TotallyBarbados has received their prestigious award as THE Caribbeans Leading Overall Travel Information Website at the gala award ceremony of the World Travel Awards held in Turks and Caicos on the evening of Wednesday December 12th, 2007. The event was attended by over 300 travel professionals from over 30 different countries. The World Travel Awards were conceived in 1993 to acknowledge and celebrate excellence in the worlds travel and tourism industry. Now in their fourteenth year, travel professionals and discerning travelers have come to regard the World Travel Awards as the very best endorsement that a travel product could hope to receive. TotallyBarbados was voted the Caribbeans Leading Overall

Travel Information Website by travel professionals from 167 000 travel agencies, tour & transport companies and tourism organizations in over 160 countries across the globe. Winning a World Travel Award has become one of the highest accolades a travel product or organisation can achieve. World Travel Awards are especially coveted as, uniquely, the votes are cast globally by fellow travel professionals. The event is highly regarded and well-established as a forum that brings together all areas of travel and tourism in recognition of their achievements.

The volcanoes, pristine waters, tropical rainforests and lush landscapes of the Aloha State are a draw for millions of visitors each year. This spring, when guests purchase the Honua Makuahine (Mother Earth) vacation package from Destination Resorts Hawaii, they also contribute to preserving this beautiful environment through a $250 carbon credit included in the offer. Destination Resorts Hawaii, the largest provider of luxury vacation rentals in the prestigious Wailea and Makena resorts on Maui, is offering the Honua Makuahine (Mother Earth) package that includes five nights lodging, a complimentary Dollar rental car, free parking and a $250 carbon credit per booking.

The offer is valid April 1 through June 15, 2008. Package rates begin at $1,080 based on lodging in a one bedroom condominium. Prices vary depending on the unit size and guests can choose up to a three bedroom vacation rental. The $250 carbon credit offsets an average of 3.5 roundtrip flights from Los Angeles to Maui based on calculations. Destination Resorts Hawaii, managed by Destination Hotels & Resorts, offers an elegant “home away from home” atmosphere providing a unique destination experience that is appealing to families, golfers and individual travelers that enjoy the convenience and space offered in a vacation home.

Destination Resorts Hawaii is the only collection of vacation rentals in the Wailea and Makena areas to offer a centralized check-in desk conveniently located in the Shops at Wailea.

Here, the friendly and knowledgeable staff provides guests with a brief orientation to their residence, keys and any other pertinent information or tips to help them enjoy their vacation on Maui. A concierge also is located in the check-in area to provide guests with one-stop shopping to book all of their island adventures. This office is open seven days a week and there are property managers available 24 hours a day should guests need any assistance.

The European Union has expanded its passport-free “Schengen Treaty Zone”. The expansion means more convenience for travelers making their way around the 24 countries. For Chinese travelers, this means movement throughout the region with just a single visa. And local travel agencies have been quick to spy out potential profits, and have already begun to promote package tours to Eastern Europe. Some travel agents have already mapped out their new package tours to Eastern Europe for next January. And these come at a budget price.

A 10-day tour to four countries including the Czech Republic and Austria costs less than 10 thousand yuan. Travel agencies say visa applications are now much more convenient. Jiang Haizhong, Marketing director of Beijing Zhongxin Int’l Travel Service, said, “Previously, travelers had to apply for individual visas for each Eastern Europe country they wanted to visit. This meant waiting for more than 20 days if they wanted to go to three countries. But now, it only needs five to seven days.”Travel agencies say Eastern Europe boasts uniquely beautiful scenery and cultural sites. Industry insiders are expecting travel to the region to peak around the Spring Festival holiday early next year. China will launch more direct flights to the nine new countries that have just joined the Schengen Treaty Zone. A direct flight to Poland will be available as early as March of next year.

Michigan’s poor economy and lackluster tourism is leading to last-minute low prices on air travel from Detroit and good Christmas week deals within the state. Although the average price for a domestic airline ticket for holiday travel was $413 as of Tuesday, according to analysts at Farecast.com, travelers flying from Detroit were seeing Christmas week airfares as low as $59 each way to places like Baltimore and Ft. Myers, Fla.Michigan’s Up North resorts have the best snow in years — but as of Tuesday they still had plenty of space for Christmas week.

