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Lower airfare to attract visitors, says CBO speaker
(CNS): One way to encourage visitors to get to a destination is to lower airfare, according to the Bahamas Minister for Tourism and Aviation, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, who spoke at last week’s Cayman Business Outlook conference, held at The Ritz-Carlton. This was critical, he said, because once visitors had received a good deal in their airfare they would be inclined to spend more in the destination itself. Embracing the digital age was another important move. “I am a great believer in the thought that God created man to create the Internet to help the tourism sector,” he said. “It’s the most efficient system ever created and yet large sectors of people are still not using it … The customer is now the reservation agent.”
Short stay visitors ought to be encouraged because they tend to spend more than those who have longer stays and people from nearby in the States ought to be specifically encouraged to visit places like Cayman because of their proximity and thus ease of travel to the jurisdiction.
There is no place for “ego” tourism in this current financial climate and destinations need to think about the bottom line when it comes to tourism, Vanderpool-Wallace said. He explained the value of tourists to an economy, saying that they spent more than locals but didn’t put a drain on schools or hospitals and they didn’t deplete natural resources.
“It’s a clean business and they contribute enormously to the economy,” he said. The problem was, he added, that each destination only had one shot at getting these important consumers to spend their money, so countries had to really work hard to get the most spend from visitors to their destination.
Focusing on core competencies was vital and diversification was not necessarily a panacea, he confirmed, stating that companies such as LVMH did so well because they concentrated on what they did best.
Destinations needed to work much harder at attracting visitors. “Tourism these days has little to do with flying and fopping,” he confirmed. “You need to create reasons to come to your destination.” He believed that sports and medical tourism initiatives were good ways to encourage more visitors.
The Caribbean was, Vanderpool-Wallace stated, the most tourism dependent region in the world. The region needed to make it a place where tourism talent gathered and was marketed all around the world, much like how Silicon Valley in California had become the IT hub of the world.
“Why aren’t we the HQ for tourism?” he asked. “We’ve got to stop relying only on other people who come to our shores. Tourism is a national business.”
Lord Taylor guilty of making false expenses claims
(BBC): Ex-Tory peer Lord Taylor of Warwick has been found guilty of making £11,277 in false parliamentary expenses claims. The 58-year-old peer claimed travel costs between his Oxford home and Westminster, as well as subsistence for staying in London. He claimed he had made the false claims "in lieu of a salary", and had been acting on the advice of colleagues. But a jury at Southwark Crown Court found him guilty by an 11-1 majority verdict. He has been released on bail pending sentencing at a date to be confirmed. Taylor, who was Britain’s first blackpeer and a former barrister and radio and TV presenter, listed his main residence as a home in Oxford, which was owned by his nephew, while he actually lived in a flat in London. He is the third MP to appear in court over expenses.
Finance industry “almost lawless”, says Toscafund
(Reuters): The financial services industry is practically "lawless" and needs better regulation of individuals entering the sector, a partner at Toscafund, one of the UK’s most high-profile hedge fund firms, said on Monday. Savvas Savouri, partner and chief economist at Toscafund, has called for tighter scrutiny despite a wave of recent regulation tackling bank capital requirements and bonuses as lawmakers try to avert a repeat of the credit crisis. "Finance is almost lawless. The nature of regulation is so light touch that it may as well not be there at all," Savouri said at the London School of Economics’ Alternative Investments Conference.
"It (the financial services sector) is like medicine in the 18th century — it’s full of frauds … and is very poorly regulated… You need to be that much better (than your rivals) if you don’t perform underhand or insider trades."
Parents assail malpractice caps after daughter’s death
(Los Angeles Times): Limits on payouts made it hard to find a lawyer when Olivia Cull, 17, died after a routine procedure. And the couple settled their lawsuit before all the information they wanted was revealed, her mother says. The story of Olivia’s death was presented to Congress a few days ago, among cases cited by patient advocates pushing to lift the caps on damages for medical malpractice lawsuits. Physician groups say caps limit frivolous lawsuits that can drive good doctors out of business. But patients and their families argue that limits on payouts diminish accountability, making it hard to find lawyers to take cases and force full disclosure from doctors.
