News on Travel and Tourism

The economic crisis means that Spanish hotels will have more domestic than foreign tourists this summer for the first time in decades, an industry official predicted Friday. In the 1980s an estimated 70 percent of tourists were foreigners, Roman Estalella, head of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation, told the Europa Press news agency. This year, "Spaniards will spend less on travel by staying" within the country, while the number of overseas tourists will be down by 8.0 percent as the economic crisis hits both Spain iteself ...

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Some cash-conscious travelers are taking to water this summer for their holidays, discovering river cruising holidays where their boat is their hotel and they wake up with a new view every day. Cruise website CruiseCritic.co.uk (http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk) has come up with a list of the top 10 rivers for cruising in 2009. This list is not endorsed by Reuters. "With the current economy, traveling around Europe -- or most places for that matter -- just isn't cheap anymore. All those little expenses really ...

Authorities say a programming error on cell phone towers misrouted 911 calls from a lost hiker who died in a rescue helicopter crash last month, but the problem has been corrected. Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said Thursday there was no significant delay in the search and rescue mission despite the 911 system glitch. The hiker's initial calls went to a non-emergency line. But within a few minutes, the hiker was transferred to ...