World tourism registered yet another record last year with 842 million arrivals, a higher than expected growth rate of 4.5% with Latinamerica consolidating its sustained growth tendency reaching 7.2%, according to United Nations figures.
British Airways averted a strike by flight attendants, reaching agreement on pay and sick leave hours before the two-day walkout was due to start Wednesday. The deal was finally nailed down after more than 120 hours of talks between the company and the Transport and General Workers' Union.
Today the huge cruise liner Golden Princess made the first of a number of scheduled visits this year to Stanley (population around 2000) the neat, but tiny capital of the Falkland Islands.
A case of dengue fever in the northern Argentine province of Formosa has health authorities on alert since a growing number of cases, some deadly, of the disease have been reported in neighboring Paraguay where an epidemics alert has been declared.
Brazil's Sao Paulo, South America's largest and most dynamic city celebrated this week its 453 anniversary with an eight tons cake shared by thousands of residents.
Three cruise vessels including Queen Mary 2 called Friday in the Chilean port of Valparaíso with thousands of tourists, following a similar situation the previous Wednesday with the Discovery.
A Norovirus outbreak was reported to have affected more than 300 passengers and crew members aboard the world-famous Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) before the ocean liner docked in San Francisco Wednesday for a regularly scheduled stop, according to news reports.
Queen Mary 2, one of the world's largest passenger ships and currently on its first ever world cruise, an 81 day circumnavigation of the globe, called in Montevideo last Saturday for fifteen hours.
Nearly 16,000 tourists will flood the port city of Valparaiso over the next two weeks, with over half of the visitors arriving in a single day on four separate cruise ships. The huge ships are set to dock next Friday 26th, along with six smaller vessels throughout the week, bringing an unprecedented influx of visitors to the city of 280,000.
Hundreds of passengers waiting to travel on the ferry shuttle between Buenos Aires and Montevideo suffered this week unexpected delays because of lack of vessels and stricter migration regulations for minors, admitted Buquebus, the company which has a virtual monopoly of the River Plate crossings.