Iberia has jacked up the number of flights by 10.4 percent now that the company’s wintertime season has just begun. Latin American destinations will get the upper hand in this move that seeks additional hauls to and from the region.

The Spanish airline reported that the biggest increments in this year’s winter schedule –up 15.2 percent compared to last year’s offers- will go to intercontinental routes, chiefly in the flights to and from Mexico, Caracas and Santiago de Chile.

Those who traipse into El Floridita, Havana’s world-class restaurant and bar, will be astounded to see a life-size statue of famed U.S. writer Ernest Hemingway leaning on the counter with a cup of daiquiri, the cocktail that got itself a good name for being Hemingway’s favorite drink.

The 1.75-meter-tall, 900-lb. bronze piece was wrought by sculptor Jose Villa Soberon and placed right on the same corner of the bar counter where the author of The Old Man And The Sea used to quench his thirst by sipping the popular cocktail that put the Havana bar on the map forever.

Beginning in November, Peru and Brazil will have charter flights to and from the Peruvian city of Cusco –the country’s premiere tourist destination- and Rio de Janeiro in a blitz intended to build a fire under the scarce tourist flow moving between both nations.

According to Raul Diez Canseco, Peru’s minister of foreign trade and tourism, now a flight between Brazil and Peru will be cheaper than one between Lima and the U.S, city of Miami.

For the winter season beginning on Sunday, October 26, Spain´s Iberia Airlines is lifting seat-kilometre supply by 10.2% from the level of last winter. The largest increases are on intercontinental routes, up 15.2%, followed by intra-European routes (+7.1%), and domestic flights (+4.3%). Here follow the key innovations this season, in relation to last winter:

In a move that will broaden its merchant model hotel distribution capabilities, Travelocity(R) and its parent company Sabre Holdings (NYSE:TSG) today said they had reached a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of World Choice Travel (WCT), the U.S.-based hotel room consolidation and distribution business of MyTravel Group PLC.

Since March 2001, the story has remained the same – revenue per available room (revPAR) for London hoteliers has consistently been in decline. That was until September this year, when preliminary results from the HotelBenchmark Survey by Deloitte showed that for the first time in 18 months (ignoring the impact of 9/11), hotels in Central London reported a rise in revPAR.