Travelore News: German Tour Operator FTI Is Filing For Insolvency And Canceling Future Trips

German tour operator FTI said Monday that it is filing for insolvency protection from creditors, and trips that haven’t yet started will be canceled or scaled back.

FTI Group, which describes itself as Europe’s third-biggest tour operator, said parent company FTI Touristik GmbH, was filing an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings at a Munich court.

Since an announcement in April that a consortium of investors would come on board, “booking figures have fallen well short of expectations despite the positive news,” the company said in a statement.

“In addition, numerous suppliers have insisted on advance payment,” it added. “As a result, there was an increased need for liquidity, which could no longer be bridged until the closing of the investor process,” making the insolvency filing a legal necessity.

The operator said it is working to ensure that trips that have already started can be completed as planned, but “trips that have not yet begun will probably no longer be possible or only partially possible from Tuesday.”

A support website and hotline were set up for customers affected.

The Munich-based FTI Group has over 11,000 employees.

AP

Italy Regulator Probes Booking.Com For Alleged Abuse Of Dominant Position

Italy's competition watchdog said on Friday it has opened a probe into Booking.com opens new tab to establish whether the travel website is abusing its dominant market position.

The watchdog, AGCM, said that the website's handling of hotels that are part of Booking.com's Preferred Partner Programme "seems likely to hinder effective competition in the market, at least nationwide, for online hotel brokerage and reservation services".

This strategy is "to the detriment of other online travel agents with negative effects on accommodation facilities and, ultimately, on consumers in terms of higher prices and less choice," the authority said in a statement.

It added that Italian tax police Guardia di Finanza had carried out searches at Booking.com's Italian offices.

"We are fully cooperating with the Guardia di Finanza and the Italian competition authority who visited our offices in Italy yesterday," a Booking.com spokesperson said.

"While we will work with the authorities, we absolutely believe that concerns around competition should be handled with the EU directly, in line with their current regulatory proposals - not additionally on a country by country basis," a company spokeswoman added.

Reporting by Giulia Segreti and Toby Sterling, editing by Gianluca Semeraro and Susan Fenton and Tomasz Janowski, Reuters

Travelore News: Lufthansa Ground Staff To Strike On February 20, Says Union

Ground staff at German airline Lufthansa opens new tab LHAG.DE will go on strike on Tuesday, the Verdi union said on Sunday, announcing the latest industrial action to hit Germany's transport sector as workers demand more pay.

The strike is scheduled to start at 4 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Tuesday and finish at 7.10 a.m. (0610 GMT) on Wednesday, the union said. The airports affected are Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Duesseldorf, Cologne and Stuttgart.

Michael Niggemann, the Lufthansa executive board member responsible for human resources, said the strike was unfortunate as the German carrier had made a "far reaching" offer during talks - which Verdi had rejected - and it would inconvenience customers and staff alike.

A similar strike caused the cancellation of 900 out of 1,000 planned flights at the start of February, affecting about 100,000 passengers.

The ground services arm is among several groups of Lufthansa workers in negotiations over collective bargaining agreements.

Verdi is demanding a wage increase of 12.5% for 25,000 ground staff workers, or at least 500 euros ($544.30) a month more over a 12-month period, plus a one-off payment of 3,000 euros to offset inflation. Germany, Europe's largest economy, has been hit with a number of nationwide strikes affecting air travel, railways and public transport.

Reporting by Ilona Wissenback and Alexander Ratz Writing by Sarah Marsh Editing by David Goodman, Reuters

Notre Dame Reveals New Spire And Golden Rooster As Scaffolding Removed

The remaining process of removing all of the scaffolding could take weeks if not months.

The scaffolding surrounding the top of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral was taken down on Monday, nearly five years into the reconstruction process.

Notre Dame Cathedral, ravaged by fire in April 2019, draws closer to its renaissance.

Giant cranes, removing sections of scaffolding, unveiled the cathedral's recently installed spire along with the new golden rooster and a cross that crown it.

While much of the cathedral remains surrounded by scaffolding, the clearing of the structures around its peak offers both the general public and the devout a glimpse into the future appearance of Notre Dame once the restoration is complete.

The last few months have seen remarkable progress on the cathedral’s rebuilding putting it well on track for a December 8 reopening, a date eagerly awaited by Paris residents and millions of tourists who normally visit the cathedral every year.

Although the cathedral will not be open to the public during Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, when millions of visitors flock to the French capital for the Games starting July 26, the rebuilt spire and roof should be complete, giving the cathedral a finished look from outside.

https://www.euronews.com/

Warning To Tourists In France As Bottled Water Found To Have Come From Contaminated Source

A French bottled water producer has been illegally treating contaminated water in their products, it has been revealed.

Nestle was found to have been hiding the fact the water it was selling under its Perrier, Vittel and Contrex brands had come from a contaminated source, which had been hidden by prohibited purification systems.

Some 30percent of the brands' products are thought to have undergone the illegal treatment which was uncovered in an investigation by Le Monde and Radio France.

