A number of tour operators and hotels are offering packages for tourists to view thousands of California gray whales that abandon the freezing waters of the Bering Sea near Alaska each November for the warm waters of the Baja peninsula in Mexico’s pacific coast, the Travel Weekly magazine reports. The peak time for whale-watching is January through early April, after the calves are born. During these months, boat excursions are available all along the Baja coast for tourists to view the whales. Lindblad´s Special Expeditions (www.expeditions.com) offers nine-day cruises featuring whale-watching at Magdalena Bay.

As many as one million Cubans spent time in the 82 camping facilities scattered all across the island during the course of last year, said Eduardo Tirado, president of the People´s Camping Entrepreneurial Group. Mr. Tirado underscored how investment in the sector helped improve services in all camping areas and projected remodeling of several facilities in an effort to add more accommodations in 2005.

The Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (South East Airport Group), that manages the top vacation centers of the Mexican Caribbean, is setting out to make a railroad connection between Cancun and the Mayan Riviera by means of a small train. A press release sent by the company to the Stock Market states the federal government supports the railroad connection between the Mayan Riviera (in the Caribbean area) and the city of Cancun and the Cancun International Airport, and is eager to be filled in on further details about the project.

Jamaica’s Sandals Resorts is looking for national airlines interested in advertising the Caribbean island nation in Colombia in an effort to stop the ever-dwindling number of Colombian visitors to its hotels. Some five years ago, as many as 5,000 Colombians used to pick Jamaica as their travel destination of choice. This year, though, less than a thousand sunbathers from the South American country are expected to trek to Jamaica.

American Express won top laurels during the 2004 World Travel Awards as the world’s leading travel company for business and leisure travelers. As many as 165,000 experts and professionals from 200 countries cast their votes every year to choose the cream of the crop in the realm of travel and tourism.

Silvia Oliva Fragoso, a local congresswoman of the Democratic Revolution Party, called this week for an overhaul of the Mexican capital’s Penal Code in order to impose tougher sanctions of up to 14 years in prison against those who promote sexual tourism in Mexico’s Federal District. Mrs. Fragoso, also a member of the Public Security Committee of the Mexican Parliament, basically proposed a legislative reform of Article 188 to establish a 14-year sentence for wrongdoers convicted of sexual tourism promotion.