The Viking Star is Viking Cruise’s New Ocean Ship

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Viking Cruise Lines has unveiled the very first of its oceanic ships in a video earlier this week. While that may not sounds all that impressive, people should consider that the Viking Cruise Line used to be solely river cruises around Europe, Asia, and parts of Egypt. The branching out into ocean cruises (the Viking Start launches in 2015) is a big step for the company and takes them into direct competition with a number of larger and better known companies including Norwegian Cruise Line and Carnival Cruise line. While the ship can only carry 930 passengers (leading to a different type of cruise experience), it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine Viking eventually owning a fleet of large cruise ships as well as smaller ones.

The video released showed the inaugural floating of the ship, the first time it has ever touched water. It also sets the stage for the final chapter of the ship’s construction, the building and outfitting of the interior of the ship. While the ship is being built/inaugurated in Italy, the mayor of Bergen, Norway and godmother to the Viking Star, Trude Drevland, was there as well to officially inaugurate the ship. Soon the Viking Star will be officially used to ferry passengers around the world’s oceans and will take Viking Cruise Lines to a whole new level.

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No-Take Zones Are A Good Thing

The Wildlife Conservation Society has released a new report that speaks to the effectiveness of “no-take” zones and how they benefit both local economies as well as the surrounding ecology. Focused on the Central American country of Belize (a world leader in this effort), the study focuses on the efforts of the Belize government to enforce the “no-take” zones and how these zones impact the lives of both humans as well as marine animals. The study found that, contrary to what people might think, the “no-take” zones were good for the livelihoods of the people who lived near them. The zones allowed commercially viable and economically valuable species to recover from overfishing and, once they spread from the zone, fishermen and others can catch the species to both eat and sell. Species like lobsters, conch, and certain fish have been able to catch up and reproduce safely, allowing their populations to recover to a sustainable level. As long as these “no-take” zones stay in place, all sea creatures will have an area where they can breed safely.

Unsurprisingly, these zones are also good for helping the ecology recover. Coral reefs that were dying and abandoned saw an increase in recolonization which could lead to regrowth of the coral. The large number of new animals means that new places to live will have to be found and coral reefs are perfect for that. With the regrowth and repopulation of the reefs and the new levels of sea creatures it is easy to imagine that the tourism industry will explode as well, further adding to the local economy. These zones are a good thing for a variety of reasons. Hopefully this report will allow us to see more countries taking the health of the oceans and their own people into their hands.

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Ethiopia to host the Africa Hotel Investment Forum

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When people think of Africa, they tend to not always think of tourism and the opportunities for tourism that the vast continent offers. With so much of the media focused on the negative aspects of African life and politics, it makes sense that something like a hotel investment forum changing cities wouldn’t be seen as a big deal. However when you look at the actual reasons for it, you’ll notice that it points to good things for the future.

Initially meant to be held in Nairobi, the Forum will now be held in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Abada. The switch had to be made because there was a surge in interest from sponsors and investors which led to the realization that the current venue wasn’t large enough to fit everyone who wanted to be a part of the forum. Ethiopia has a tourism economy that is currently growing at 4.5% and will grow at around 4.8% for the next decade. This means that it is the perfect place to host a forum about increasing hospitality investment and building new hotels across the continent. This is also a good sign in terms of Africa’s tourism outlook as a whole. The sudden increase in sponsors and investors means that there is an earnest belief that economic prospects are on the rise for the continent. By taking a page from Kenya (who has a booming tourism industry), other African countries are hoping to increase both their prospects as well as those of their people.

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Fishing vessels have surprisingly large ecological footprints

While everyone is aware of the melting ice caps and the threat from rising oceans, there are other things that impact the life of sea creatures. Fishing vessels are used all around the world to fuel the booming sea-food industry. While it makes sense that these vessels would have an impact on the oceans they trawl, no one really understood how big that impact is. However, a new study from a group of researchers at the University of Exeter goes to prove that these commercial fishing vessels have a much larger impact that was originally thought.

The team of scientists found that northern gannets (a species of seabird that are the largest in the UK) drastically changed their behavior when the fishing vessels were near, showing that these large vessels clearly impact the foraging patterns and distribution of the gannets and other marine predators. Individual gannets were shown to adjust their behavior not only based on the boat, but also on whether it was actively fishing as well as what type of gear it had on board. Each vessel had an area of influence of about 22 km, much larger than previously thought.

The study was initially started because the findings are useful in terms of commercial fisheries and how much they space they need to be able to sustainably raise fish. However these findings also go to prove that seabirds and, potentially, other predators are far more in tune with the opportunities to eat that humans create.

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Abu Dhabi has a drastic increase in tourism.

When we last heard about the U.A.E. in the news it was something along the lines of their tourism and building industry grinding to a halt due to a lack of funds and the collapse of the world-wide economy. As one would expect, the slowing down of banking loans and the tightening of funds would obviously hamper any sort of development, especially for countries that are in the desert and need import both materials and workers to construct that lavish hotels and entertainment districts meant to entertain international visitors. This was a very bad situation and for weeks there were news articles and blog posts about how cities such as Dubai were full of abandoned and half-built husks of unfinished hotels and other buildings.

For those of you worried that this trend wasn't going to reverse and that tourism in that area of the Middle East would forever be tarnished, there's good news. Abu Dhabi has just released it's first quarterly report for the 2014 tourism year and there has been a huge jump in the number of visitors, both domestic and international. This is not only for the emirate itself, but for the region in general. It points to an upswing in the tourism industry which will bring in more money and more investments to the cities and emirates.

So far, there has been an increase of 32% when compared to the same time period last year. Not only is there an increase in the amount of tourists, but the number of available rooms increased from 24,416 to 26,811. This marks a roughly 10% increase in the amount of rooms and but the look of things, they will all be used. If this trend continues, the entire area might see a complete resurgence of both the tourism industry as well as the construction industry.

Where are all of these people coming from? A surprising amount is actually domestic tourism from the within the U.A.E. itself. In fact, there has been a 29% increase in domestic tourism to Abu Dhabi. India also contributes a surprisingly large amount of travelers to the tourism industry. There was actually a 39% increase in the number of Indian visitors to the country.

With hotel revenues increased by 11% and food and beverage by 11% compared to last year's first quarter, the sky is looking bright for the tourism industry and we may once again see the U.A.E. rise as the top tourist destination in the Middle East.

You can read more about this here: http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/abu-dhabi-records-sharp-increase-in-visitor-numbers-in-early-2014/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+breakingtravelnews+%28Breaking+Travel+News%29