French newspaper Los Echos revealed last Monday that Nestle had "breached regulations to maintain the safety of its water".

According to Le Monde the Swiss food and drink giant used disinfectants “due to sporadic bacterial or chemical contamination”

French law does not allow producers to use purification techniques on products labelled as ‘spring’ or ‘mineral’ water, as they are supposed to come from preserved underground resources and should already be safe to drink when they emerge from the well.

In a statement, the water producer admitted it had “microfiltration at [its] waters sites at a finer level than was previously recognised by the French authorities”.

It said: "We have also used activated carbon filters and ultraviolet systems which, though permitted by other jurisdictions, are not in line with applicable French natural mineral water regulations."

Nestle said it had "proactively" reported its use of the illegal methods to French authorities in 2021 and “presented them with several options to ensure compliance moving forward”.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/journalist/123507/Casey-Cooper-Fiske

Spain’s 85.1 Million Foreign Visitors Last Year Set A Tourism Record

Spain received a record 85.1 million international tourists last year, 19% more than the year before, the National Statistics Institute reported Friday.

The number of foreign visitors in 2023 surpassed the 83.5 million who went to Spain in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic ruled out most leisure travel.

The U.K., France and Germany sent the highest number of tourists to Spain last year.

The National Statistics Institute said Spain’s income from foreign tourists reached 108.7 billion euros ($117 billion) in 2023, an increase of 25% from the previous year. Tourism accounts for 12% of the country’s gross domestic product.

The northeastern region of Catalonia, including Barcelona, followed by the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands off North Africa were the top destinations.

France, Spain and the United States have been the world’s three top tourist destinations for many years.

Spanish Police Arrest 14 Airport Workers After Items Go Missing From Checked-In Luggage

Fourteen workers at one of Spain’s main airports for tourists were arrested on suspicion of stealing items from checked-in luggage, police said Friday.

Police seized allegedly stolen items worth almost 2 million euros ($2.2 million), including around 13,000 euros ($14,000) in cash, from the group of employees at the largest airport in Tenerife, in Spain’s Canary Islands, a statement said. Another 20 airport employees are under investigation in the same case.

The Tenerife South airport handles about 11 million passengers a year, most of them European tourists seeking the pleasant climate of the islands off the coast of northwest Africa.

The investigation began after an increase in passenger complaints about items missing from their luggage, the police statement said.

The thefts occurred as baggage was being placed in the aircrafts’ hold, police said. Inside the hold, the alleged thieves forced open suitcases, took out valuables and shut them again.

Authorities seized 29 luxury wristwatches, 120 items of jewelry, 22 high-end cellphones and assorted electronic devices. The suspects had sold many other items online or in local stores, police believe.

AP

Paris Is Getting A Huge Whole New Metro Network, With A Targeted Opening For The Olympics

With gorgeous art nouveau entrances, maze-like tunnels and trains that rattle briskly under, and occasionally over, some of the world’s most famous streets, it’s a transport network that has inspired movies, novels and poetry.

It has stations named after a South American revolutionary, a US president and a Soviet victory. Fittingly, in a city that is home to some of the world’s most famous galleries, some of the stations are considered works of art in their own right.

But the Paris Métro railway system, built in the 1900s and now carrying nearly four million passengers every day, is struggling to cope with the demands of modern commuting, its ageing facilities and infrastructure creaking under the city’s growing population.

For many in Paris, particularly those living or working around its less fashionable outer suburbs, it’s a challenge to navigate across the city without having to route each journey through the central districts, adding travel time and worsening congestion.

But change is coming – and on a huge scale. The venerable Paris Métro is about to get its most significant upgrade in decades with the arrival of the Grand Paris Express, a new 200-kilometer (120-mile) system that will add four lines and 68 brand-new stations to the network.

These will mainly be connecting suburban towns without passing through the densely populated city of Paris – adding outer rings to an underground map of Paris that has, until now, been made of 14 lines that only reach out from the center like spokes.

It’s been an epic undertaking. Construction of the lines, which began in 2016, is the biggest civilian infrastructure project in Europe, according to the French government. Inevitably, given the scale, it has been hit by delays.

Driverless trains

But that didn’t stop the city from showing some Parisian pzazz late last month as the first train for the new Métro lines was taken for a test drive, attracting crowds of invited onlookers to a railway depot in the suburb of Champigy-sur-Marne.

The 108-meter-long six-car train, the first of its kind produced by Alstom for the Grand Paris Express, made its debut amid triumphal music and a light show of lasers in the French flag colors of white, blue and red.

“To change people’s lives, we will have to change how they move,” French Transport Minister Clément Beaune said at the November 28 event, which saw the train make a successful two-kilometer test run along a section of line 15, one of the new routes.

A rendering showing how part of Gare Villejuif, one of the stations on the new Grand Paris Express network, will look.

France hopes the Grand Paris Express will significantly cut transport time for suburb-to-suburb movement on public transit and reduce car usage for residents in the Greater Paris region.

Unlike other Métro lines, it will use driverless trains to create a fully automatic rapid transport network, meaning there will be no need to hire and train new drivers, plus there will be greater resilience against disruptions from strikes.

