Sunday, October 10, 2010

Alex Salmond travel to Delhi Commonwealth Games

Scotland's first minister is to travel to Delhi this week to support the Scottish Commonwealth Games team.

Alex Salmond is also expected to make an announcement about Scotland forming closer ties with India in areas such as business and tourism.

The trip will run until Thursday's closing ceremony, during which the official handover of the Games to Glasgow will take place.

The city is due to host the next Commonwealth Games in 2014.

The Scottish government said the first minister would visit the athletes' village to meet members of Team Scotland.

Officials said Mr Salmond would also announce "significant" Indian investment and job creation in Scotland and hold "high level" ministerial meetings with the Indian government.

Mr Salmond said: "Our athletes are performing fantastically well in Delhi, all of Scotland is behind them, and I am proud to attend the Commonwealth Games to show support for their achievements.

"I would also like to wish the Scottish cast at the closing ceremony the best of luck.
"They will be great ambassadors for the country as Scotland assumes host nation status."

Mr Salmond said Scotland already had very strong ties with India.'Emerging markets'
He added: "We have one of the most thriving Asian communities in the world - food, the arts, business and religious tolerance and diversification have all benefited enormously from the 35,000 Indian people who call Scotland home.

"As an emerging global economic power, India is an essential partner for Scotland."

The first minister said 11 Indian companies had made investments of £700m in Scotland during the past five years, employing more than 3,200 people.

An estimated 4,000 Indian students also study at Scottish colleges and universities.

Lena Wilson, chief executive of Scottish Enterprise, said there were "tremendous opportunities" for Scottish companies to develop trade and investment partnerships with their Indian counterparts.

VisitScotland's chief executive Malcolm Roughead said this week presented an opportunity to showcase Scotland on a world stage.

He said: "Tourism from India is worth around £15m to Scotland and is one of the emerging markets with greatest growth potential.

"Engaging with travel agents, trade contacts and the media face-to-face in India will allow us to capitalise on this potential."

Source: bbc.co.uk

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Saturday, October 2, 2010

New Travel Guide App for iPhone

A unique travel guide application has been launched on the iPhone. The mTrip Travel Guides launched on the iPhone on June, 21. The mTrip application launched with city guides for nine US and European cities. mTrip aids in planning your itinerary to guiding you around the city. It also describes and show tourist attractions, hotels and many places of interest. The nine cities that are on the application are London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Barcelona, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. The application comes in English, French, German, Spanish and
Italian.


New Travel Guide App for iPhoneThe mTrip iPhone application has the automated itinerary planner. This is done by suggesting a personalised trip based on the travellers interest, trip dates and other useful information. It can plan the time and pace for the Tourist based on an advanced algorithm.

The world travel guide also comes with a lot of tourist attractions. Falk CIS, one of Europe’s leading travel content providers provide all the expert information on the application. From this you can pick quality restaurants, view their pictures and even their ratings.

The travel guide pinpoints the exact location of the traveller automatically. It then displays the best route to navigate to where you want to go. The traveller also has the option of viewing any places of interest in his current location. This can be done in offline mode causing no roaming fees.

Without connecting to the internet, the user of the application can also view tourist attraction in an area at a heightened, surreal view.

You can also stay in touch with others on the application. You can send postcards through Facebook and personal emails. Sharing is free and limitless.

“Travel preparation, sightseeing and trip sharing are completely re-defined with the arrival of travel applications. Apps should support the traveller in a quick and easy way with rich, updated information and clever offline functionalities for the most optimal trip experience. With this first series of city guides, we have brought together expert content, traveller’s feedback and the latest technologies available on the market,” says Frederic de Pardieu, CEO and Founder of mTrip. “We want travellers to remain stress-free, enjoy discovering new attractions and almost forget that they are even using a guide,” says de Pardieu.

Source: Businessservicenews.com

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Saturday, July 17, 2010

Facebook Buys Travel Guide Start-Up

It’s not just Google that’s interested in firms that work in the travel industry. Social networking giant Facebook has bought NextStop, a startup that allows users to create their own travel guides and share it with others who are not familiar with the places they’re visiting, reports ComputerWorld.

The move is inline with Facebook’s current development of providing location-based services to its users. Though the company has not disclosed the price of the acquisition, it has also bought most of NextStop’s assets.

As a result, NextStop’s website will be closing down on September 1 of this year. Users will have time to export their content with tools that will be provided by NextStop.

It will make its content available on the Internet under a Creative Commons CC-BY license allowing other services to make use of it. Users who do not wish their content to be included in “public sharing” can write NextStep. Users will also not have to worry about their personal information as it will not be shared to Facebook.

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Wednesday, May 5, 2010

America's top 5 Most Livable Cities 2010

In these affordable metros, jobs are plentiful, crime is low and there are myriad entertainment options.

