Travel technology specialist Metafour is launching a new product –Empower Flights- which will allow tour operators and travel agents to access all low-cost airline flights. The system follows the success of its Empower software which gives operators live online bookings written back into one central booking system.

A week of major conventions, including the big American Library Association meeting, attracted about 24,000 visitors and pumped an estimated $25 million into New Orleans´ economy, which is still staggering from Hurricane Katrina, tourism officials said late last week. But perhaps more importantly, the ALA meeting showed convention planners from other organizations that New Orleans and its revamped convention center, which was used as a hurricane evacuation shelter, is again a capable player in the hospitality industry.

U.S. motorists are taking to the roads this summer, though not in strong numbers as before due to record energy costs that are seemingly spoiling vacation plans, analysts said last week. U.S. crude oil futures struck a record high of $75.78 a barrel early Friday as government data showed a 1.4 percent increase in gasoline demand over the past four weeks compared with the year-ago level.

According to Cubatravel, one of Cuba´s top state-run travel agencies, diving is the leading activity in the field of recreational offers within a modality of nautical tourism. When asked about the best places in Cuba for diving, 40 percent of respondents preferred the beauties of the area of Jardines de la Reina, in the Southern Coast, followed by those who prefer Cayo Largo and the keys in the center of the country.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has challenged the constitutionality of a state law banning public universities from using public or private funds to pay for travel to any country listed by the State Department as “state sponsors of terrorism.” While the list includes North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan, the law´s real target is Cuba, long a political football in a state that is home to an estimated 850,000 Cubans, most of whom are exiles but half of whom are registered to vote.

The US Virgin Islands Hotel & Tourism Association (HTA) is offering the new “It´s Just Easier to Vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands Spa Sweepstakes.” The sweepstakes runs from now through September 30 for travel October 1 to December 15 or from April 15 to September 30 next year.