WASHINGTON: The Trump administration’s tightening of visa requirements continues, this time targeting one of the president’s pet hates; birthright citizenship. There’s a risk that pregnant travelers will be treated with the assumption that they’re coming to the U.S. to give birth. The Trump administration is coming out with new visa restrictions aimed at restricting “birth tourism,” in which women travel to the U.S. to give birth so their children can have a coveted U.S. passport. Visa applicants deemed by consular officers to be coming to the U.S. primarily to give birth will now be treated like other foreigners coming to…
Author: holidayweekly
SAINT MARTIN: The man, thought to have been drunk at the time, fell from the cruise vessel near St Martin and had been treading water for 11 hours, according to multiple media reports. He was rescued near Saba Island – around 45 kilometers (28 miles) from St Martin. DiCaprio – who was holidaying at the time near the island of St Bart’s – and the crew on board his yacht was “the only responders” to an emergency call sent out seeking help to locate the man. “Leonardo played a blinding role in his own real-life Hollywood movie,” a source told…
BEIJING: Chinese authorities have closed off the Chinese city of Wuhan, which is home to more than 11 million people, as it struggles to contain the deadly coronavirus outbreak, according to a report. From today, January 23, all public transport, including trains, buses, and ferries, in Wuhan has been shut down, while all flights and trains leaving the city has been stopped. A growing sense of panic has left supermarket shelves empty as residents stockpile supplies and isolate themselves. The sudden restrictions, which was announced on Chinese state media hours prior to it being implemented, comes as the virus’ death…
SUNNYVALE-CALIFORNIA: Google Cloud today announced it has joined forces with Sabre Corporation, a leading software and technology provider that powers the global travel industry to help digitally transform the traveller’s experience, and co-create the future of travel. Sabre, which launched in 1960, revolutionized the travel market with the industry’s first semi-automated flight reservation system. Since then, Sabre has evolved into a broad technology platform that manages more than $260B worth of global travel spend annually, supporting a wide range of travel providers, such as individual airlines, hoteliers, agencies, travel aggregators, and more. The 10-year-strategic partnership between Google and Sabre will…
MADRID: The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in association with Turismo de Portugal and Globalia, the leading tourism group in Spain and Latin America, has named the eight winners of the 2nd Tourism Startup Competition. Launched in 2018, this initiative works to identify and reward the new companies that will lead the transformation of the global tourism sector within the framework of innovation and sustainability. The final event was held on eve of FITUR, Spain’s biggest and most important tourism trade fair and was attended by UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili, Javier Hidalgo, CEO of Globalia and Luís Araújo, president of Tourism…
MONTEREAL: Airline body IATA is warning the travel industry to be on the lookout for fraudulent emails. It said crooks have been contacting users of IATA products and services by email or telephone under false names seeking payment for products or services and/or claiming payments for outstanding amounts due. Fraudsters use email addresses similar to an IATA email address but using different domain names such as @gmail.com or @iattafinance.org, it said. Email accounts are often masked so that messages appear to have been sent from a g genuine IATA address with the @iata.org domain name, while their reply-to domain name…
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday upheld Sindh High Court’s verdict barring Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) CEO Air Marshal Arshad Malik from performing his duties as the airline’s Chief Executive Officer. The petition was heard by a three-member bench of the SC headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmed. The court rejecting the plea of PIA’s counsel against the verdict of SHC sought case details from the province’s top court. The CJP in his remarks to the PIA’ counsel said, “It would be better to ask Arshad Malik to leave PIA”, and added that it is not…
TEXAS: software and technology provider that powers the global travel industry, announced that, effective today, Karl Peterson has been elected by the Board to serve as Chairman of the Board and that Larry Kellner is stepping down as Chairman of the Board, effective today. Kellner will remain on Sabre’s Board until its Annual Stockholder Meeting in April. Kellner has chosen to step down as Chairman so that he may focus on his new responsibilities as Chairman of the Board at Boeing. Sean Menke, Sabre’s President and CEO said, “I am excited to have Karl serve as our Chairman, as he…
The Pacific Asia Travel Association has appointed dePaRture Travel & Lifestyle Marketing as its corporate communications and public relations company in the UK. The organization will be responsible for the representation of the organization from this month. dePaRture thus becomes the first PR company to be hired in the chapter’s 50-year history. Working to promote the responsible development of travel and tourism in the Pacific Asia region, non-profit travel trade organization PATA is the one-stop-shop for its 5,000+ members providing sales support, latest news, updates, training and events. The organization’s community actively connects agents and operators with a wide range…
AMSTERDAM: If you avoided ever referring to the Netherlands as “Holland” because you weren’t quite sure if that was correct, keep doing what you’re doing. The country kicked off 2020 by officially striking the name from use. Though Holland technically refers to only two of the Netherlands’ 12 provinces, North and South Holland, citizens have long accepted and even embraced it as another moniker for the entire country. But because those two provinces are home to popular destinations like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leiden, and The Hague, unmanageable masses of tourists are clogging the region and inching the Netherlands towards an over-tourism…