Given below the America's top 5 Most Livable Cities 2010:

1. Pittsburgh, Pa.
Low Unemployment Rank: 73
Low Crime Rank: 15
Income Growth Rank: 20
Low Cost of Living Rank: 52
Arts & Leisure Rank: 26

2. Ogden-Clearfield, Utah
Low Unemployment Rank: 24
Low Crime Rank: 34
Income Growth Rank: 12
Low Cost of Living Rank: 71
Arts & Leisure Rank: 54

3. Provo-Orem, Utah
Low Unemployment Rank: 22
Low Crime Rank: 11
Income Growth Rank: 1
Low Cost of Living Rank: 76
Arts & Leisure Rank: 104

4. Ann Arbor, Mich.
Low Unemployment Rank: 50
Low Crime Rank: 41
Income Growth Rank: 14
Low Cost of Living Rank: 89
Arts & Leisure Rank: 51

5. Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pa.
Low Unemployment Rank: 39
Low Crime Rank: 17
Income Growth Rank: 28
Low Cost of Living Rank: 59
Arts & Leisure Rank: 111

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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

In London, Travellers hope for Departures

Passengers from around the world dozed on floors and huddled in blankets at London’s Heathrow airport on April 21, still waiting to get home after days of misery even after the flight ban was lifted.

Many were bleary-eyed after arriving on flights from the United States and were desperately hoping to complete their journeys as the skies over Europe re-opened after the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland cleared.

Veronique David, a 42-year-old nurse from France, sat wrapped in a green blanket in Heathrow’s Terminal Five, recounting where she had spent the last five nights while stranded in San Francisco.

“It has certainly been an unforgettable journey. We had two nights in a hotel paid by British Airways, then one in a hotel paid for by the travel company, then we had to pay for one ourselves,” she told AFP.
“We also spent one night on our feet in San Francisco airport just hoping for news of flights.”

She and the group of 30 French tourists travelling with her had been starting to wonder if they would ever be able to get back to Europe.

“Then last night we were flown to London, and when we got here they gave us a blanket, a rolled-up sleeping mat and a small bottle of water. Personally I’d have preferred a shower,” she added. She and 30 French tourists travelling with her were trying to keep each other’s spirits up, but the strain was starting to show.

“I just hope we can get back to Paris today, because this has been a real ordeal,” she said, with a tired smile.

As a British Airways 747 could be seen rising into the skies through the terminal’s windows – one of the first for almost a week – Australian tourist Ray Swanson counted the cost of a forced stay in London’s notoriously expensive hotels.

Ray, a 49-year-old general manager from Melbourne, and his wife Linda, 48, had been preparing to fly to Rome last week with British Airways when flights were suddenly halted, throwing their month-long tour of Europe into chaos.

“We have had to pay for four nights in hotels in London, at inflated prices. I reckon it has cost us an extra AU$2000 (US$1860).

“The airlines have not handled this well at all. They keep referring you to the internet, which is crazy because travellers have limited access to the internet.

“And the whole focus of today’s effort seems to be to get the Brits home instead of getting other people out of here.”
The Swansons could hardly believe their bad luck – they were stranded in this very terminal when it opened two years ago and baggage handling hitches caused massive disruption.

“I think we certainly won’t be coming back to Europe in a rush now,” Ray said. “We’re just hoping we can get out to Rome today and salvage what we can, even though we have now lost a week of tours and visits there.”

Gaelle Bordais, a 32-year-old French tourist, had a happier story to tell after she and her companion were put up in hotels in Tokyo for four nights at British Airways’ expense before flying to London on April 20.

“On one hand, it was a nice way to end six months travelling around Asia and we have been well-treated compared to others, but there is no way you could call it an extension of our holidays.

“We were constantly worried about when we could leave,” she said.

Risto Tirronen and his family were rolling up their sleeping mats after a night spent on the floor of the terminal. The Finnish businessman had abandoned any hope of a flight home and had settled instead for a marathon bus ride.

“We managed to sleep for a few hours but now there are no planes today for us. Instead, the Finnish embassy has organised buses for us to Stockholm and we will then catch a ferry to Finland,” he said. “But what can we do? That’s life. No one could have predicted this would happen. It was truly exceptional.”

Site: MMtimes.com

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Friday, April 9, 2010

Kingfisher Airlines Bomb suspect Kills Self

The crude bomb found aboard a Kingfisher Airlines flight in Thiruvananthapuram airport last month has claimed its first casualty.
Twenty-six-year old Sunil Lawrence, a contract cleaner at the airport killed himself after being questioned by the police and losing his job over the incident.
His suicide note says he decided to kill himself because he couldn’t prove his innocence.
Sunil's uncle Varghese said, “He was very moody and depressed after the incident though he was let off. Shortly before he hung himself, he had got a phone call. Police should look into this.”

Sunil was working for the same company of which a staffer, Rajashekharan Nair was arrested and remanded on March 28 in connection with the case.

Police found that Nair had planted the crude bomb to settle his grudge with a security official and that there was no terror angle to it.
The crude bomb was found wrapped in a newspaper in the cargo section of a plane which had flown from Bangalore to Thiruvanthapuram.

Police now say that Sunil was only one among the many suspects who were questioned and let off and that they are shocked at the contents of his suicide note. They are now probing the unidentified phone call he received shortly before he took his life.

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