Resorts such as Boyne Highlands scrapped their two-night holiday week minimum stay requirement to fill rooms.” Guests can book just one night or multiple nights between the dates of Dec. 26 and Jan. 1,” said Boyne spokeswoman Erin Ernst on Tuesday. Two million Michiganders are expected to travel at least 50 miles from home Friday through Christmas. Ninety percent will drive and 10% will fly. Michigan’s 2007 tourism is lagging 2% compared with last year, according to economist Dana Johnson of Comerica Bank. For those who can travel, it’s an opportunity!

The magnitude of a potential B.C.S. game has some Warrior fans already picking up the phone to call their travel agent. If you want to celebrate what could be a perfect UH football season, then you had better be ready to open up the checkbook because perfection comes at a price. “For New Orleans we’re looking at probably $1,500 for a package. The airfares are substantially high during this Christmas time,” said Laurie Tanuvasa of Creative Holidays. Pricey, and still another win away….but apparently there are some willing to dish out major money to watch what could be Hawaii’s first ever B.C.S. Game.

“Actually we’ve gotten tons of phone calls, tons of e-mails, we’ve actually had people showing up today asking about a B.C.S. Bowl game package,” said Kehau Amorin of Panda Travel. The company is already forming a list, and already taking steps to make a post season dream trip a reality.” We are in the works. We have some blocked seats that we’re working on. It’s just a matter where are they going to end up playing,” Amorin said.

It’s the multi-million dollar question for the Warriors and fans, with an undefeated Hawaii team possibly going to one of three bowls.” As far as a west coast city, I think the Vegas one we did was just under $800, and it was a sellout. We took over a thousand people with us,” Amorin said.

About a dozen years ago, the Rough Guides and Lonely Planet series of travel books, rival bibles for the footloose and fancy-free, crossed a new frontier, venturing onto the Internet. But they found their road maps to the digital future hard to read. Guidebooks were soon overtaken online by Internet-era upstarts like TripAdvisor, which has built a business by drawing content from volunteer contributors and revenue from links to online reservations systems and advertising. Now travel publishers are trying to catch up.

They are moving more of their work onto the Internet and extending their content and brands into new areas like mobile services, in-flight entertainment systems and satellite navigation devices. Travel books themselves are getting a makeover; too. And the recent acquisition by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corp., of a majority stake in Lonely Planet has prompted that publisher and its rivals to accelerate their search for new sources of revenue in the online world and elsewhere.

” We want to be in a position where, if the business suddenly collapses in five years, we have a plan - unlike the music industry,” said Martin Dunford, publishing director of Rough Guides, which is part of the Penguin division of the media company Pearson, based in London. So far, the digital media revolution has been much less turbulent for guidebook publishers than for record companies, which have fallen victim to rampant online copying.

Sales of travel guides, while flat in some traditionally stalwart markets, like Britain, have been growing strongly in developing countries and in the United States - despite a weak dollar, which has made overseas trips more expensive for U.S. citizens. Travel publishers sold 14.8 million books in the United States last year, up 11 percent from two years earlier, according to Nielsen Bookscan.

Holiday cards, scarves knitted by grandma, fragile glass ornaments, cookies shaped like snowmen: They all need to get somewhere by Christmas and unless you have a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer you’ll have to rely on the U.S. Postal Service.” This is certainly a busy time of year for the Postal Service,” said Valerie Hughes, spokesperson for the St. Louis USPS. “In the St Louis area, including Collinsville, the Postal Service processes about a half billion pieces of mail during the holiday season.” In a typical month, the St. Louis regional post office processes 390 million pieces of mail, Hughes said.

To assure all those packages get to where they’re going, Collinsville Postmaster David Garcia said to send mail early.” Right now, it’s not bad,” Garcia said Thursday. “We’re expecting a big rush starting Dec. 17.”Garcia said that those planning to send parcels outside of the area should use priority mail to ensure those gifts arrive by Christmas. With priority mail, a package typically arrives at its destination in two to three days. Garcia said he usually tells people to add a day or two for priority mail this time of year.”

