The city of Cancun is breaking travel records this year. But daily squabbles between the mayor’s supporters and her predecessor –removed from the post recently- is jeopardizing the quietness of the destination’s heavenly image. With temps averaging 32 degrees Celsius and in the heart of the hurricane season, the bad temper of half a million residents in this well-known beach circuit is heating up since Mayor Juan Ignacio Garcia, from Mexico’s Green Party, was removed from his post last July 16.

The Guatemalan government and Spanish air company Iberia Airlines agreed to establish a joint strategy in an effort to pump up the outflow of European tourists into the Central American country. Guatemalan President Oscar Berger, who attended the signing ceremony at the headquarters of the Guatemala Tourism Institute (INGUAT), underscored this accord will make a substantial contribution to the development of national tourism, one of his administration’s top goals.

Spanish hotel chain Sol Meliá will conduct a fundraising campaign in September to help a number a educational projects fostered by the United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF). With that intention in mind, Sol Meliá Vice President Sebastian Escarrer and UNICEF´s highest-ranking official in Spain, Francisco Gonzalez-Bueno, signed a agreement recently.

Approximately 30,000 Spaniards travel to a Latin American country every year to engage in sexual practices with minors, several non-governmental organizations reported this week at the 2004 Speakers Corner Forum, citing stats provided by the International Migrations & Tourism Organization. According to that entity, the aforesaid figure lays bare how quickly this international crime has been snowballing worldwide in recent years into a problem that´s now affecting over two million kids between 3 and 17 years of age everywhere.

The International Seawater Therapy Center –the only one of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean- will open later this year in Cayo Coco, Jardines del Rey, an arch of keys off the Cuban province of Ciego de Avila. The center will combine the simultaneous use of marine environment (air, seawater and climate) and its related elements, such as mud, sands and seaweeds, for therapeutic purposes.

Brazil’s TAM Airways and Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines announced the creation of a new commercial route between that South American nation and the Middle East scheduled to get cracking next August 17. Representatives from both companies met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to agree on the implementation of the new air route that will link the cities of Sao Paolo (Brazil) and Lebanon’s Beirut.