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Royal Caribbean and TUI drum up cruise interest with heavy metal voyage
TransportMiland Petrozza, the front man of German thrash metal veterans Kreator, is more used to his fans wading through mud and sleeping in tents than coming to his concerts from an afternoon of shuffle board. Yet when he shrieked the lyrics “let there be darkness, let there be blood tonight” across the decks of luxury [...]
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The Germans snapping up vacation homes in Italy that Italians can’t afford
DestinationsYasemin Rosenmaier has been selling homes in northern Italy since 2005 and she’s finding that there’s never been a better time to work for a German broker. “I’d say 60 percent of our closings are with Germans, which is much higher than in previous years,” Rosenmaier said by telephone from her Engel & Voelkers office [...]
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Five travel startups hack HotelTonight and taxi apps in the U.S. and abroad
TransportIf there were ever a question whether travelers from different cultures have similar concerns, one would only have to look at the global startup scene. Developers in Hanoi are working on the same problem as entrepreneurs in Chicago, and travelers in both destinations are downloading apps and testing new sites to find cheap deals on [...]
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The horses, lizards and Onassis heirs that make Lufthansa a pet flying expert
TransportAristotle Onassis’s only surviving descendant is providing a boost to Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s cargo unit with a regular contract to transport dozens of show jumping horses to Brazil at a cost of as much as $1.3 million. Athina Onassis de Miranda, the main heir to her shipping magnate grandfather, funds the transfer of horses to [...]
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Chinese are now the biggest spending tourists globally, for the first time
DestinationsChinese tourists have overtaken Germans as the world’s biggest-spending travelers after a decade of robust growth in the number of Chinese holidaying abroad, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) said on Thursday. Chinese tourists, known for travelling in organized tours and snapping up luxury fashion abroad, spent $102 billion on foreign trips last year, [...]
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Berlin’s airport fiasco: The fall of German engineering?
TransportFaulty fire protection, lights that won’t go off and an overlooked nuclear reactor are just a few of the hurdles holding up the new airport in Berlin that is tarnishing Germany’s reputation for industrial derring-do. Designed to befit a capital that attracts more than 10 million visitors every year as Europe’s No. 3 city destination [...]
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Greece poised for tourism comeback supported by price-conscious Europeans
DestinationsTourism in Greece is bouncing back this year in an otherwise flat European market, held back by the weak economic climate, travel industry executives said. The desire for a beach holiday closer to home for cost-conscious consumers in Europe is helping to revive tourism demand in the country, battling recession and a debt crisis. Doerte [...]
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Berlin allows destruction of iconic wall to make way for luxury flats
DestinationsSpilling out of the Eastern Comfort hostel, which floats on Berlin’s river Spree, a gaggle of Spanish tourists in town for a week of clubbing poses for the customary snapshots at one of the city’s most iconic images. The painted mural of former Soviet and East German leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Eric Honecker in a [...]
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Labor strike strands thousands of passengers at two German airports
TransportThousands of travelers faced a second day of disruption at German airports as a strike by security guards over pay continued on Friday, causing more than 100 flight cancellations. In addition, Berlin’s Schoenefeld airport said it had suspended all arrivals and departures until 8 a.m. ET after a small private plane ran off the runway [...]
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HotelTonight expands into Germany and Switzerland as it tops 4 million downloads
DigitalLast-minute hotel booking app HotelTonight has seen tremendous growth since its launch in January of 2011. The company announced Monday that it has reached four million downloads over the past 2 years, and is now expanding the service further into Europe. Starting today, you can book a hotel using the service in two new countries: [...]
