www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

Japan will open an embassy in Barbados by next February

Word of this from the country’s new Ambassador to Barbados Mitsuhiko Okada during a recent courtesy call on acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Steve Blackett, Barbados Today reports.

Okada, who will serve initially as Chargé d’Affaires of the new embassy, revealed that it would be formally opened in February 2016 .

Annonsørinnhold

Oversikt over salgene: De beste kuppene nå

He also expressed thanks to the Government of Barbados for support in getting the embassy operational.

Blackett pledged the continued assistance of the Government while outlining areas for possible cooperation, including culture and education.

In this regard, Ambassador Okada noted that in February 2016 a group of Japanese drummers would visit the island. He also pointed out that so far 26 Barbadians had participated in the Japan Exchange & Teaching Programme, which sees these persons teaching English in Japanese schools and he expressed the hope that this cooperation would continue.

Other areas discussed were renewable energy, disaster preparedness and climate change.

With regards to trade and investment, Ambassador Okada recommended that consideration be given to arranging a business/trade fair which would educate Japanese business people about products and investment opportunities which Barbados has to offer.

While acknowledging that the island was a great distance from Japan, the Ambassador said the Japanese were prolific travellers. He also pointed out that cruises were becoming increasingly popular with Japanese, while highlighting tourism as another area for cooperation.

Barbados and Japan established diplomatic relations in 1967, a year after Barbados’ independence from Britain.

Japan is today represented in Barbados by a honorary consulate.

Read the article at www.barbadostoday.bb/2015/12/05/new-japanese-embassy-by-february

Source: www.barbadostoday.bb

#Ambassade #Ambassadør #Bridgetown #By #Cruise #Destinasjon #Energi #Engelsk #Ferie #Hovedstad #Klima #Koloni #Minister #Regjering #Reise #Reisemål #Storbritannia #Trommer #Turisme #Utenriksminister

#Ambassador #Business #Capital #City #Climate #Colony #Destination #Drums #Embassy #ForeignMinster #Government #English #Holiday #Tourism #Travel #UnitedKingdom 

www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

I kjølvannet av terrorangrepet på Paris er besøkt til verdensmetropolen gått ned med en fjerdedel, skriver travelnews.no

Annonsørinnhold

Superkupp innen sport og friluft du gjør nå

Frankrike er verdens mest besøkte land, noe som ikke minst skyldes de mer enn 30 millionene som hvert år kommer til den franske hovedstaden.

Ifølge reiseanalyseselskapet ForwardKeys – som har sett på antallet nye flybookinger ti dager etter angrepet – har nå terroren som rammet byen redusert besøket med 25 prosent. Det kan synes lite bare ti dager etter angrepet, men skulle det fortsette vil det få betydelige konsekvenser for byens reiselivsindustri.

I hovedsak knytter reduksjonen seg til fritidsreisende.

#Analyse #By #Destinasjon #Ferie #Fly #Frankrike #Hovedstad #Metropol #Paris #Reise #Reisemål #Terror #Turisme

www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

Minsk, capital of Belarus, Georgia’s capital city Tbilisi, Kazakhstan’s second city Almaty, Kiev, capital of Ukraine and Armenia’s capital city Yerevan, are the five most popular destination for Russian tourists in the former Soviet Union, according to online hotel reservation service Oktogo.ru, the Armenian News agency Arka reports.

Annonsørinnhold

Hoka på salg: Kupp årets modeller til nedsatt pris

Oktogo.ru service determines the most popular cities and resorts in the former Soviet Union, chosen by Russian tourists to spend their summer holidays.

The rating is based on hotel reservation data from August 1 to 31 made by tourists traveling without the help of travel agencies.

In August the top 10 of Oktogo.ru also includes capitals Baku (Azerbaijan), Astana (Kazakhstan), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), Chisinau (Moldova) and Tashkent (Uzbekistan).

The cheapest city is Bishkek, where a Russian tourist spends 1,200 rubles per day on hotel accommodation and the most expensive is Baku (more than 6,000 rubles).

In Minsk, the average price of a hotel room is 3,000 rubles; in Tbilisi it is 3,200 rubles and 3,100 rubles  in Yerevan.

Russians who have their holidays in August spend on average 4 days while visiting former Soviet republics as tourists and 9 days when they choose a sanatorium to improve their health.

The top 5 most popular resorts among Russian tourists in summer are Batumi (capital of Adjara in Georgia), Gagra (Abkhazia), Klaipeda (Lithuania), Sukhumi (Abkhazia) and Cholpon-Ata (Kyrgyzstan).

