Thus, at the upcoming confirmation hearing, members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee should ask Foxx the following 10 questions…

The post Eight questions for Transportation Secretary nominee Anthony Foxx appeared first on Skift.

Read the Complete Story...

Britain's Prince Harry (R) walks with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as they view areas of the boardwalk that have been repaired in Seaside Heights, a beach town hit by Hurricane Sandy last year, in New Jersey, May 14, 2013. Lucas Jackson / Reuters

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his family are starring in television commercials that are part of a publicly funded $25 million tourism campaign to encourage people to visit the Jersey Shore after Superstorm Sandy, but Democrats say they are simply taxpayer-funded campaign ads.

The ad campaign called “Stronger Than The Storm” launched last week with its first ad, but five more begin today. Supporters of Christie note the ads are not just running in New Jersey, but out of state as well.

In the first ad, Christie and his family are visible at the end of the 30 second commercial.

“The governor’s voice came through loud and clear,” Eis said, noting they were fighting a “massive consumer perception” that the beach is still closed due to the storm.

The post New Jersey Governor criticized for turning tourism ads into campaign asset appeared first on Skift.

Read the Complete Story...

Alaska volcano's ash prompts flight cancellations. / Associated Press

An Alaska volcano eruption is prompting regional airlines to cancel flights to nearby communities, including a town that reported traces of fallen ash.

Pavlof Volcano released ash plumes as high as 22,000 feet over the weekend, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Clouds obscured the volcano Monday, but U.S. Geological Survey scientists said seismic instruments at the volcano show continuing tremors.

“Seismically, it’s been pretty steady over the last 12 hours,” geologist Chris Waythomas said late Monday morning.

The abrasive ash has not risen enough to threaten international air traffic passing over the volcano-rich Aleutian arc, Waythomas said. Ash emissions have gone high enough, however, to affect flights of some smaller planes.

Anchorage-based regional carrier Penair has canceled a dozen passenger and cargo flights to several remote communities since Sunday afternoon. The communities include Sand Point, which reported a dusting of ash Sunday.

Penair CEO Danny Seybert said for those flying in the region, flight disruptions are part of doing business. It’s not unusual for the airline to cancel flights a couple times each year because of volcanoes, according to Seybert. To him, it’s not a big deal, not a sky-is-falling crisis.

“If we had that attitude, we would have quit 50 years ago,” he said. “It’s one of the situations that Mother Nature presents itself along our route structure.”

Ace Air Cargo, also based in Anchorage, canceled two flights and delayed others, but for the most part, its planes are flying around any ash, said Greg Hawthorne, a company official. The airline is closely monitoring developments, he said.

“We’re used to those volcanoes going off in that region,” he said. “But if the winds are wrong, you don’t want to test that pumice.”

Pavlof eruptions typically involve gas-rich fountains of lava that can shoot up to a few thousand feet. But its ash clouds are usually lower and less dense than the plumes of more explosive volcanoes that pose a greater hazard to aircraft, according to scientists. That’s not to say it couldn’t spew out much higher plumes, they said.

The volcano 625 miles southwest of Anchorage is among the most active volcanoes in the region, with nearly 40 known eruptions, according to the observatory.

Pavlof last erupted in 2007. During the 29-day eruption, the volcano emitted mud flows and erupting lava, as well as ash clouds up to 18,000 feet high.

In the most recent eruption, trace amounts of ash fell at both Nelson Lagoon and in Sand Point, a town about 55 miles from Pavlof. Residents in the community of nearly 1,000 awoke Sunday to a thin layer of the gritty ash.

Kathleen Harper, a National Weather Service observer based at Sand Point, said it was raining lightly Monday. But on Sunday, ash was in the air, irritating her eyes and the back of her throat. She said the ash fall amounted to about a half teaspoon per hour on a sheet of white paper she placed on the ground.

When the weather is clear, the eruption can be seen from Sand Point, as well as the community Cold Bay, 37 miles from Pavlof. Through her binoculars, Harper saw Pavlof spit out a fountain of rocky lava.

“You could actually see the rocks coming out of the volcano,” she said. “It was pretty cool.”

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The post Ash cloud rises over Alaskan volcano, canceling commercial and cargo flights appeared first on Skift.

The Navajo Nation has opened its first casino in the state, the Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort, named after an old trading post, diner and gas station where red and gold twin arrows aimed at the ground remind motorists of what once was the “best little” stop on the interstate.

