Spanish-born businessman Javier Perez has just been appointed to replace Jean Rozwadowski as MasterCard’s new president for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Jean Holder, secretary-general of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), encouraged countries in the region to implement actions aimed at cutting down on pollution levels and developing sustainable tourism.

Downtown hotels in the Mexican destination of Mujeres Islands blasted municipal authorities for failing to regulate the ear-splitting noisiness coming from local disco nightclubs and restaurants that play live music way above nighttime decibel limits and give guests a hard time.

Beginning on June 1, Panama´s COPA Airlines will have direct flights between Panama City and New York, a new American destination that joins the likes of Miami, Orlando and Los Angeles, a spokesperson for the company informed.

"We´re deeply pleased to offer a service from the financial capital of Latin America to the financial capital of the world," COPA President Pedro Heilbron informed.

State members from the Southern Common Market (known as MERCOSUR) will soon ink a tourism cooperation agreement with Japan, Uruguay´s Tourism Minister Pedro Bordaberry announced today.

The MERCOSUR-Japan joint project is intended to boost travel within the economic bloc for the next five years with the help of Japanese investment money.

Within the framework of this agreement, the four member states of MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) attended the JATA tourism tradeshow whose next edition will be held in October this year.

Foreign tour operators have requested roughly 12,000 travel packages for fans of the America Soccer Cup scheduled to take place in Peru next July, the host country’s National Tourism Chamber (CANATUR) announced following the signing of a cooperation agreement with the tournament’s organizing committee.