The HarbinÕs ice festival records about 800,000 visitors each year of which 90 percent are Chinese.

Ice might seem a tough sell in Harbin, one of China’s coldest cities, but it has pulled it off with a spectacular annual festival that for many is far more tempting than a warm beach holiday.
The Ice and Snow Festival, which features hundreds of massive sculptures carved out of ice, has become a huge draw for visitors, turning northern China’s often forbidding temperatures into a competitive advantage, said AFP.
“We’ve had a few copycats. Other cities in north China have opened ice festivals. But they aren’t as favored by geography as we are,“ said Liu Ruiqiang, president of Harbin Modern Group, a tourism and hotel business.
The “Harbin Ice and Snow Big World,“ a theme park featuring dazzlingly lit sculptures of Chinese palaces, Russian churches and French cathedrals, has benefited from its close proximity to the Songhua River.
“This is much better than I thought it would be. The carvings are really elaborate. I would have expected them to be much cruder,“ said 23-year-old Harbin Industrial University student Hao Zhifu, one of the visitors.
In early December, 15,000 workers began cutting ice blocks from the river’s frozen surface, and 16 days and 120,000 cubic meters (4.2 million cubic feet) of ice later, the show was ready.
The speed and efficiency reflect the growing professionalism of an annual event that traces its modest beginnings back to the early 1960s, when the city was a bleak, industrial powerbase for communist China.
Now, as the old-style communist economic theories have evaporated and much of the manufacturing has disappeared, the festival reflects the city’s efforts to modernize.
In that light, organizers hope it will become an event on a global scale, and apparently it is having success.
In January, when the mercury often creeps below 20 degrees C (minus four F), one would expect those who could afford it to be rushing to the south, but in fact the stream of wealthy visitors is in the opposite direction.
“We’ve got Koreans, Japanese, Thai, Singaporeans. Especially the Southeast Asians, are fascinated by the snow and the ice. They don’t get too much of that where they come from,“ said Liu, who is also director of the “Big World“.
“But our focus will remain on the domestic market. The economy is booming, and so is tourism. And we’re offering a choice for the new breed of holiday maker.“
On average, the festival records about 800,000 visitors every year, 90 percent of them Chinese, making it hard to find a hotel room during the peak season in January.

Noting that the tourism was the fastest growing industry in the world, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) said last Friday that the Asia-Pacific region was the second most visited region in the globe having received 167 million international arrivals in 2006, said PTI.
“Tourism is performing well on a global basis. The Asia-Pacific region has a global market share of almost 20 percent and the prospects for further growth are excellent,“ UNWTO Development Assistance Department director H Varma told reporters.

The structure sits in the middle of the city of Shiraz. It was built during the Zand dynasty (1750Ð1794) and is named after Karim Khan (the ruler and de facto shah of Iran from 1760 until 1779 ) of the dynasty and served as his living quarters. Its shape resembles a medieval fortress.
At times, the citadel was used as a prison. Today, it is a museum operated by Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO).
Arg-e-Karim Khan was built in 1180 AH (1766-7).
Karim Khan invited the best architects and artists of the time and bought the best materials from other cities and abroad for the construction of the citadel of Karim Khan which was quickly constructed, according to Wikipedia.
During the Zand dynasty it was used by the king as living quarters. During the Qajar period (1781-1925) it was used as the governor’s seat.
Prince Abdolhosein Mirza Farmanfarma the governor of Fars province ordered the renovation of the miniatures in the citadel.
After the fall of the Qajar dynasty, it was converted into a prison and the paintings were plastered. In 1971 it was given to ICHHTO. The renovation of the citadel started in 1977.
The citadel of Karim Khan consists of four high walls connected by four round towers at a 90 degree angle.
The walls of the citadel are crenalized and is 3 meters thick at the base and 2.8 meters at the top.
The four towers are 15 meters high and made of bricks.
The design of the citadel combines military and residential architecture since it was the home of Karim Khan and the military center of the dynasty.

All major airports in Malaysia will be barred from employing foreign workers, in what the government said was a plan to ensure that tourists are not taken aback on being greeted by a sea of non-Malaysian faces on arrival.
A Cabinet committee on tourism has ruled that the main Kuala Lumpur International Airport and other key hubs in the country must only hire Malaysian workers, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak was quoted as saying.
“We will issue rulings to (airport operator) Malaysia Airports to ensure that the workers are Malaysian citizens,“ he said in the report, adding that airports need to comply with the ruling as soon as possible, reported Bernama.
The ruling was in response to complaints by tourists that the high presence of foreign workers in the country’s airports made them feel they have landed in a country other than Malaysia, said the aide. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing ministry rules.
“Tourists feel they are in a foreign land when they arrive in Malaysia. The government wants a Malaysian face to greet tourists at the airport, not a foreign face,“ the aide said.
The Malaysia Airlines’ Employee Union said last year that an estimated 1,000 foreigners, mostly from Bangladesh and some from Nepal and Pakistan, are working for the flag carrier at the KLIA. Most are employed as porters, baggage handlers and cleaners.
Hundreds more are hired by companies appointed to provide airport services because foreigners can be paid less.
KLIA officials have said that airline and other airport ground services are forced to recruit foreigners because domestic workers are unreliable, change jobs too often and demand higher salaries.
Malaysia relies heavily on foreigners for menial work and is one of Southeast Asia’s top labor markets, with 2.2 million registered migrant workers out of its 11 million work force. Hundreds of thousands more work illegally in the country.