The tribe is looking to the casino to boost its economy and spur development in the area, and has infused the new business with bits of Navajo culture and tradition. Turquoise twin arrows in the logo, for instance, symbolize initiative and the journey of the Navajos through time.

“It brings jobs that we don’t have in the past, it brings revenue, it brings recognition to the Navajo Nation and Navajo people,” tribal President Ben Shelly said Monday.

A glittering chandelier greets visitors in the casino’s entryway, a depiction of the Navajos’ rise into the fourth world where humans came into existence. Stone walls and birch branches in the steakhouse represent the nesting sites of eagles — among the most revered birds of American Indian tribes, while the design on the hotel’s exterior hints at a culture of weaving.

The main entrance faces east in the same way as traditional homes on the reservation, to capture the rising sun. Navajo artists were commissioned to create artwork that hangs throughout the casino, and some of the rooms have views of the San Francisco Peaks, one of four mountains held sacred by Navajos.

Employees will be trained to let casino patrons know what it all means, said Derrick Watchman, chief executive of the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise.

“We tried to make it subtle but stand out so it prompts questions,” he said.

The Navajo Nation signed gaming compacts with Arizona and New Mexico a decade ago, clearing the way for the gaming industry on the nation’s largest American Indian reservation. Tribal members later approved gaming in a referendum vote after twice rejecting it. The tribe’s first casino opened east of Gallup, N.M., in 2008 and two others followed in New Mexico.

Twin Arrows employs about 500 people right now, the majority of whom are Navajo, but the workforce will grow to 800, Watchman said. Each of the tribal casinos follows Navajo law in that they give preference to Navajos in employment and are expected to become one of the largest employers of tribal members.

Twin Arrows, about 20 miles east of Flagstaff, is one of nearly two dozen tribal casinos across the state. Tribes that don’t operate casinos or haven’t maxed out on the number of slot machines they’re allowed under gaming compacts can lease those rights to other tribes.

The Navajo casinos are expected to generate tens of millions of dollars for the tribe that relies heavily on natural resources for revenue. Last year, the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise made its first distribution of revenue to the tribe at $5 million. That number is expected to increase to $30 million annually, Watchman said.

Shelly said Monday that he would issue an executive order telling tribal offices to first consider holding conferences and staff retreats at Twin Arrows before spending money in border towns to keep the money circulating on the reservation. Other plans for the site could include housing, an airport, shuttle service from Flagstaff and Tuba City, and an amusement park, he said.

As for distributing per-capita payments to Navajos, Shelly said “there’s too many of us.” But he said the tribe is looking at creating a fund in which the roughly 300,000 tribal members can invest and receive a portion of dividends each year from tribal enterprises, including casinos.

Twin Arrows opened earlier this month, with limited casino hours that gave employees an opportunity to train further.

The 267,000-square-foot facility has 90 hotel rooms and suites, a conference center, more than 1,000 slot machines and table games. The restaurants will feature Navajo favorites like fry bread and mutton stew. A spa, golf course, more hotel rooms, a gas station and RV park also are planned.

Once the casino opens round-the-clock Friday, Felix and Michelle Thompson said they’d consider having a date night there. The Flagstaff couple usually gambles at a tribal casino in Camp Verde but would favor Twin Arrows because it’s closer.

“It’s really nice,” Felix Thompson said Friday. “It’s a whole lot more than we expected — its size, its style, the service is immaculate.”

Remi Armijo of Flagstaff was looking for a wider selection of poker games and possibly a tournament.

“I guess they have to get established,” he said.

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The post Navajo Nation opens first casino in Arizona, employs 500 tribal members appeared first on Skift.

The east coast of Barbados' 70 miles of beaches is rough and rocky along the Atlantic, but the Caribbean side on the west coast, shown here, is known as the Platinum Coast. Bob Downing / Akron Beacon Journal/MCT

There is a very fine line when writing a column like this. The risk of being branded as a pessimist is high.

I only hope that readers will focus on the message that I am trying to convey and perhaps apply some of the content objectively to look at issues in a broader, more holistic way.

When I heard Barbados’ minister of tourism recently predict that he anticipated long stay visitor arrivals in 2013 should reach the same levels as last year, I was frankly surprised.

Look at our largest single market alone, the United Kingdom, which has already experienced a decline of 15,631 visitors in 2012, when compared with 2011.