“We are on the right track for success,” Beaune laughed. “It will serve as a good example for cities across France.”

Paris was among the world’s first cities to have a metro system. Its first line opened in 1900 as part of the city’s construction efforts to host the Olympic Games that same year. It expanded rapidly and extensively during the decades that followed.

Prior to the opening of the Grand Paris Express, it had already evolved into a sprawling 800-kilometer mega system encompassing 16 central city metro lines and five Réseau Express Régional, or RER, commuter rail lines for the surrounding suburbs.

The new project will introduce four new lines – 15, 16, 17 and 18 - plus extensions to existing lines 11 and 14.

A greener future

For many living in the city, the new routes can’t come quickly enough.

“I love living in Versailles but sometimes it’s just a lot,” said Lauren Bain, 26, a journalist working in Paris but living in the city of Versailles, roughly 20 kilometers southwest of the capital.

Bain says she attends church in the neighboring town of Saint Aubin, ostensibly a 20-minute drive away, but two hours by bus, which is how she currently makes the journey. It can take even longer; she was stuck on a bus half-submerged in water during heavy rainfall.

She commutes to work in the center of Paris via the RER C line, which she has little love for despite the convenience of a station in Versailles.

Once the new Grand Paris Express line 18 opens, connecting Versailles directly to Saint Aubin, as well as Paris Orly Airport, the city’s second-busiest, her options are set to improve.

“Line 18 cannot open sooner,” Bain said.

Mohamed Mezghani, secretary general of the International Association of Public Transport, based in Brussels, says the new lines puts Paris at the forefront of city public transport networks – alongside Tokyo, Moscow and Washington D.C., looking to reduce environmental impact through suburban interconnectivity.

“The Grand Paris Express, with its circular lines, encourages movement from suburb to suburb,” Mezghani said.

“People in big cities are realizing that cars are not a solution, congestion keeps worsening and building more roads will only attract more traffic.

“We need this updated version of public transportation.”

“That thing is terrible,” she said. “I arrive late at work all the time! Just earlier this week, my train was canceled for no reason.”

The Olympic finish line

One big question for many Parisians – and for visitors to the city – is whether the new network will be operational in time for the 2024 Olympic Games, which will mostly be staged around the French capital.

This was the original plan when the project was announced by then President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, long before the city won its Olympic bid. But numerous delays have stretched the timeline.

A full opening of line 14 by now, plus partial opening of lines 15, 16, 17 and 18, which together connect to both Paris international airports, had been promised by Sarkozy and his successor François Hollande.

However, the project has been hit by various setbacks during the years, including construction site floods, delays in equipment delivery, and perhaps most crucial of all, the Covid pandemic.

And eight months before the 2024 Olympic Games, only the extension of line 14 to Orly Airport is expected to open in time. The other lines will gradually come on line starting in late 2025, according to the project’s official website.

France’s Transport Ministry remains upbeat about the impact the new rail lines will have on Paris, insisting that network capacity will be increased by 15% in time for the Games, which are forecast to attract millions of visitors to the city, already a popular summer destination.

“Our action plan is clear, and we’re on schedule,” it told CNN.

Even behind schedule, the new lines are likely to enhance the French capital’s appeal.

As writer Ernest Hemingway once remarked: “There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.” And once the new Grand Express lines open, hopefully the distance between them will shrink a little further.

By Xiaofei Xu, CNN

Another Popular Tourist Hotspot Wants To Ban Airbnb

It was only a matter of time before critical mass hit Europe’s city-centered tourism economy. Over 60% of the world’s population will reside in urban areas by 2030, according to the World Health Organization, while an estimated 1.8 billion tourists will cross country borders by the same time period.

Now, civic leaders at some popular European destinations have had enough, and are putting curbs on tourism travel.

In Florence, Italy, legislators are rolling out plans to outlaw short-term rentals, including Airbnb’s. The new ban is expected to easily pass a Sept. 13 vote and go into law by November.

“We are witnessing a progressive growth in the influx of tourists which has become even more pronounced since the pandemic,” said Florence Mayor Dario Nardella, who also cited the “very important” bill coming out of the city’s legislature.

City officials say the short-term rental ban is necessary to secure Florence’s historic neighborhoods and hopefully reduce rising rental costs.

“We are putting a simple ban in the UNESCO area to meet our responsibilities of protecting the cultural and material identity of the centro storico, and to dampen the effect of rent increases across the entire city – which are directly linked to the boom of short-term tourist rentals,” Nardella said.

“We have rolled up our sleeves because for too long we’ve been asking for regulation that never happens,” he added.

Florence is hardly alone.

In Vienna, Austria, a new city mandate bars homeowners from renting out their homes more than 90 days annually. The historic city had established some piece-meal measures to block short-term rentals in some sections Vienna, but the new rule covers the entire metro area.

In Paris, France, city officials will limit homeowners to a 120 day per-year unit rental window. Homeowners who wish to rent their properties will also have to register their property with the city. Paris regulatory agencies will also get more aggressive about tracking down homeowners who exceed the mandated rental schedule and issuing hefty fines.