Athletes asked to sign up for Thursday’s meet
(CIAA): Following the first district meet held in West Bay last Saturday, the Cayman Islands Athletic Association will hold a Development Meet on Thursday, 27 January, at the Truman Bodden Sports Complex starting at 6:00pm. This meet is to accommodate the older age groups and to offer some events that were not contested at the district meet. All athletes are invited to come out and participate in preparation for upcoming meets. Age groups eligible to compete in this Development Meet are: 13-14, 15-16, 17 and over. Events to be contested are: Long Jump, High Jump, Shot Put, Javelin, Discus, 100m Hurdles, 150m, 300m, 600m and 1000m.
Registration forms can be downloaded at the link below. They are also available at the schools or by contacting Coach Kenrick Williams 925-4763; Coach Tyrone Yen 925-6917; Meet Director Harcourt Wason at 916-6966 or Elizabeth Ibeh at 925-4763.
45% of US students don’t learn much in college
(Huffington Post): A new study provides disturbing answers to questions about how much students actually learn in college – for many, not much – and has inflamed a debate about the value of an American higher education. The research of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years. One problem is that students just aren’t asked to do much, according to findings in a new book, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses." Half of students did not take a single course requiring 20 pages of writing during their prior semester, and one-third did not take a single course requiring even 40 pages of reading per week.
Cuba calls US measures positive, but far from enough
(CNN): Cuba onSunday called President Barack Obama’s latest easing of travel restrictions to the island nation "positive" but accused Washington of continuing its policy of "destabilization." On Friday, the White House announced it would allow more academic, cultural and religious travel, non-family remittances and would pave the way for more airports to service flights to Cuba. "Although the measures are positive, they fall short of justified demands," Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "These measures confirm that there is no willingness to change the policy of blockade and destabilization against Cuba," it added, noting that the measures do nothing to alter the decades-old US trade embargo.
IRS may ask US banks to disclose account-owners’ ID
(Bloomberg): The Obama administration says US banks should disclose to the IRS bank accounts owned by foreigners, resurrecting a Clinton-era proposal that was opposed by banking groups and Republicans. The Internal Revenue Service proposed regulations Jan. 7 that would pave the way for the US for the first time to routinely share information with other governments about their citizens’ deposits in US financial institutions. The move is designed to help governments around the world pierce bank secrecy, the agency said. It follows a successful three-year effort by the US to pressure Switzerland and its biggest bank, UBS AG, to reveal the US owners of undeclared accounts held offshore.
US alarmed by Chinese investment in Bahamas
(The Guardian): American diplomats feared heavy Chinese investment in the Bahamas, including in a luxury hotel, would destabilise US influence in a post-Castro Caribbean, according to leaked state department cables. Chinese banks invested $2.5bn in the 1000-acre Baha Mar hotel complex in April 2010, one of several Sino-Bahamian deals which cables suggest the US embassy monitored closely. Diplomats were frightened the investment would leave the Bahamian government "indebted to Chinese interests for years to come", a cable from September 2009 reveals. They also repeated Bahamian politicians’ fears that "China is using this investment solely to establish a relationship of patronage with a U.S. trading partner less than 190 miles from the United States."
The embassy had been concerned for several years about China’s involvement in the Bahamas. They previously worried that Chinese activity in the Bahamas constituted "a strategic move [in preparation] for a post-Castro Caribbean", and questioned China’s interest "in a country where apart from geography, there would seem to be few mutual cultural, tourist, economic, or political interests", according to cables from 2003 and 2004.
Closing the achievement gap with baby talk
(NPR): In the mid-1960s, Betty Hart was a graduate student in child development working at a preschool in Kansas City, Kan. The preschool was for poor kids — reallypoor kids. Many came from troubled housing projects nearby. But Hart was determined not to see their limitations, only their potential: Hart’s job was to teach these underprivileged kids how to speak like the children of her professors at the University of Kansas. For years, she and university professor Todd Risley worked tirelessly toward this goal, doing everything they could think of to expand the vocabularies of these 4-year-olds. The idea was that if the kids could speak with the fluency of their wealthier peers across town, they might go on to similar academic achievements. The problem, they realized, was that they weren’t getting to the kids early enough. Which led to this question: If age 4 was too late, when was early enough?