In the first week of May, Virgin Atlantic brought forward from October 27 their planned change of aircraft on the Gatwick/Barbados route, by substituting the larger B747 aircraft with smaller A330 equipment, on each day of the week, except for Thursdays.

This immediately cuts up to 1,134 seats weekly and, by the end of December this year, could amount to almost 40,000 lost seats.

Put another way, we will lose airline capacity of nearly 23 percent or around one in four of all our British land-based arrivals annually, which in 2012 totalled 173,519 persons.

It is also not unreasonable to conclude that at least 50 percent of those lost seats could have been used by the largest tour operator into Barbados, Virgin Holidays.

Has anyone considered the incredible overall loss of occupied room nights this will bring to our hotels and the devastating financial consequence?

Needless to say, it’s not just the negative effect on our accommodation providers, but the trickledown effect it has on restaurants, attractions, activities, car rental, shopping, taxis, etc.

And at a time when the government most needs higher tax collection, the loss of non reclaimable VAT on all these tourism offerings.

It’s vaguely conceivable that our policymakers imagine they are going to make up the numbers from other major markets, like the USA and Canada, but this is extremely unlikely. Out of these two sources, there was negligible growth in 2012.

But sadly so far, in the first four months of 2013, there has been an average monthly decline of 11.9 percent from the United States and 9 percent from Canada.

Of course, we do not have the winter climatic advantage for most of the remaining eight months, so this trend is hardly likely to change without extensive cost-effective “consumer facing” marketing and a dramatic improvement in destination visibility overall.

Yes! There are a few rays of sunshine on the horizon. The Thomas Cook double-drop charters from Manchester and TUI flights from Hamburg, but these do not commence until November, and clearly will not come anywhere close to making up the Virgin deficit.

This scenario regrettably paints a very gloomy picture, but personally I believe we must start to face this reality and implement measures needed to redress this situation, rather than repeatedly utter predictions, which are at best whimsical and almost impossible to achieve with the status quo.

The post Caribbean island’s tourism bleeds after Virgin Atlantic cuts capacity appeared first on Skift.

A fisherman walks along the empty beach in Rhode Island. Tim Lenz / Flickr

Seven months after Superstorm Sandy pummeled Rhode Island’s southern shore, the great mounds of sand are gone, and the twisted metal and splintered wood hauled away, replaced by workers and backhoes as beachfront businesses hurry to complete repairs before the arrival of another New England summer.

Hammers and drills drown out the sound of the surf at Paddy’s Beach Restaurant and Hotel, which was nearly destroyed when Sandy walloped Westerly’s Misquamicut Beach. Co-owner Frank Labriola said recovery efforts began the day after the storm hit in October.

“First there was the cleanup, then demolition and now the rebuilding,” Labriola said while standing on the wooden planks of an unfinished deck behind the popular beach bar. “Everyone has had to step up their game. But we’ll be open. And on time.”

Sandy — the second most costly hurricane in U.S. history — pounded Rhode Island’s southern beaches with waves that punched through seawalls, flooded homes and businesses and carried thousands of tons of sand inland to choke buildings and streets in head-high drifts. Further inland, high winds toppled trees, damaged homes and knocked out electricity to a quarter of the state’s residents. It saved its brunt for New Jersey and New York, but even so it was the worst storm to hit Rhode Island since 1954′s Hurricane Carol.

Nowhere was the damage as bad as in Misquamicut, a sleepy coastal community in Westerly of modest vacation homes, beach bars and mom-and-pop hotels. Residents and business owners were kept out for days after the storm to allow earth movers to cut passageways through the sand that filled streets, yards, basements and even the first floors of many structures. Sandy caused significant damage to more than 30 of the area’s 41 businesses and left owners wondering how they’d recover before Memorial Day, the traditional start of the summer season.

Hundreds of people linked hands on the beach Friday at an event meant to mark the community’s ongoing recovery.

While scars from the storm are still evident, Gov. Lincoln Chafee said Rhode Island has bounced back more quickly than many imagined last fall.

“We’ve made tremendous progress,” said Chafee, who received an update on the recovery during a recent visit to Narragansett and Charlestown. “We will have more of these storms, so it’s so important that we rebuild quickly.”

In the weeks and months after the storm, thousands of volunteers from around the state worked to clear debris. The state hired unemployed workers — half of them veterans — to repair damaged state parks. Westerly’s chamber of commerce raised more than $360,000 to help local businesses by selling T-shirts and holding benefit concerts and dinners.