Source: https://www.thestreet.com/author/brian-oconnell

Tourist-Flooded Venice OKs Test Of Fee For Day-Trippers On Peak Visitor Weekends In 2024

Tourist-flooded Venice approved guidelines on Tuesday for testing a new fee for day-trippers on peak visitor weekends next year.

The city council gave the go-ahead for the guidelines, tweaking earlier plans for a fee that were announced a year ago. Final approval of the plan will come up for consideration on Sept. 12.

The fee, initially 5 euros ($5.50) per day-tripper, is “not a tool for making cash,” the city said in a statement. Instead, the strategy aims to improve the quality of life for Venice’s dwindling number of full-time residents as well as overnight visitors, who already pay a lodging tax and so will be exempt from the fee.

The test will last about 30 days and take place in 2024 on spring weekends spanning Italian national holidays and on summer weekends. The exact days of the test will be set by the city in the coming weeks.

Archaeologists Have Discovered Exceptional Find In Mérida, Spain

In Mérida, Spain, archaeologists recently discovered an “enormous” Roman bath. But it is that inside these baths, in the area of the apodyterium or changing room, archaeologists have discovered yet another surprise: an almost intact iron bars on a window.

Mérida is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site that contains the remarkably well-preserved remains of an ancient Roman colony, Augusta Emerita.

According to the Roman historian Cassius Dio, the emperor Augustus, (27 BCE – 14 CE) founded Augusta Emerita after the end of the Cantabrian War, in 25 BCE and was the capital of Lusitania.

It soon became one of the largest cities in Hispania, with a territory of some 20.000 square kilometers, to which the emperor Otho added even more in 69. The well-preserved remains of the old city include a large bridge over the Guadiana River, an amphitheater, a theater, a vast circus, and an “exceptional” water-supply system.

Now, within these baths, archaeologists have found a crisscrossed set of iron bars that are “practically intact”, the Consortium of the Monumental City of Mérida said in a statement.

“Another exceptional find,” the consortium said.

The iron bars, which would once have covered a window, were found in the apodyterium or changing room of the baths.

The researchers reported that these bars were part of the deployment of the walls and the roof of the structure, hence the presence of other materials such as bricks, tégulas, and tiles. A similar iron grill was found during the work of the archaeologist García Sandoval, between 1962 and 1963, in the kitchen of the Casa del Anfiteatro.

The house of the amphitheater, dating from the 1st century AD. It is located outside the walls of Augusta Emerita, very close to the space used for gladiator combat and the theater.

“There is still a lot of archaeological heritage under the subsoil of our two-thousand-year-old Mérida that… awaits to be excavated,” the consortium said.

The Casa del Anfiteatro had a courtyard, a kitchen, and a mosaic floor depicting scenes of the grape harvest.

The iron bars will now be cleaned and restored so that they can be put on public display.

Source: https://arkeonews.net/

Flooded With Sightseers, Europe’s Iconic Churches Struggle To Accommodate Both Worship And Tourism

A recent Saturday evening Mass at Sagrada Familia parish had all the hallmarks of a neighborhood worship service, from prayers for ill and deceased members to name-day wishes for two congregants in the pews.

But it also featured security checks to get in and curious tourists peering down to take photos of the worshippers from above. The regular Mass is held in the crypt of modernist architect Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece church, one of Europe’s most visited monuments.

With tourism reaching or surpassing pre-pandemic records in Barcelona and across southern Europe, iconic sacred sites are struggling to accommodate the faithful who come to pray and the millions of visitors who often pay to view the art and architecture.

“We’re working to get ahead of this, so that we don’t get to a collapse,” said the Rev. Josep Maria Turull, rector at Sagrada Familia and the Barcelona archdiocese’s director for tourism, pilgrimage and sanctuaries.

An increasingly popular strategy is to have visitors and the faithful go separate ways – with services held in discrete places, visits barred at worship times, or altogether different entry queues.

This spring, the Vatican opened a separate “pathway” starting outside St. Peter’s Basilica for those who want to enter to pray or attend Mass, so they wouldn’t be discouraged by sometimes hours-long lines for the average of 55,000 daily visitors, said Basilica spokesperson Roberta Leone.

But the challenge remains: how to balance the churches’ competing roles amid the tourism surge without sacrificing their spiritual purpose.

“It’s just really hard because you also want people to experience your faith,” said Daniel Olsen, a Brigham Young University professor who researches religious tourism. With an estimated 330 million people visiting religious sites yearly around the world, it’s one of the tourism market’s largest segments.

Worshippers, who often come because celebrated churches tend to have more services than regular parishes, need free access even as tourists often pay fees that are crucial to maintaining the sites. “The temple needs to be a place for services and not a theme park,” said Joan Albaiges after Mass in the Sagrada Familia crypt, which he’s attended regularly for six decades. He praised the move in recent years to celebrate one multilingual Sunday Mass at the main altar in the soaring, color-filled basilica. There’s such demand for the 800 free tickets, however, that several hundred people queueing routinely don’t get in, Turull said.
Lay and religious leaders say the histories of the sacred sites should be presented to visitors, who are increasingly unfamiliar with faith traditions in rapidly secularizing countries where lesser-known churches are emptying out or being repurposed.

