A shortage of aviation jet fuel in Tobago is putting a damper on the efforts of Tourism Secretary Neil Wilson to attract over 100,000 visitors to the island this year. In this the last two weeks of the year, international flights have been unable to have their tanks filled at the Crown Point International Airport. Since Friday the underground storage facilities have run dry. The Excel Airlines flight was delayed on Sunday to 10 p.m. and was forced to divert to Piarco where it refueled before departing for London. Two other Excel flights were similarly affected over the past three days.

A grand total of 8,792 cruise passengers arrived in Mexico’s Majahual aboard three cruise liners, a new record high for this travel destination of the Mexican Caribbean. That trove of tourists combined for $700,000 in spending. “This has been one of the best days of the year for the Costa Maya cruise terminal,” said Teofilo Hamui, chief of port operations, who hopes this upturning trend will keep up in coming months.

Cruise ships in Asia were relatively unaffected by the deadly earthquake and tsunamis that swept across the Indian Ocean. Star Clippers said Monday that its 170-passenger Star Flyer, which sails regularly from Phuket, Thailand, between December and March, was undamaged and the passengers and crew were safe. The ship was in Pangkor Island, Malaysia, at the time of the earthquake, “well away from the epicenter,” Star Clippers said. The Star Flyer is scheduled to return to its Phuket homeport on Jan. 8; cruise line officials said the city’s deepwater seaport was not damaged, according to Travel Weekly.

The arrival of new airlines and the offer of luring travel packages at very low prices have been key to the comeback of Costa Rica’s travel industry in 2004, a sector that this year will grow by 20 percent. Stats provided by the Costa Rican Tourism Institute indicate the country will close 2004 with over 1.4 million travelers, a fifth of a million more than the previous year. Those tourists forked over $250 million more this time around and there are 140 more flights than in 2002.

For the seventh year in a row, the national airline, Air Jamaica, has won top honors at the prestigious World Travel Awards, as it was named the ´Caribbean´s Leading Airline´ at the 11th annual World Travel Awards ceremony in Barbados. The World Travel Awards employs an online voting system enabling thousands of travel agents and tourism professionals around the world to cast votes recognizing excellence in a number of industry categories.

Guatemalan President Oscar Berger has just asked his Salvadoran counterpart, Antonio Saca, to do everything within his power to halt a campaign aimed at hyping violence in Guatemala, a situation that’s making a cleft in the local travel industry. Sources close to the presidency said Mr. Berger talked to Mr. Saca on the need to persuade Salvadoran businesspeople and victims of robberies committed in Guatemala to stop helping advertisement companies set up billboards that warn motorists not to drive down Guatemalan roads to avoid criminal actions against them.