Air Madrid, the Spanish low-cost airline, took a dramatic twist of fate yesterday after Balearic entrepreneur Jose Luis Carrillo, owner of Optursa Hotels, bought out 80 percent of the carrier’s stocks. Air Madrid, that came into being in January and started out operations in May, will dump the realm of tourist charter flights to enter the big-time world of regular routes. Herminio Gil, one of Air Madrid’s founders, will keep the remaining 20 percent of the shares.

Berthia M. Parle, chairwoman of the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA), called the Caribbean Hotel Environmental Management Initiative (CHEMI) “an example of a necessary practice to make small-scale hotels cut operational costs.” CHEMI is a large-scale project that has benefited over 200 lodgings in eastern Caribbean over the past couple of years. Thanks to this initiative, establishments in Anguila, Barbados, Dominique, Grenada, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines now count on evaluations tools and proper guidance on their way to the much-cherished Green Globe Certificate.

A Chilean tourist identified as Tatiana Miranda, 27, was victim this week of rampant crime in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. Miranda was shot in the right shoulder during a shooting in Ipanema, the icon of Brazil’s tourism put on the map by Vinicius de Moraes’ poem “Ipanema Girl” that was later on set to music by Antonio Carlos Jobim.

A Chilean tourist identified as Tatiana Miranda, 27, was victim this week of rampant crime in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. Miranda was shot in the right shoulder during a shooting in Ipanema, the icon of Brazil’s tourism put on the map by Vinicius de Moraes’ poem “Ipanema Girl” that was later on set to music by Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Conviasa, Venezuela’s new state-run air carrier that saw the light of day with an initial investment of $10 million, will start plowing the skies of South America and the Caribbean with leased Boeing jetliners as early as next month. President Hugo Chavez said recently this airline will soon be flying beyond the Venezuelan borders, though it will initially cover routes in the West Indies and in South America.

Despite a spiral of violence that’s sweeping Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian city continues to be one of the most sought-after travel destinations for Argentineans, Rio State’s Tourism Secretary Sergio Ricardo de Almeida said recently. As many as 792,710 Argentine tourists visited Brazil last year, and a quarter of them headed for la cidade maravilhosa (the wonderful city). The town of Buzios grabbed the runner-up spot with 16.9 percent of that total, followed by Sao Paolo (12.8 percent) and Florianopolis (12.2 percent).