“Some people go to the cathedral, and they don’t realize they’re in a church. It’s a situation that’s developing in nations that were majority Christian, and now faith is cooling off,” said José Fernández Lago, rector of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

Filled with masterpieces from Romanesque sculpture to lavish Baroque decorations, Santiago’s cathedral attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists and pilgrims who since the Middle Ages have traveled along the Camino routes to venerate St. James’s tomb.

To preserve its role as a revered pilgrims’ church, Lago said, the cathedral doesn’t charge entry fees, cap visitor numbers or require a dress code. On a hot early summer morning, a steady stream of pilgrims ducked each other’s selfie sticks in front of the jewel-encrusted St. James statue, some still in tight cycling shorts or sweat-stained hiking shirts.

But visits aren’t allowed during the four daily Masses celebrated at the main altar, and priests as well as security guards constantly ask visitors to lower their voices to allow others to pray.

“It keeps getting harder,” said Juan Sexto, who in 10 years working security at the cathedral has noticed a change in how many visitors behave.

As crowds surged before the always-packed noon pilgrims’ Mass, he kept stepping to the main microphone asking for silence – which lasted a minute or so before enthusiastic visitors resumed chatting.
Sexto had a supporter in the second pew. Waiting for Mass to start, pilgrim Miguel Angel Ariño said the church did well to allow only the faithful during worship times, while leaving the cathedral open long hours for cultural visits.

“As people, we need the transcendent. Leisure and rest, and time with God, are not incompatible,” Ariño said.

Without some strategy, however, they can become so. Co-existence between worshippers and tourists has been controversial at Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia. Built as a landmark cathedral in the Byzantine era, turned into a mosque by the conquering Ottoman empire in the 1400s, and open as a museum for the last century, it was converted back into a functioning mosque in 2020 by Turkey’s Islamic-oriented government.

Now visitors can tour the structure for free outside of prayer hours. In Hagia Sophia’s main section where prayers are held, the vast mosaics depicting Christian figures are hidden behind drapes and most of the marble floor is covered with carpeting.

“We would like it to be a museum again,” said Ricardo Bravo, a tourist from Mexico visiting the monument with his family. “We would like to see more things to understand more, to appreciate more Turkish culture.”

At many of Spain’s most-visited churches, the balance was often off-kilter in the opposite direction. So many visitors thronged the vast Basilica del Pilar in Zaragoza on a mid-June Saturday that it was nearly impossible to hear the midday Mass celebrated in the small chapel where a statue of Our Lady of the Pillar is venerated.

With some 2.5 million annual visitors, Barcelona Cathedral was also close to a breaking point before its council revolutionized the worship vs. tours balance over the last few years.

“It was like being in a market,” recalled Anna Vilanova, who directs the cathedral’s tourism strategy. “We had to put some order.”

The cathedral instituted caps on visitor numbers, required tour groups to use wireless audio guides to reduce noise, and added staffers to explain the new policies to visitors and those coming for daily Mass or confession, held in a side chapel with crystal doors to preserve silence.

“The point comes when tourism is so massive that it occupies the worship space,” said Xavier Monjo, who oversees the cathedral’s publications. “The cathedral is alive, it’s not a museum.”

The visitor guides included with the entry fee seek to prioritize the church’s role as an active place of worship.

The nave description in the “unmissable” list, for example, starts by stating that “this cathedral has been and is a space dedicated to prayer” before describing its stunning Catalan Gothic architecture. The entry for the rooftop terraces explains that this is where the blessing of the city happens each May on the feast of the Holy Cross.

“As tourism has been growing, it’s also an opportunity – not to proselytize, but to discover the deep meaning of what they can see,” Turull said. “All those who enter like tourists can leave like pilgrims, can have a spiritual experience.”

While 3.7 million tourists explored the Sagrada Familia’s arresting architecture and mesmerizing stained glass windows last year, Fenelon Mendez remains focused on the parish activity literally underneath.

Originally from Venezuela, he’s lived in the neighborhood with his family for a decade and often serves as sacristan and altar server. There are ministry programs for single moms and for migrants, and regular food distributions, he said.

The basilica provides a unique experience, so the faithful should continue to get full access to it, Mendez said. But the crypt where regular worshippers gather is the true core where many like him feel at home.

“You could take the basilica to New York, but we are here,” he said in the sacristy, long after the day’s tourists had stopped wandering above.

BY GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO

Hundreds Of Thousands Face Disruption At London’s Gatwick Airport This Summer After Strike Vote

Hundreds of thousands of British vacationers face potential disruption to their travel plans at the start of the school summer holidays, after almost 1,000 workers at London’s Gatwick Airport voted to strike in a dispute over pay.

