Barbados Tourism Minister Richard Sealy Summoned To Emergency Meeting

Tourism is the life blood of the Barbados economy. Any decisions made outside Barbados that would have a negative impact on our survival is cause for concern. Like the recent decision by American air carriers to cut their carrying capacity by as much as 20% because as you guess it, rising fuel costs which would mean less travellers coming to these shores.

Let’s face it. If plane A, used to carrying say 780 passengers to region A decided to slash their passenger load by 20%, that’s 156 less travellers coming to region A. If plane B, used to carrying say 830 passengers to region B decided to slash their passenger load by 20%, that’s 166 less travellers coming to region A.

So plane A brings 624 passengers and plane B brings 664 passengers. Now it may not be the case of each carrier slashing their capacity by 20% more likely a combination of the air carriers percentage. The point is that is already 322 travellers less coming to the Caribbean and a lesser extent Barbados.

We have not even touch on the thousands much more the millions of travellers that the region would be losing in subsequent years. Imagine the dollar figures people!!!.

So dire is the situation that Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy would be just one of the tourism ministers receiving correspondence inviting them to a 29th May meeting [next Thursday] in Antigua to come up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the gravity of the situation.

According to the Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation [CTO] and St Lucia’s Minister Of Tourism Senator Allen Chastanet said that the decision by the air carriers,

would have a serious impact on visitor arrivals to this tourism dependent region. He warned that this would be made worse over the next six to nine months as the ongoing economic downturn, plus the traditional low spending in an election year, would equal a fall-off in holiday bookings to the Caribbean by visitors from the United States.

And he does not stop there. Mr Chastanet went on to say that if a US$30m marketing plan by the CTO did not get the support from the ministers needed to propel it into action, then that May 29th meeting would be the last regional meeting that he would attend!!!.

All because the Caribbean is still relying on sun, sea and sand!

Further reading – Tourism Ministers Summoned To Emergency Meeting

Family Forgets Baby At Vancouver Airport

Tickets, check. Passports, check. Luggage, check. Baby … oops.

A family boarded a flight on Monday and forgot their tot at Vancouver international airport, Canadian media reported.

The 23-month-old boy’s family had just arrived in Canada from the Philippines, but they were forced to repack their overweight bags before catching a connecting flight to Winnipeg, causing them to run late.

In their sprint to the gate, the family became separated.

The boy’s father Jun Parreno, told local media he had thought his son was with his wife and the boy’s grandparents, who ran ahead. They thought the boy was with his dad.

On the plane, the family members were seated separately and so did not immediately realise they had left the child behind.

Some time later, a security guard found the boy, who speaks no English, wandering near the departure gate, and Air Canada officials tracked down his shocked parents on the flight.

Because the boy was so young, he was not issued a boarding pass and would have sat on a parent’s lap during the flight, so airline personnel did not notice a passenger was missing.

According to the Vancouver Sun, airport security found a Tagalog-speaking Air Canada agent who looked after the child while his father flew 2300km back to Vancouver to pick him up and then return to Winnipeg to rejoin the immigrant family on their first day in Canada.

Source – AFP

63 Pulled Alive From China Quake Debris After 5 Days

Five days after a huge earthquake hit south-western China, rescuers pulled at least 63 people alive from collapsed buildings yesterday, state media said, revising its earlier toll of seven.

Xinhua news agency said 57 survivors were rescued in Yingxiu township in Wenchuan County, the epicentre of the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Sichuan province on Monday afternoon.

Another six people were saved alive also about 120 hours after the devastating quake in other areas, including Beichuan county, Shifang city and Dujiangyan city, the report said.

In Dujiangyan, a 61-year-old woman was saved last night by Russian rescuers after being buried for up to 127 hours in rubble, Xinhua said, in what it earlier said was the first rescue by a foreign team.

“Her hands and feet can still move, and she can still speak,” Li Wenxin, a counsellor from the Foreign Ministry who accompanied the Russian rescuers, was quoted as saying.

Also in Dujiangyan, Zhang Xiaoping, 46, was pulled from a collapsed residential building about 11.06pm local time, after being buried for almost 129 hours in the rubble, Xinhua said.

But he was immediately sent to hospital to have his legs amputated.

The rescues on Saturday defied the warnings of experts that chances of survival were extremely small after 72 hours.

The government estimates Monday’s tremor killed more than 50,000 people and has left nearly five million people homeless.

Source - AFP