Tourism Cares for Tomorrow will induct Bob Dickinson, president and CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines, and the late Dave Herren, a former executive vice president of the Mark Travel Corp., into its Hall of Fame. Tourism Cares is an organization that works to preserve natural and cultural resources and promote research and education in the travel industry.

St. Lucian authorities granted a gaming license for the island´s first casino, tentatively scheduled to open in December in Gros Islet near Pigeon Island north of Castries. The casino will be open to visitors only as current legislation on St. Lucia bars residents from using the facility.

Spanish airline Iberia begins to operate from the new Terminal 4 complex at the Madrid-Barajas airport. Its move to the new facility is the largest in company history and coincides with the 60th anniversary of its first scheduled services to Latin America, when it became the first company after World War II to link Europe and Latin America by air. The new T4 complex will house all Iberia´s Madrid operations, and those of its Oneworld alliance partners and other carriers with which the Spanish airline has code-share arrangements. Together, these companies account for more than 70 percent of all activity at the Madrid-Barajas airport.

The Australian tourism industry is losing an estimated $100 million a year due to bed bugs outbreaks. Media reports since 2004 to date indicate there is little hard data on how to recognize, quantify and eradicate the extent of the problem in Australia. The Australian tourism industry lost millions in income from accommodation revenue. The Queensland Tourism Industry Council is scheduled to hold a bed bug summit to discuss the problem.

Barceló Crestline Corporation and Crestline Hotels & Resorts announced the appointment of Emily A. Nack to Senior Vice President and General Legal Counsel for the companies. Barceló Crestline Corporation leases 19 limited-service hotels and sub-leases 71 limited-service hotels. Ms. Nack joins Barceló Crestline from the Corporate and Litigation Divisions of Eckert Seaman´s Washington, DC office where she was a partner and her practice involved a broad range of corporate consulting focused on corporate and day-to-day hotel operational matters.

An aerial tramway that will give visitors a tour of St. Lucia´s mountains and rain forest should be up and running by early March, officials said Thursday. The tramway, stretching across 1,200 acres (485 hectares), will carry passengers in gondolas on a one-hour ride over the rain forest canopy and through the mountains of northern St. Lucia. Twenty-two open-air gondolas will seat eight passengers and a guide.