The Unite union said Friday that members, including baggage handlers and check-in staff, who are employed by four private contractors will walk out for four days from July 28 and again for a subsequent four-day stretch from Aug. 4.

The union said the action will “inevitably” cause disruption to flights at the height of the summer holiday season after the school year has ended. The airlines affected are British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair, TUI, WestJet and Wizz Air.

Gatwick, which is just south of the U.K. capital, is London’s second-busiest airport behind Heathrow, with a particular focus during the summer to Europe’s beach resorts in the Mediterranean.

A total of 4,410 flights are scheduled to depart Gatwick across all the strike days, equating to more than 840,000 seats, according to aviation data company Cirium.

Those involved in the dispute are employed by ASC, Menzies Aviation, GGS and DHL Services, which conduct outsourced operations for airlines including ground handling, baggage handling and check-in. Unite said it has been in negotiations with the four companies since January.

“As part of Unite’s unyielding focus on the jobs, pay and condition of its members, the union has drawn a line in the sand and is committed to eradicating the scourge of low pay at the airport,” said Sharon Graham, the union’s general-secretary.

Phil Lloyd, a senior vice president at Menzies Aviation, one of the companies involved, said Unite rejected its offer for an 11% pay rise for its ground services employees at Gatwick, which he added is on top of last year’s 10% increase.

“We are in continued discussions with our airline partners and remain committed to seeking a resolution,” he said.

Britain has witnessed an array of strikes over the past few months as workers across various sectors try to get wage raises that at least keep pace with inflation. Though inflation has fallen from its peak, it remains high at 8.7%. Unite said the majority of workers who are set to strike are paid an average of under 12 pounds ($15.50) an hour.

Gatwick, like other airports in Europe, is already suffering major disruption because of air traffic control restrictions as a result of strike action, staff shortages and airspace closures related to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“We are aware of the recent ballot result and will support our airlines with their contingency plans to ensure that flights operate as scheduled,” a spokesperson for the airport said.

Source: AP

Portuguese Airports See Record Passenger Numbers As Tourists Return

Passenger traffic at Portuguese airports in the first four months of the year exceeded pre-pandemic levels, boosted by booming tourism, official data showed on Wednesday.

The National Statistics Institute, or INE, said that 5.9 million passengers transited through Portuguese airports in April, 11% more than in the same month of 2019 and 19% more than in April 2022.

In the first four months of the year, the number of passengers reached a record 18.7 million, 14% more than in the same period in 2019 and 41% more than in the first four months of last year.

Airport passenger traffic in Europe as a whole has still to recover to levels seen before the pandemic grounded air travel in early 2020, Airports Council International (ACI) Europe said recently.

Airports in countries like Spain and Portugal that rely heavily on tourism have outperformed ones in Germany, France and Britain where there was a higher share of business travel.

Lisbon's airport, one of 10 main terminals in the country operated by France's Vinci (SGEF.PA), handled 53% of the passengers, or around 10 million people.

Monthly passenger numbers in 2023 "have always been higher than pre-pandemic levels", INE said.

Passengers mainly came from France, the United Kingdom and Spain, as was the case before the pandemic.

Tourism, a key driver of Portugal's economy, accounted for almost 15% of gross domestic product before the pandemic and has boomed again since the beginning of this year.

In a separate document, INE said the number of foreign tourists visiting Portugal in the first four months of the year surpassed 4.5 million, 44% more than a year ago.

Tourists also spent more money. The average price per room per night in April was 105.4 euros, about 30% more than in the same month of 2019 and 15% more than a year ago.

Reporting by Sergio Goncalves and João Manuel Vicente Maurício, editing by Inti Landauro, Kirsten Donovan

Travelore News: The UK Announces $12 Entry Fee For Travelers

The United States has been charging visitors for electronic travel authorization since 2009, and now the United Kingdom and the European Union are rolling out entry fees, too. Also in our latest CNN Travel roundup, we bring you a double-decker plane seat and bunk beds in the sky.

UK to charge travelers for entry

Visa waiver schemes have been around for a while. The United States has the $21 ESTA, valid for two years, and Europe will be introducing the 7 euro ETIAS (about $7.50 on exchange rates this week) in 2024. That one will last you three years.

The United Kingdom, you may recall, rather famously fled the EU coop a couple of years back. Now it’s revealed the price tag for its own scheme, the ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation): £10 (about $12.50) for two years.

Admittedly, that’s only about the price of a large fish and chips, but it does mean access to the nations that gave us the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle will be more expensive than a pass to the home countries of the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, the Sagrada Familia and the Acropolis combined.

The plan is for the scheme to be rolled out for people who don’t require a visa to enter the United Kingdom – including US and EU nationals – by the end of 2024, with the first nation to join the scheme being Qatar later this year.

Source: Maureen O'Hare, CNN

Florence Bans New Airbnb Vacation Rentals In Italian City’s Historic Center

The city of Florence on Thursday announced an immediate ban on new short-term private vacation rentals in the Renaissance city’s historic center, part of an effort to draw full-time residents back to one of Italy’s most popular tourist destinations.

Mayor Dario Nardella called the ban “daring” but legally defensible.