But if they do use priority mail it should get anywhere in the country by Christmas,” he said. Garcia also suggested getting insurance for those valuable gifts” That insures you for any loss or damage on every package that you mail,” he said. “When you stop and think about it, a package that costs $200 you can have insured for $2.45. It’s very reasonable for the amount of assurance that you get.” Insurance for packages valued from $0 to $50 is $1.65, those valued from $50 to $100 can be insured for $2.05 and packages valued from $100 to $200 are insured for $2.45. Insurance can also be purchased for parcels valued over $200.

But on my recent quick trip to London and Paris for the Eurostar completion, I experienced why many senior travelers would find tours a preferred solution. The main problem is, of course, getting around on public transportation. In both London and Paris - as well as most U.S. cities - using the local subway and elevated systems requires that you schlep up and down lots of stairs. That can be an annoyance when you’re just running around the city, but it’s a major challenge with baggage. A few recently modernized stations provide escalators; some even provide elevators (maybe limited to travelers in wheelchairs). But most stations don’t. Once inside the stations, you may find escalators or moving walkways, but almost never to/from street level. You also face some very long walks. “Correspondence” from one Paris Metro route to another may require such a long hike through assorted tunnels that you think you’d be better off walking the entire trip - instead of just most of it.

Changing train lines in London can also involve a combination of stairs and long walks. At Heathrow, for example, the Heathrow Express is a great trip - after you finally get to the train station from Terminal No. 3 where you’re likely to arrive. In Paris, access to/from the RER rail service to downtown is fine (although you may have a bit of a walk), but access at Terminal No. 1 requires a shuttle bus and other miseries.

These problems aren’t confined to London and Paris - you find them on most systems around the world, including those in the United States. Over the years, I’ve strongly favored independent travel over package tours. I’ve railed against the regimentation of those tours, the mandatory stops at schlocky souvenir shops that give rebates to the driver or guide, the schedules determined by the pokiest member of the group, and the senior-unfriendly design of the typical tour bus.

Britons planning on hitting the slopes this winter have been issued with some last minute insurance advice before the 2007-2008 season properly begins this weekend. While a number of European ski resorts have already opened ahead of schedule for weekend skiing, the first weekend of December will see even more ski resorts in France, Austria, Switzerland and Italy in operation. However, Insurancewide.com is encouraging skiers not to consider taking to the slopes without taking out and understanding travel insurance policies.” A specific winter sports travel insurance policy should include cover for skiing or boarding, piste closure, ski equipment, medical costs including rescue and repatriation, your liability to others and your luggage,” commented chief executive James Harrison.

He added that a European helicopter mountain rescue service can cost £1,500 with repatriation costs estimated at £4,000.The Association of British Travel Agents recently reported that over 1.3 million UK holidaymakers will head to the snow this winter.

Italy’s position as a world leading tourism destination seems unlikely to dwindle as domestic figures continue to rise. Italians show a strong passion for their homeland, being the main visitors to the paradisiacal southern regions and creating an increased demand for rental property in these areas. Tourism figures reflect sharp growth in the past two years: International tourism arrivals to Italy amounted to over 40 million visitors in 2006 according to UN World Tourism Organization, giving the country the impressive ranking of 5th most popular destination in the world. Tourist arrival numbers rose by 17.2% in 2007, therefore we may be pleasantly surprised when new UN ranking figures are released in June this year. The findings come as no surprise, with cities like Rome or Venice seldom being matched in travel brochures and Milan and Rome having climbed their way into the “Top 50 Most Expensive Cities in the World”, according to a survey carried out by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Meanwhile, stunning countryside draws discerning visitors seeking the charms of Italy’s most stunning rural retreats.

Italy’s GDP continues to be amongst the world’s top ten, with a gross national income per capita of over $32,000. After undergoing a mass exodus to the cities in the past decades, nationals are now returning to their rural origins, favoring a more relaxed and homely approach to holidays. The fast emerging southern region of Calabria alone saw over 209,000 Italian visitors in 2006, with 2007 figures still under review. However, with the World Travel and Tourism Organization forecasting a 2% growth in 2008 and subsequent years, it is highly unlikely that figures will drop.

Calabria is now regarded as a strong emerging property market, with high anticipated rental yields in key holiday locations. Indeed, prospects for buy-to-let investors in southern Italian regions are high: domestic demand, complemented by a distinguished international presence, creates a perfect combination for landlords looking forward to having as few vacant weeks a year as possible.