Echoes of past in Lebanon's present

Please read this article from BBC > Echoes of past in Lebanon's present

Travel Awards Unveil the Best in Gay and Lesbian Travel for 2006

Spain Named Destination of the Year for Second Year in a Row; Hyatt, American Airlines Also Recognized > Travel Awards Unveil the Best in Gay and Lesbian Travel for 2006

Since 1992, the annual awards have recognized the best of the best in gay travel by shining a well-deserved spotlight on the best destinations, resorts, airlines and more.

Video - Hotel room of the future

Video - Hotel room of the future > It has a comfortable bed with no mattress. It has picture frames that can be filled with artwork or photographs emailed by the occupant. It has a toilet that senses the user arriving, and opens the lid. It has a shower that, when the customer finishes using it, washes itself, so housekeeping people don't have to.

It is GUESTROOM 2010, a demonstration room set up for hotel financial and technical professionals to examine and be inspired by. GUESTROOM 2010 was built by producers of HITEC, the Hotel Industry Technology Exposition and Conference, at the Minneapolis Convention Center, site of HITEC 2006. "Our association develops and helps our members learn about technology," said Frank Wolfe, CEO of the Hotel Financial and Technical Professionals.

Five-thousand people from 40 countries are attending the exposition, looking at technology which can set their hotels or casinos apart from the rest. They're examining items like the EcoPower faucet, equipped with a small turbine powered generator to charge a power source to run the hands-off faucet. Hotel room of the future

Google Tool for Crisis Management

The Internet is at the center of many of the crises that prompt clients to call me these days, specifically the ease by which negative information proliferates online and how challenging it can be to both track and counter the negative.

However, Google Tool for Crisis Management is apossible remedy.

When you look at a broader term, e.g., "crisis management," once again the results aren't what one might expect.The top three languages in which the term is searched the most often are Greek, Tagalog and Finnish. English is fourth.

When you look at the top 10 cities, the first U.S. city is ranked 8th (Washington, D.C.), with the top ranked being Athens, Greece.And when you look at the regional rankings, the U.S. doesn't even make the top 10, which starts with Pakistan and ends with Indonesia.

Google explains the ranking system as follows. Read more, click the link provided above.

Gruff justice as Billy is demoted

British Army Demotes Mascot Goat > According to BBC Gruff justice as Billy is demoted

The regimental goat of the 1st Battalion Royal Welch has been demoted - after refusing to keep in step at a parade to mark the Queen's birthday.

The parade on 16 June was held in the presence of a number of invited dignitaries including the ambassadors of Spain, Netherlands and Sweden and the Argentine commander of UN forces on Cyprus. His handler Lance Corporal Dai Davies, 22, from Neath, South Wales, dubbed the goat major, found he was unable to keep him in line.

Venice battles seaweed invasion

Venice is bracing itself for its summer tourist invasion, but an unwelcome newcomer has joined the thousands of visitors filling the Italian city.

While Venice battles seaweed invasion researchers say the voracious weed, undaria pinnatifidaea, it was probably brought to the Adriatic accidentally by a ship that dumped bilge water into the sea.

From the Adriatic it spread into the nearby lagoon and has now reached as far as the city itself.

France Unveils Google-like Map Service

Called Geoportal, the site offers the ability to zoom in to as close as 20 inches off the ground, the best resolution available in Europe.

400,000 images comprise the tool along with 3,700 maps, which are updated every five years. Read the article France Unveils Google-like Map Service The system was developed by the National Geographic, and much like Google Earth it would be switchable from aerial to detailed maps, and soon even 3-D imagery.

However, unlike its counterpart geological data would also be added.

Cafe Metropole Paris > Dining under the sky

Dining Under the Sky.

Read the full article Cafe Metropole Paris Dining Under the Sky "...and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the Jews and the Arabs and the devil .....

ODYSSEY TO AMERICA... A DEPARTURE

The place was packed – 200 people, mostly rich Egyptians, but also a lot of Western tourists: Brits, French, Dutch, Italians, and Greeks..... ODYSSEY TO AMERICA... A DEPARTURE

Fatso leered at Adil, his eyes taking in the sight of the young boy – who looked like the fallen statue of a minor Greek deity: a faun, perhaps, with a face like that of a very young Pan – rather too hungrily. Adil's heart sank. They were doomed. Or, at least, he was…

Read the whole story!

Outlook for U.S. online travel sales

Outlook for U.S. online travel sales.

A new eMarketer report forecasts online leisure/unmanaged business travel sales in the U.S. will total $78 billion this year, up 20% over last year, while online corporate sales will be in the neighborhood of $37 billion.

Airline tickets will account for over half of online leisure/unmanaged business travel sales and hotel reservations for over a third. The majority of these sales will take place on supplier Web sites at the expense of online travel agencies. Going forward, this gap will only widen.

Online travelers are an affluent and highly educated subset of the online population. They visit multiple travel sites to learn about destination, compare travel options and find the best airline and hotel rates. Online business travelers are particularly attractive to the travel industry. They are technology savvy and less price sensitive than leisure travelers.

Get the facts at > Internet, Business & Ecommerce Statistics: Email Marketing & Online Market Research

Did you know?