“If we don’t try to take politically disruptive actions, no one makes a move,” Nardella said, referring to expectations that the Italian government would adopt a plan that so far allows only Venice to cap the number of days a property can be rented out at 120.

“We are tired of announcements,” Nardella said. “The problem has become structural.”

Students in Italian cities, including Florence, Milan and Rome, have been camping out in tents on campuses to protest a lack of affordable housing. At the same time, art cities like Florence and Venice have seen their housing stocks depleted by short-term rentals, defined as covering any period less than 30 days.

Nardella said the Florence government would not go after the 8,000 short-term private rentals already operating in the city’s historic center, an area under UNESCO protection as a historic treasure that includes the Uffizi galleries and the Ponte Vecchio. The city as a whole has about 11,000 short-term private rentals.
Instead, the city plans to offer a tax incentive to property owners who convert their places back to long-term rentals. Under the plan, property taxes on a second home would be canceled for up to three years, potentially adding up to thousands of euros (dollars) in savings.

Source: AP

Travelore News: France Bans Short Domestic Flights In Favor Of High-Speed Train Service

City hopping within France is grounded.

Travelers looking to fly within the European country will no longer be able to take a short domestic flight when there’s alternative high-speed rail service, according to a new ban signed into law on Tuesday.

“As we fight relentlessly to decarbonize our lifestyles, how can we justify the use of the plane between the big cities which benefit from regular, fast and efficient connections by train?” Clément Beaune, Minister Delegate for Transport, said in a statement.

The move is part of the country’s larger commitment to decarbonize transport, which accounts for 30% of emissions, according to the statement.

The decree bans short-haul flights when the train journey takes less than two and a half hours.

Which flights are affected?

So far, only three routes, not including connecting flights, have been affected: Paris-Orly airport between Nantes, Bordeaux and Lyon.

In three years the country will evaluate the decree’s success and possibly ban more routes.

Some question the actual impact of the ban. According to Europe-based nonprofit organization Transport & Environment, the three banned routes only represent 3% of France’s mainland domestic flight emissions.

Europe has been working on improving its transport infrastructure as part of the recent TEN-T project, including faster, more efficient rail service.

In 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested domestic flights of less than four hours to be banned if someone could just take the train. The current two-and-a-half-hour ban was introduced in 2021 after pushback from groups such as airline Air France-KLM.

By Kathleen Wong for USA TODAY

Pent-Up Demand Promises Record Tourist Season For Southern Europe

After three years of pandemic travel restrictions and rocketing energy costs, tourism is back with a vengeance to boost the economies of southern Europe as sun-seekers make up for lost time.

Early bookings suggest Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal could receive record tourism revenues this year, helping replenish state coffers depleted by rising debt interest payments and the cost of living crisis.

What's more, there appears to be growing demand for the luxury end of the spectrum.

"Today in Italy, we have this boom in terms of tourism that is unbelievable," Carlo Messina, CEO of Italy's biggest bank Intesa SanPaolo told investment analysts in a call.

"It is impossible to find a place in a 5-star hotel if you want to make a vacation."

Tourism is vital to southern Europe's economies.

The travel industry was worth 100 billion euros ($110.08 billion) or 6.2% of Italian output in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the sector into its knees. Add the wider income generated by tourist-related business and the figure more than doubles to 13%.

In Greece, tourism accounts for no less than one-fifth of gross domestic product.

The number of foreign tourists visiting Italy was up 70.5% in the first two months of the year compared to the same period in 2022, according to the national statistics agency. It added that if the trend continues, Italy could match or surpass pre-pandemic levels.

In April, Greek Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias said summer bookings already pointed to a new record.

Portugal registered more than 2.8 million of foreign visitors from January to March, the best first quarter on record, according to official data.

In Spain, the flow of international tourists in the first quarter increased by 41.2% over the same period in 2022 and exceeded 13.7 million visitors, albeit still 3.5% below the same quarter in 2019.

The tourist industry is already benefiting. Airlines such as Lufthansa, easyJet and Ryanair have confirmed robust summer bookings while Ryanair, in anticipation of strong demand, has just ordered 150 new 737 Max-10s and optioned another 150.
German travel firm TUI expects strong revenue and higher profit in 2023. Italian travel and tourism company Alpitour forecasts turnover 30% higher this year.

"We already see a very strong demand to book Christmas holidays in 2023. We do 30 to 35,000 quotations a day, numbers never seen before," Alpitour CEO Gabriele Burgio said.

Against a background of stubbornly high inflation and interest rate hikes from the European Central Bank, the tourism boom could not come at a better time.

While manufacturers are seeing demand declining, in Italy and Spain the service sectors grew respectively for the fourth and sixth month running in April driven also by tourism, HCOB Global's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) showed.

Fitch cited the "strong rebound" in tourism last week as it maintained its credit rating on Italy.

Portugal's central bank meanwhile raised its 2023 economic growth forecast to 1.8% from 1.5% mainly due to expected "favourable developments" in the tourism sector and despite a near-stagnation in private consumption expected this year.