“Yes, there are some losses that can’t be recovered and there is still more work to be done,” said Lisa Konicki, director of the chamber of commerce. “But the beach is back.”

Some businesses were beyond repair. The Andrea Hotel was a landmark in Misquamicut for 90 years before Sandy’s waves flooded the kitchen and undermined the foundation. Crews demolished the hotel this winter, and owners hope to begin work on a new building this fall.

The recovery is further along in other parts of Rhode Island’s southern coast.

In Narragansett, a seawall that buckled under Sandy’s waves has been fixed, and repairs are nearly complete at several businesses. The town bought nearly 6,000 cubic yards of sand to replace what Sandy carried away. While that’s a lot, Town Manager Richard Kerbel said Narragansett expected to need about twice that amount. Fortunately, much of the sand was replaced naturally over the winter, he said.

In Matunuck, Sandy consumed as much as 50 feet of beach in some spots. Several beachfront cottages were destroyed when the sand underneath them washed away. At Roy Carpenter’s Beach, a community of a few hundred modest cottages, crews moved the homes closest to the beach back to safer, and higher, ground.

Sandy devastated the beach at upscale Watch Hill in Westerly, washing away several feet of sand to expose the foundations under beach cabanas and leaving steps that once ended on the ground hanging five feet in the air. Flood waters crept into nearby businesses, leaving behind ruined merchandise, rotten drywall and a stinky mess.

Jean Murano co-owns three women’s clothing and swimsuit stores in Westerly. One was undamaged. Another was flooded, and the third filled with sand. All three will soon be open.

“Last fall, I don’t think anyone was sure we could bounce back this quickly,” she said of the local business community. “And the beach looks pretty good. It was looking like pyramids from Egypt for a while.”

Most of that sand is back where it’s supposed to be — under the feet of beachgoers. David Booth and his wife, Ludia, walked the beach in Westerly last week with their dog Lilly. They noticed only a few reminders of the storm — some areas where rocks now poke out of the sand.

“It’s still a lovely place to take a walk,” David Booth said as Lilly splashed in the surf.

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The post Rhode Island beaches rush to finish Hurricane Sandy repairs before summer appeared first on Skift.

An ocean killer whale show at Shamu Stadium in Sea World Orlando. Rich Jacques / Flickr

Three years ago, Harry Potter loosened Mickey Mouse’s grip on Orlando’s theme-park market.

Now, Puck the Penguin is ready to try pulling Mickey’s fingers even farther apart.

After more than a year of construction, SeaWorld Orlando this week will open Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin, a nearly 4-acre, multiattraction “land” built to look like the icy continent and starring an animated gentoo penguin named Puck.

Orlando-based SeaWorld Entertainment Inc., which just completed a $700 million public stock offering, has enormous expectations for Antarctica, the largest expansion in SeaWorld history. Company President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Atchison calls the project “a real game-changer for us.”

But beyond simply boosting SeaWorld’s fortunes, industry analysts say Antarctica has the potential to alter the Orlando market, which historically has been dominated by Walt Disney World.

During the past decade, Disney World’s central growth strategy has been to persuade travelers to spend their full vacations on its property, lured by programs such as sliding-scale ticket prices and a free airport shuttle. But that model has been challenged recently by Universal Orlando, which has attracted millions of new visitors to its parks on the strength of the 3-year-old Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

With Antarctica, analysts say, SeaWorld has an opportunity to continue that shift.

“Antarctica, in my mind, is a really good test of how different the Orlando landscape has become,” said Bob Boyd, a leisure analyst at Pacific Asset Management, a California investment-management company.

Antarctica is SeaWorld’s entry into a parade of lavishly designed “lands” that U.S. theme-park owners are building across the country after the success of Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Universal parent Comcast Corp. is copying Wizarding World at its West Coast park and will add a second Potter land — Diagon Alley — next year in Orlando. The Walt Disney Co. last year opened Cars Land at Disneyland and the initial phases of New Fantasyland at Disney World. It has begun preliminary work on a land based on the movie “Avatar,” also at Disney World and expected to open in 2017.

SeaWorld’s Antarctica includes a first-of-its-kind trackless ride and a frigid, walk-through penguin habit, along with a 325-seat restaurant meant to resemble a multinational mess hall and a penguin-themed gift shop peddling Puck plush toys and other souvenirs.

