Tourists will only need a single visa to access tourist attraction centers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

This comes after East African tourism head’s have agreed to market the region as a single tourist destination.

Kenya tourist board managing director Dr Ongong’a Achieng says Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will market the region as a destination in main source markets and during international exhibitions.

He said this move is aimed at making it easier for tourists visiting any of the three countries to access the other two.

Speaking during the launch of executive turbine airline, Dr Ongong’a said Kenya tourist board would hold talks with international airlines that do not fly to Kenya to woo them to ply the Kenyan route. Read more

The early 70s spelt the beginning of a ‘new era’. The old Tourism Department of 1959 was then upgraded into the Tourism Development Corporation.

The formation of the Tourism Development Corporation (TDC) in 1972 and placing it under the purview of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI) for strategic planning and focus charted a new era in the history of the tourism industry. That was the same year Malaysia Airlines was formed (1972). It was the dawn of a new beginning and both TDC and MAS were tasked to put Malaysia on the world tourist map. Since then, the Malaysian economy remains relatively robust with manufacturing and tourism taking the lead.

Today, the tourism industry has experienced a rapid growth and gained an importance in the Malaysian economy. It is the second largest foreign exchange earner, after manufacturing. This is in line with the government’s objective to accelerate the domestic private sector and stimulate the services sector to spearhead economic growth. Read more

CHINA is an emerging tourism market, says Fiji Islands Visitors Bureau chairman Patrick Wong.

He made the comments in response to the visa exemption order for Chinese nationals gazetted by interim Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama this week.

“As far as tourism is concerned, that is certainly an advantage — to get to the China market,” he said.

Mr Wong said 180,000 Chinese visitors travelled to Australia last year and Fiji could lure some of them here.

“We are offering the sun and the sea but they are more interested in the night life,” he said.

Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali said the interim regime should not be gazetting such orders. Read more

Dear Fixer: My mother, who passed away in 2004, had a Citibank credit card, for which I was an authorized user. The card was under her Social Security number.

I notified them of her death as she had credit insurance, and sent in a death certificate. But then Citibank put the account against my Social Security number as a charge-off.

I am buying a home and this is hurting my credit score, costing me a higher interest rate.

I contacted Citibank and they verified that this is not my account and should not be under my Social Security number. They told me to fax a request to their credit reporting service asking them to correct this. I did all of this in June and have heard nothing. Read more

Less than a month after copping a market pasting in the wash-up from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, they are offering their shell-shocked shareholders credit cards.

“Founding members” will get a platinum Visa card that “leverages the strength of Macquarie Bank” and “harnesses the global acceptance of Visa”.

Shareholders are offered an initial credit limit of $20,000 but the bank will “happily consider giving you a higher credit limit once we issue your card and upon assessment of further Read more

Officials remain puzzled over an Aug. 9 bridge collapse in Mesa, Ariz. Early signs point to a construction incident rather than structural failure.

At about 8:30 a.m., a 114–ft–long bridge section that was under construction fell for no apparent reason. No one was injured. Nine of 11 pre–cast, pre–stressed girders of a future bridge on the Loop 202 Red Mountain Highway, just east of Power Road, dropped 25 ft from their pier caps. The girders on the westbound lanes of the 87.8–ft–wide bridge, each 2.5 ft deep and 105,000 lb, had been placed atop the pier caps three weeks prior. Read more

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered Aug. 27 a crackdown on fire safety protections for all city demolition, decontamination and construction projects following an Aug. 18 blaze at the Deutsche Bank deconstruction project at Ground Zero in which two firefighters were killed. Bloomberg ordered the city Fire Dept. to mandate “surveillance by every fire unit…of all buildings under construction/demolition,” to review “pre-fire plans” and to order new plans created, if necessary at “any potential structures.”

Bloomberg also confirmed that city fire marshals have “tentatively” determined that the seven-alarm fire was caused by “careless smoking” by abatement or construction workers on the building’s 17th floor. He also pointed to gaps in city and contractor oversight of the building’s water supply system and fire safety measures. “Senior fire officers decided against creating a unique fire plan for the building,” said the Mayor, who also announced the demotions of three top department officials and the submission of sections of an inoperable building standpipe to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va. for metallurgical analysis.

Work on the demolition project remains halted as multiple investigations continue. Bovis Lend Lease, the project’s contractor, did not return calls to confirm whether it has officially terminated the demolition subcontractor, The John Galt Corp. The firm was issued a notice of contract default on Aug. 22.

Bovis also did not confirm reports that two new firms are handling emergency work at the site—Gramercy Group, a Westbury, N.Y.-based demolition and environmental contractor and Atlantic Heydt Corp., a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based contractor and scaffolding firm.
By Debra K. Rubin

source :enr.ecnext.com

The Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, Calif., is suing the architect and contractor that built its new $240-million, 2,000-seat Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. It blames them for cost overruns and delays as well as design flaws that allegedly can’t be fixed, including obstructed sight lines, cramped quarters and a lack of legroom in certain seats.

The nonprofit center filed a 218-page complaint in Orange County Superior Court on Aug. 10, naming New Haven, Conn.-based Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, Fluor Corp., The Woodlands, Texas, and Berkeley-based landscape architect Peter Walker and Partners as defendants, as well as nine others. It seeks over $30 million in damages. Read more

As work remained largely shut down on the fire-scarred Deutsche Bank abatement and demolition job at the former World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan, contractors and city agencies are scurrying to meet fire-safety enforcement rules ordered on Aug. 27 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The crackdown, affecting all city demolition, decontamination and construction projects, follows the Aug. 18 blaze at the bank deconstruction project at Ground Zero in which two firefighters were killed. Read more

Although the probe of the I-35W bridge disaster in Minneapolis remains in an early stage, the National Transportation Safety Board is widening its investigation to retrofits made to the 40-year-old bridge before it collapsed on Aug. 1, killing 13.

Forensic engineers are reviewing design records and “have begun developing a list of the various construction projects and modifications that were performed to the bridge after the original construction,” says NTSB in an Aug. 22 bulletin.

One of the retrofits in question involved the bridge’s anti-icing equipment, a $618,450-addition that was completed in Dec., 1999. NTSB says that it also is examining “the chemical used in this system and what type of corrosive properties it might have.” Read more