Spanish hotel chain Sol Meliá has just appointed Jose Carrasco as new general manager of the recently opened Paradisus Hotel in Rio Grande, the only all-inclusive resort now operating in that Caribbean destination.

With a view to give Costa Rica’s image of child sexual exploitation haven an about-face, representatives from the United Taxis Company have joined hands with other state-run institutions and NGO’s to fight back that social scourge.

A gang of machete-blandishing criminals assaulted a group of 18 U.S. tourists on the road to the Tikal National Park in the jungle-covered department of Peten, some 300 miles north of the Guatemalan capital.

Cienfuegos, known as the Cuban "Pearl of the South" is now home to the only yacht basin on the Caribbean coast of Cuba with the opening of a joint venture between Cubanacan and Bluesail, subsidiary of the German ConImpex.

ConImpex, based in Berlin and with interests in Russia, Spain, Hungary and Bulgaria, was founded in 1990 and has been in business with Cuba since 1995, chiefly in finance and commerce, but also renting motorboats in Varadero and Jardines del Rey.

A Conservative member of Canada’s Parliament from the frigid plains of Alberta, Canada, has launched a bid to annex the sun-kissed Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos – which is now a British Crown colony – and make them the eleventh, and warmest, province of ice-bound Canada.

His drive is gathering pace, backed up by a petition, a motion in Canada´s House of Commons, a proposed parliamentary committee of friendship, an effort to lobby businessmen and a website evoking the joys of "a place in the sun."

The Panamanian Tourism Institute (IPAT) will pony up nearly $4 million this year in advertising the country´s travel attractions overseas, a 55 percent decline from the money shelled out over the past two years.

Finance Vice Minister Publio Cortes told local newspaper La Prensa the government made the decision based on the fact that the first quarter of the year has already gone by.

In 2003, authorities forked over $9 million in tourism publicity around the world, especially in the United States and in some European nations.