The company will not disclose what it spent on Antarctica, though one analyst estimated the cost was substantially less than the $265 million that Universal spent on Wizarding World and the estimated $425 million that Disney is spending on New Fantasyland.

Still, Antarctica is the biggest in a collection of new rides and other construction projects on which SeaWorld has spent $420 million combined during the past two years. Executives say they plan to trim their capital spending in the coming years to something closer to $150 million annually.

To maximize the investment, Antarctica will have to do more than drive higher attendance and ticket prices. SeaWorld also needs the project to entice guests into spending more on food and souvenirs.

SeaWorld hopes to emulate some of the success Universal has had with “butterbeer” and other Harry Potter-themed food and merchandise in its Islands of Adventure theme park. The drink selection in Antarctica’s Expedition Cafe restaurant will include South Pole Chill, a vanilla-flavored soda made by SeaWorld sponsor Coca-Cola Co. exclusively for sale in the new attractions area.

SeaWorld would not discuss its projections for Antarctica. But Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services in Cincinnati, said expectations are high across the industry.

“I think the buzz in the industry is that this will be to SeaWorld what Harry was to Universal and what Fantasyland was to Disney,” he said.

Antarctica could perform particularly well with those travelers willing to venture off Disney World property — a market that has been expanded by Wizarding World. The pull will become even stronger next year when Universal opens its second Potter land.

“I think SeaWorld has the opportunity to grab a good number of those people that have already left Disney property or decided beforehand not to stay on Disney property, and show what they can do,” Boyd said. “If they knock it out of the park, I think the center of the Orlando market continues to shift toward International Drive.”

A spokesman for Disney World said all Orlando tourism operators benefit when new attractions open and give travelers more reasons to visit Central Florida. Still, Disney is taking more steps to insulate itself against the competition.

The company this year will introduce the major elements of its $1 billion “MyMagic+” initiative, which aims to get travelers to lock in their vacation plans in advance by allowing them to book times for popular rides and shows long before they get to Orlando.

Disney executives say keeping travelers within their parks and hotels — and thus away from Potter and Puck — is one of the driving strategies behind MyMagic+.

“We have known for a really long time that getting our visitors to Walt Disney World to make decisions about where they spend their time before they leave home is a powerful driver of visits per guest,” Disney Co. Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo told analysts earlier this month.

“When they get into the Orlando market and their time isn’t yet planned,” he continued, “they can be subject to everything you see down there, which is a lot of in-city marketing for all the many products that people have put there to basically bleed off the feed that we fundamentally motivate.”

(c)2013 The Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Fla.). Distributed by MCT Information Services.

The post Orlando theme parks brace themselves for SeaWorld’s new Antarctica attraction appeared first on Skift.

It’s been grappling with falling revenue and significant debt at its eastern Connecticut site and now must face down organized local opposition and strong competition in Massachusetts as it tries to expand in southern New England.

The operators of the biggest casino in North America are proposing a $1 billion, 300,000-square foot resort off I-495 in Milford, Mass., about 40 miles southwest of Boston. Plans call for about 4,725 slot machines, 125 table games, 350 hotel rooms, restaurants and other attractions.

Foxwoods can expect a barrage of questions from Milford officials and residents who are skeptical about its finances and the huge impact it would have on traffic, water and sewer systems and police and fire services.

Like the Mohegan Sun, its Connecticut neighbor that also wants to branch out in Massachusetts, Foxwoods is pressed by stiff competition in the Northeast and is seeking new markets and more revenue.

“That’s exactly what we’re trying to do,” Foxwoods Chief Executive Scott Butera said. “We have a strong customer base in that area.”

Revenue at Foxwoods, run by the Mashantucket Indian tribe, was $6.57 billion from May 2012 to April 2013, down 12 percent for the year. Revenue fell each month.

“Connecticut is losing gaming revenue at a pretty rapid pace,” said Keith Foley, an analyst at Moody’s Investor Service. “The Connecticut trends have not been so good for the Mohegan Sun or Foxwoods.”

Foxwoods also is wrapping up a deal with creditors that Foley said will reduce its debt from $2.27 billion to $1.74 billion. That’s still high relative to Foxwoods’ earnings before interest, taxes and other costs, he said.

And tribal payments to the casino’s owners, the Mashantucket Pequots, have stopped, a food pantry has opened and counselors are giving tribal members job-hunting advice.

Foxwoods must overcome organized local opposition and win voter approval in Milford, which would then compete against Everett and the Suffolk Downs thoroughbred racetrack in East Boston for a state license for eastern Massachusetts.