A woman from the Iranian city of Shiraz, Fars province, weaving a carpet.

Colombia attracted a record number of foreign visitors in 2007, as falling violence and increased advertising encouraged travelers to take a chance on the former kidnapping capital of the world, the government said.
Nearly 1.3 million foreigners visited Colombia in 2007, up from 1.05 million in 2006 and more than double the number of visitors in 2002, Trade and Tourism Minister Luis Guillermo Plata said, reported AFP.
Early figures show foreign tourists spent about $2.5 billion in Colombia last year, he added.
Colombia’s Caribbean beaches, cosmopolitan cities and Andean peaks were for decades one of South America’s top tourist destinations, drawing 1.12 million foreign visitors in 1980--the previous record.
But foreign visitors then turned away in the 1980s, as leftist rebels intensified their war on the state and rival drug cartels competed for control of the country’s lucrative cocaine trade.

Tourist guide Patricia Salazar sees a marvel of nature when she looks at Chile’s El Tatio geysers shooting plumes of heated white water vapor high into the air.
Enel and Empresa Nacional del Petroleo, known as Enap, want to convert water heated by magma into electricity.
Surrounding towns are lobbying the government to reject the proposal, saying it threatens their revenue from almost 100,000 tourists who visit the geysers annually, Bloomberg said.
“Chile is going through a period of energy scarcity, so they are considering every option,“ said Salazar, 41. “But this is how people make their living.“
The conflict underscores Chile’s desperation for energy, said Juan Lindau, a political scientist specializing in Latin America at Colorado College. Neighboring Argentina began slashing natural-gas supplies in 2004, driving up electricity costs 42 percent in the past year and dragging down Chile’s economic growth.
The geyser field lies about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) north of Santiago, in a desert region near Bolivia. Local residents say using the geothermally heated water to produce energy could hurt the environment as well as tourism.
Draining water from the desert might dry up or diminish the geysers, said Juan Sota, a councilman for the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama. A road, 50-meter-high drilling towers and power lines would blemish the landscape, he said.
Tourists from Europe, the US and Latin America rise as early as 4 a.m. to drive the 97-kilometer, bumpy dirt road from San Pedro de Atacama to arrive at daybreak, when geysers that shoot water vapor as high as 8 meters are most active.
Visitors bundled in hats and sweaters wander a flat, muddy terrain more than 4,300 meters above sea level. The area is shrouded in white vapor and dotted with dozens of pools. Water heated underground pushes its way through, creating bubbles that burst into meter-high spouts.
“It’s impressive,“ said Victor Silva, 23, who traveled from Spain to tour the geyser field, one of the largest in the world. “This is why we came“ to Chile, she said.

Samburu Game Reserve

A row of empty pool-side benches stretches beside a lone tourist at a luxury lodge in Kenya after post-poll turmoil cut travel to one of the world’s most famous safari spots.
“We were really hoping our safari would not be cancelled,“ says Canadian tourist Debbie Shillitto, resting on her sun lounger at the Samburu Game Reserve, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the capital Nairobi, reported AFP.
She is one of the rare tourists who did not cancel her high-season holiday to Kenya.
Most of the 62 rooms are empty at the lodge, which lies next to a crocodile-infested river on the vast plains of the Samburu.
“Nobody is willing to make any fresh bookings,“ says Paul Chaulo, the Samburu Serena lodge’s manager.
“We had projected a bed occupancy of 69 percent, now we have an occupancy of 15 percent for the month of January.“
Although the unrest was confined to specific areas, particularly the west of the country and the capital’s slums, safety fears sparked by violence have affected almost all hotels and lodges within less than a fortnight.
At least 600 died and a quarter million were displaced in clashes sparked by the December 30 announcement that President Mwai Kibaki had been re-elected amid widespread allegations of fraud and claims by opposition leader Raila Odinga that he was robbed of victory.
For now, political deadlock remains, as well as international travel advisories warning tourists to stay away.
Many warn that tourism--which earns Kenya nearly one billion dollars a year-- may remain shackled for a long time.
The Kenya Tourism Federation said that hotels had lost around $60 million (40 million euros) in cancellations so far this month due to safety fears.
But for now, the handful of tourists remaining in the largely deserted hotels and lodges say they relish the extra calm and close attention they are receiving.

Famed for its powder white sand and crystal clear waters, the Philippine government imposed a six-month building ban on the resort island of Boracay.
The tiny island in the central Philippines draws more than half a million tourists each year, or more than one-sixth of last year’s record arrivals in the country, according to official data, AFP said.
However, the 10.32 square-kilometer (3.98 square-mile) island has drawn bad publicity in recent years due to sewerage contamination of the sea and the dumping of garbage in an open pit near the beach.
Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Joselito Atienza said all construction permits would be withheld until the end of June.
“Rapid growth threatens the viability of Boracay as a tourist destination,“ Atienza said in a statement.
He added, “Aside from the nagging problems of the lack of clean drinking water, overcrowding and waste disposal, the problem of flooding now also haunts Boracay.“