Did you know?
New York's Wall Street is so named because it was built along the length of a wall that was constructed by 17th century farmers to prevent their pigs from escaping.

Redesigned Web sites help carriers attract fliers

Redesigned Web sites help carriers attract fliers.

It's part of the game, otherwise you are left out and your competitors are at an advantage over you. Read this The New, Sleek Airline Web Site

New Web-site designs are helping airlines lower costs and improve customer loyalty. Some sites now allow travelers to manage their frequent flier miles and have simplified the booking process to just a few clicks. I should say I agree.

The less clicks your visitor has to do to gain access to the information is looking for, the better for you and the longer staying on your site for him/her.

A Wheelchair Trek for Reunification

Choi Chang-hyun (41) is disabled by a severe form of cerebral infantile paralysis.

He is on a challenge to move an average of 80km per day for 9 months across 30 European countries. On May 10, he set off from Athens, Greece and went through Romania and Bulgaria to reach Budapest, Hungary and showed up at Hero Square on June 15 in hot temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius.

Read the whole story here > A Wheelchair Trek for Reunification as it is a real story about someone who deserves our admiration. Maybe, we can learn a bit out of his story. Don't you think so?

Tomb contains oldest paintings in Western culture

According to Italian officials a Tomb contains oldest paintings in Western culture

The remains of a tomb carved into the hillside in a barley field 20 kilometres north of Rome, near the town of Veio, is adorned with vibrantly coloured frescoes estimated to be 2,700 years old.

Running scared at the running of the bulls

Thousands of revelers, attired in white shirts and pants and clutching red handkerchiefs, gather in front of Pamplona's town hall to celebrate the start of the Festival of San Fermin in Spain.

However, they were Running scared at the running of the bulls. According to an attendant "The bulls were galloping toward us. In an instant, I was swept up in the chaos, people running to stay ahead of the bulls, to avoid the horns that were getting closer. I turned and ran, too, as fast as my feet could carry me. I ran past the doorways of the small shops that lined the street, past the crowds that had come to watch, past the barricades that had been put up along the route. There was nowhere to escape, nowhere to go except straight ahead, with everyone else. All I wanted to do was survive".

Unusual Hotels of the World

Unusual Hotels of the World is the online guide for travellers interested in staying somewhere truly different.

Starting out as a discussion between friends in a pub, featured hotels are underground, inside an igloo, up a tree or even underwater... and all unusual!

Click and read more > Unusual Hotels of the World : Online Guide of the World's most Unusual & Unique Hotels!

Temples at the sacred source

I am in northeastern Israel, just one mile from the Lebanese border, three from the Syrian, on the slopes of Mount Hermon, the 9,286-foot, snowcapped peak that dominates the Golan Heights.

Near the base of Hermon is a ledge of soft limestone from which flows the Dan, named for the seventh tribe of ancient Israel. It is the largest tributary of the Jordan, and the beginning of a journey that has shaped the whole of the world.

Temples at the sacred source The Jordan River is cited nearly 200 times in the Bible. In Genesis, Lot looked up "and saw the whole plain of the Jordan was well-watered, like the garden of the Lord. Most rivers serve as thoroughfares for vessels, bringing people together. But the Jordan has always been a border, something to cross to get to a better land, a healthier time, a home.

In Rome, a place for Romans

Burrowed behind the Colosseum, with ivy-draped palazzos and cobblestone alleys, the Roman neighbourhood of Monti ought to be a tourist magnet.

So where were the street vendors? The sunburned foreigners? The stores selling cutesy aprons with vignettes from the Sistine chapel?

In The ChronicleHerald.ca article you will get to know Rome, a place for Romans, better. Read it now!

Frist exhibit unmasks Ancient Egypt

With its massive pyramids, miraculously preserved mummies and mysterious hieroglyphs, ancient Egypt holds a special place in the popular imagination, a distant land where crocodiles prowled the banks of the Nile, people routinely practiced the art of embalming the dead, and pharaohs were immortalized with monumental structures that rival anything from our own era.

This abiding appeal dates back even to the ancient Greeks, says Susan Edwards, executive director of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, and today it still captures the public's attention.

Frist exhibit unmasks Ancient Egypt > Ancient Egyptian history is astonishing in its depth, with more than 30 successive royal dynasties. To help organize the sequence of events, scholars have divided the country's history into a dozen different periods, beginning with the Predynastic Period circa 5300 B.C.. The Frist exhibit picks up in the year 1550 B.C., with the beginning of the New Kingdom, and runs through the Late Period, just prior to the rule of Alexander the Great.

World's oldest bird fossils

Five beautifully preserved headless fossil skeletons discovered in China suggest modern birds evolved from aquatic duck-like ancestors.

These are propably the World's oldest bird fossils. Several of the specimens are so exquisitely preserved that the remains of feathers and even webbing in the foot can be seen clearly.

In the Pteroducktyl - the missing link, Ornithuran fossils "are relatively rare in the Cretaceous, which is part of what makes Gansus so exciting", said a co-author, Dr Matthew Lamanna of Carnegie Museum of Natural History.