Everett is far ahead in the process, announcing in April a local host agreement with Las Vegas casino operator Steve Wynn. A referendum is scheduled for June 22.

And Suffolk Downs has high-profile political backing from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

Foxwoods has little choice but to jump into the Massachusetts market because many customers at the two Connecticut casinos are from Massachusetts, Foley said. By adding a Massachusetts casino, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun also would avoid ceding business to competitors.

“Like a lot of companies, you want to participate, you want to at least hedge what your losses might be,” Foley said.

Mary Johnson, president of the United Auto Workers local that represents workers at Foxwoods, said the union and Foxwoods are locked in a contract dispute over wages and other issue, with Foxwoods “crying poverty.” She said she was surprised the casino is seeking to expand.

“It just didn’t make sense, with layoffs at work,” she said.

Foxwoods cut 50 table-game dealers in severance packages this year and said other jobs will be cut.

Still, Johnson said she understands why Foxwoods is looking to broaden its base in southern New England. “It was just a little shocking,” she said.

Valerie Red-Horse, an investment banker and financial adviser familiar with Indian casinos, said Foxwoods could benefit from the improving economy that has loosened credit leading to a rise in construction and fattened investment in strengthening stock markets.

“Everything has leveled off and rebalanced,” she said.

Beyond a casino backer’s balance sheet and investment partners, Red-Horse said states and municipalities need to look at how experienced prospective casino operators are.

“Management is No. 1,” she said.

Butera said that’s Foxwoods’ strength.

“We have a very good business in all of New England,” he said. “This is our way of bringing our brand to an area we know very well.”

William Buckley, chairman of Milford’s Board of Selectmen, said town and state officials will scrutinize Foxwoods’ finances when the casino is expected to present details June 3.

“We need to know who we’re dealing with. We need to know if they have the financial wherewithal,” he said.

The town and an organized opposition have a long list of questions and concerns: Whether a project of such size would overburden Milford’s water and sewer systems, public schools and housing, if the casino would bring crime that would tax the town’s police force, if home values would fall and if new casino businesses would undermine local stores.

“It would be a net negative for the town of Milford, not that there wouldn’t be positives,” said John Seaver, a leader of Casino-Free Milford, an opposition group.

The one benefit of a casino would be more jobs, he said, though most would be low-wage.

Butera said Foxwoods is on sound financial footing to take on the huge undertaking of building a destination resort.

“We wouldn’t be doing this unless we thought it was a good opportunity for our brand and our company,” he said.

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The post North America’s biggest casino thinks expansion will solve its problems appeared first on Skift.

A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Nassau advises Americans living in and traveling to the islands to be on heightened alert to avoid being a crime victim. It says “armed robbery remains a major threat” facing Americans in Nassau.

The security message was issued Friday, about a week after an Illinois man was fatally shot on a Nassau street during a robbery.

The Embassy says a number of other U.S. citizens have fallen victim to armed robbery so far this year and some have been seriously injured.

Government officials did not immediately respond to Sunday calls seeking comment.

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The post U.S. Embassy in the Bahamas issues security warning for travelers appeared first on Skift.

St. Simons Island Light House on St. Simons, South Carolina. Larry Myhre / Flickr

When Scott McQuade thinks about the Jersey Shore these days, he envisions something he hopes he never sees here.

To the director of the Golden Isles Convention and Visitors Bureau, the images are haunting — oceanside attractions like roller coasters and homes yanked from their foundations and tossed into an angry sea like children’s toys; a beach defaced, beaten to a pulp by violent winds, surging water and torrential rain and a once thriving tourism community that has all but flatlined since Hurricane Sandy struck the Garden State last October.

Nothing is as it was. Sandy plunged the New Jersey coast into chaos Oct. 29, robbing beaches of their stability and people of their livelihoods. Best estimates put the damage to the shoreline and its towns some 800 miles to north at $30 billion.

McQuade knows what every community touching the Atlantic Ocean knows and what emergency preparedness officials continue to warn coastal Georgians about: Hurricanes are unpredictable forces that can make landfall here just as easily and just as quickly as Sandy did in 2012 on the New Jersey coast.

As the person responsible for coordination of the tourism industry here, McQuade feels the New Jersey pain.

“They were just starting to see the tourism industry recovering (from the recession), and now this,” he said. “It will take the Jersey Shore tourism industry years to recover.”