The Bank of Greece predicts the local economy will grow by 2.2% in 2023 - far above the euro area average - backed by the "favourable" tourism outlook.

The boost in tourism comes despite headwinds ranging from strikes that have disrupted travel to concern about extreme weather events, such as last year's heat-wave in southwest Europe and the current flooding in parts of Italy.

"Travel is the only discretionary expense people are prepared to maintain or increase," easyJet CEO Johan Lundgren said last month.

Consumers who had little choice but to buy goods rather than services during the pandemic are now keen to catch up on lost time, some in the industry say.

"There seems to be a significant shift in consumer behaviour, with holidays taking centre stage in consumption priorities, surpassing traditional purchases such as cars, mobile phones and watches," Alpitour’s Burgio told a hotel trade event in Milan.

As China lifts restrictions on travel, some 6 million Chinese tourists are expected to head to Europe by the end of the year, according to projections by the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute released by the European Travel Commission.

Moreover, Italian tourist agency ENIT is confident that a new, younger profile of Chinese tourist is emerging who wants "in-depth travel experiences" that go beyond the quick tour of urban cultural centres.

"The Chinese are now looking at previously overlooked destinations such as Sicily, the Cinque Terre (Italian Riviera) and seaside destinations that were previously neglected," it said.

($1 = 0.9084 euros)

By Giselda Vagnoni

Travelore News: Berlin Airport Cancels All Departures On Monday Due To Strike

Germany's Verdi union called for a one-day strike of air security staff at Berlin airport on Monday as part of an ongoing wage dispute, prompting the airport to cancel all passenger departures that day.

The walkout is due to start at 3:30 a.m. local time (0130 GMT) on Monday and will end at midnight (2200 GMT), the union said.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has experienced some of its most disruptive strikes in decades this year as unions press for higher pay to offset the surging cost of living.

The planned action follows walkouts at four other German airports - Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne-Bonn and Stuttgart on Thursday and Friday when more than 700 departures were cancelled.

"Due to the warning strikes by security staff, no departures of passenger flights will be possible on Monday April 24," Berlin Brandenburg airport said in a statement, adding arrivals might also be affected.

The union has been negotiating with the BDLS aviation security association to push for pay increases for night, weekend and public holiday shifts.

Reporting by Madeline Chambers Editing by Mark Heinrich, Reuters

Travelore Environmental News: Spain’s Barcelona Faces Drought ‘Emergency’ In September

Authorities in Spain’s parched northeast warned Tuesday that Barcelona and a wide surrounding area that’s home to some 6 million people could face even tighter restrictions of water use in the coming months.

Samuel Reyes, head of Catalonia’s Water Agency that manages water resources for the area encompassing Barcelona and other smaller cities in Spain’s northeastern corner, said the area would likely be declared in a “drought emergency” by September unless forecasts for scant rain prove incorrect.

“Unless it rains in the spring and summer, there won’t be any increases in the reservoirs and we will enter a stage of emergency for the Llobregat river system sometime around September,” Reyes said.
The Ter-Llobregat river system provides the main water supply for Barcelona, Girona and other smaller towns and villages. Spain’s government said Tuesday that its reservoirs, along with others in northern Catalonia, have shrunk to 27% of capacity. Only the reservoirs connected to the Guadalquivir river basin in southern Andalusia are worse off, at 26% of capacity.
Reyes said many of Catalonia’s rivers are at historic lows after a drought that has broken all records for the region and forced authorities to start limiting water use for agriculture and industry last year. Town halls have also been asked to stop filling public fountains, and limits on other uses are in place. There is an open debate now about whether or not to fill swimming pools in the summer, with many cities saying they are ideal “climate shelters.”

In an extraordinary effort to save every last drop of water, authorities successfully moved some 13 cubic hectometers of water from Catalonia’s Sau reservoir in recent weeks. In order to ensure the quality of water and avoid a massive die-off of fish, authorities culled 4,000 fish belonging to invasive species. Reyes’ agency said on Tuesday that that process had concluded.

Sau is now one of three reservoirs that Catalonia’s firefighters have said they will no longer be able to use to reload water to fight wildfires. Most of Spain is bracing for a difficult wildfire season with forests dry and temperatures expected to remain high after a record-hot 2022.

“Drought has become the principle concern of this country,” said Patrícia Plaja, spokeswoman for the Catalan government.

Under current restrictions, Catalonia’s cities are limited to using 230 liters of water per person per day, including personal use as well as what the town hall uses per inhabitant for services like street cleaning. That would drop to 200 liters per day under the “emergency” phase of Catalonia’s drought plan. The water agency says that the average person consumes some 116 liters per day for domestic use.

Catalonia’s government is proposing regional legislation that would allow it to impose fines on cities that use too much water.

Catalonia faced a severe drought in 2008 and used tankers to ship in water for Barcelona. Reyes told The Associated Press recently that his agency would not recommend for that method to be used again, nor would it back a possible rerouting of water from the much larger basin of the Ebro river in Catalonia’s south.

By JOSEPH WILSON