Mountain Top, one of the oldest, highest and most popular tourist attractions in St. Thomas, burned to the ground on Monday. The mostly wooden structure was ravaged by an intense fire that lit up the night sky with bright flames and huge plumes of smoke.

Travel agents booking Turks and Caicos have a new tool at their disposal, DiscoverTCI, an online reservations service based in Providenciales.

Florida Upper Keys resort owner Jim Bernardin has been named to the Monroe County Tourist Development Council, the agency responsible for tourism marketing of the Florida Keys & Key West.

Hilton Hotels Corporation has entered into a management agreement with ZAO Pansionat Solnechy Lutch to open its third upscale Doubletree by Hilton hotel in Russia. Occupying a prime location overlooking the Black Sea and Mzimta River, the Doubletree by Hilton, Sochi Adler plans to have a total of 200 rooms including 15 detached villas.

The program called “Tourist Assistants”, is an idea the Minister of Tourism of Panama, Rubén Blades had at the end of the year 2004. He met with a group of youngsters, all of them former gang members from popular areas of Panama in the Washington Hotel in Colon City. In this meeting he explained his desire to implement a program where they could become tourist assistants after receiving full and complete training.

RIU Hotels & Resorts, the Spain-based resort company, will open two new all-inclusive beachfront resorts: RIU Emerald Bay in Mazatlan, Mexico, which opened May 29, and RIU Guanacaste in Costa Rica, opening this Fall.