95% of the country’s total passenger and cargo flights, reportedly said.

Paris._ French tourist group Club Méditerranée registered losses for 21,929,824 euros in the first half of 2002 as compared with 5.4 million euros worth of benefits ratcheted up in the same span of time the year before, the company said.

Mexico._ Fees charged for the use of facilities and services in Mexico City’s Benito Juarez Airport rank sixth among the world’s most expensive ones, as concluded in a recently disclosed research study entitled.

Havana._ Cuba’s minister of tourism, Ibrahim Ferradaz, took a grand tour around some hotels and stores in Varadero to personally supervise the circulation of euros, a currency that made its debut in that destination last Saturday, the local press commented.

Madrid._ The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) foreboded the leisure industry and those economic sectors indirectly linked to it will churn out 6.6 million new jobs worldwide in the year 2003, thanks to the fact that demand will score a groundbreaking 6% growth. In February 2004, these sectors will be bouncing back to the same employment levels registered before 9/11, said Jean-Claude Baumgarten, chairman of this association of tourism professionals.

Santo Domingo.- Authorities in the Dominican Republic will set going a comprehensive investment program in different regions of the country with a view to stimulate tourism development, the DTC News wireless service reportedly announced. Sources in the sector pointed out the Dominican government will chip in some $235 million for several projects clustered in four provinces and in the Caribbean nation’s capital.