McQuade has cause for concern with the approach of June 1, the beginning of the North Atlantic hurricane season. Tourism is the lifeblood of Glynn County.

Recent figures show tourists spent between $800 million and $900 million in Brunswick and the Golden Isles annually. At its peak, tourism accounts for some 23,000 jobs in Glynn County.

All of that could be washed away. Tropical storms, rare here for decades, are popping up off the coast with increasing frequency. Glynn County has been in the path of several since 2005, when Tropical Storm Tammy rolled into town with drenching rains that flooded homes and businesses. Last year there were two.

Meteorologists are predicting an active hurricane season this year.

Ken Davis, spokesman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, the agency in charge of emergency preparations across the state, says a hurricane slamming into the Glynn County from the ocean could have a significant impact.

“By ‘significant’ impact, I mean a Category 3 hurricane coming ashore in Glynn County could cause major damage — destruction to beaches, infrastructure, structures and commerce in its path,” Davis said. “Certainly, a Cat 3 with the right set of dependent variables … could wash it away.”

A Catetory 3 hurricane is considered a major storm, with sustained winds of 111 to 129 mph, and variables such as whether it struck at high or low tide and the angle of approach could intensify the damage.

It’s not like it hasn’t happened before, notes former Glynn County Commissioner Cap Fendig, a longtime resident of St. Simons Island.

“In 1964, living on the beach of St. Simons, I watched (Hurricane) Dora take a 17-foot vertical cut of sand away from my front yard and wipe out a row of homes by 5th Street,” Fendig said.

The destructive power of a hurricane would be even greater today, says Fendig, who’s lived the past 49 years at the beach on St. Simons Island. There is little to stop or slow a tidal surge on a beach that virtually disappears below the waves at most points on the island at high tide.

That is why Fendig took it upon himself to call for some kind of nourishment project on St. Simons Island, even though years before, in the early 1990s, the very idea ignited a verbal civil war in the community, with residents and county commissioners evenly divided on the issue. A lot of harsh words were exchanged between the two sides before the county finally decided against following the actions of Tybee Island in Chatham County and Amelia Island in Florida, both of which rebuilt beaches with sand pumped from the ocean.

Since those days, few have dared even to mention beach nourishment or renourishment.

Fendig continued to press the issue. He was concerned, and remains so today, that a blow from a hurricane would hurl Glynn County into the same economic maelstrom he’s seen other communities slide helplessly into when in a low state of readiness in a natural disaster.

The community never bought into it and even said thanks-but-no-thanks to a state grant for $1 million to study beach renourishment.

Opponents of redepositing snatched sand onto the beach said it wasn’t necessary because lost portions of the beach would return naturally.

Fendig heard that line nearly 50 years ago.

“The message was, when I grew up, we had sand to give up to a storm, but not since ’64,” he said.

That missing sand, the current state of the beach on St. Simons, is what worries Glynn County’s tourism director today.

McQuade can see how much beach remains above water at high tide. It’s about the same as it was in the wake of Dora. The beach is still malnourished and the seawall built of Johnson Rocks, so named after President Lyndon B. Johnson, remains much of the island’s main line of defense.

“It is a real and present danger for the fact that tourism is No. 1 to the economy and the fact that tourism is driven primarily by our beach assets,” McQuade said. “Having them intact and usable is key to attracting vacationers. It is certainly one of the most appealing aspects for people who vacation here.”

His thoughts return to the Jersey Shore and the tailspin a single hit from a single hurricane put its economy in just over six months ago.

“It’s hard to talk about this topic without getting to the part that there isn’t a lot of sand left on our beaches,” he said. “There is not much sand out there to protect us.

“There probably should be some sort of preparedness plan, so if an incident does happen we are not trying to figure out the day after or week after what to do.”

That might not be the case. Capt. Jay Wiggins, director of Glynn County Emergency Management Agency since late 2008, said he personally is not aware of any plan for addressing a beach stripped of its cover.

“It is really more of a public works issue, and I am sure the Army Corps (of Engineers) would have a stake in that, also,” Wiggins said.

That is not likely the kind of answer that will put McQuade at ease with hurricane season just two weeks away.

“I wish we could control the weather, but Mother Nature is in charge of that department,” McQuade said. “There is not much we can do other than pray we don’t get hit by any storm with any significance.”

The post Atlantic Coast tourism leaders worry about the coming hurricane season appeared first on Skift.