The cheapest of these destinations is Sukhumi, capital of Abkhazia, where a hotel room is worth t 1,400 rubles a day.

Other most popular countries for Russian tourists outside the former Soviet Union are Thailand, Vietnam, and Cuba. 

Oktogo.ru is an online service for hotel booking around the world, offering more than 500,000 hotels and apartments.

Source: www.arka.am

#Abkhasia #Adsjaria #Almaty #Apartment #Armenia #Aserbaidsjan #Astana #Baku #Batumi #Bisjkek #By #Chisinau #CholponAta #Cuba #Destinasjon #Ferie #Gagra #Georgia #Helse #Hotell #Hovedstad #Hviterussland #Jerevan #Kasakhstan #Kiev #Kirgisistan #Klaipeda #Litauen #Minsk #Moldova #Reise #Republikk #Resort Russland #Reisebyrå #Reisemål #Sanatorium #Sommer #SovjetUnionen #Sukhumi #Tasjkent #Thailand #Tbilisi #Turisme #Ukraina #Usbekistan #Vietnam 

#Abkhazia #Adjara #Azerbaijan #Belarus #Bishkek #Capital #City #Destination #Health #Holiday #Kazakhstan #Kyrgyzstan #Lithuania #Republic #Russia #SovietUnion #Summer #Tashkent #Tourism #Travel #TravelAgent #Ukraine #Uzbekistan #Yerevan

www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

Kenya blir et stadig mer populært reisemål, og stadig flere byer i det øst-afrikanske landet settes på turistkartet. Derfor har Kenyas myndigheter besluttet å utvide flytilbudet med enda flere innenriksflyvninger fra hovedstaden Nairobi, og nå til de to store byene Kakamega og Eldoret, skriver bladet Kapital Reise.

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Oversikt over salgene: De beste kuppene nå

Begge byene ligger vest i landet.

Kakamega er i stigende grad blitt populær blant turister som ønsker å oppleve Kakamega-regnskogen og det imponerende dyrelivet der med over 300 fuglearter og 400 sommerfuglarter.

Eldoret ligger på 2.700 meters høyde og tiltrekker seg klatreglade turister. Med de nye rutene blir det mulig å fly til begge byene daglig, også i helgene.

Flyselskapet Jambojet flyr til Eldoret, mens FlySAX og Fly540 flyr mellom Nairobi og Kakamega.

Kilde: www.kapital.no

#By #Destinasjon #Dyr #Eldoret #Ferie #Fly #Flyselskap #Fugl #Hovedstad #Kakamega #Kapital #Kart #Kenya #Klatring #Nairobi #Regnskog #Reise #Reisemål #Sommerfugl #Turisme

www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

Photo credit: www.ibtimes.co.uk

Annonsørinnhold

Netthandelen tømmer lageret: Siste sjanse på kvalitetsvarer med opptil 75% rabatt

People in London look the most miserable in their selfies while “strong smiles” are found in Sao Paulo and Bangkok, says a researcher involved in setting up a London show about selfies, International Business Times reports.

For its new exhibition Big Bang Data, Somerset House commissioned Selfiecity London, a spotlight on 640 selfies selected out of a total of 152,462 public Instagram images taken in a single week in September in a 5sq km radius around the museum. The show opened on 3 December.

Selfiecity’s eight-person lab compiles and analyses selfies from around the world, the five other cities so far being Bangkok, Berlin, Moscow, New York and Sao Paulo.

On a touchscreen, visitors to the Selfiecity display can introduce filters and criteria – “people from London over 35” or “very small children” – and observe patterns and trends within that chosen subgroup. Globally, the findings showed that every city was unique in its own way, according to researcher Moritz Stefaner.

People taking selfies in London smiled the least and closed their eyes the most, Stefaner said. By contrast, the highest percentages of “strong smiles” were to be found in Bangkok and Sao Paulo, whereas the ratios in Moscow and New York were significantly lower.

“If we look to Sao Paulo, for instance, we can see that people have quite cheerful faces,” he said. “And they tend to tilt their heads quite strongly when taking selfies. And in the software that we built we can find all these patterns. If we jump to London again, faces are much more composed, much more serious and sometimes straight up angry. We don’t know why that is, it might be a weather thing, it might be some other cultural difference.”

London selfie takers included more older men than elsewhere: the average male was 28 years old, versus 26.3 for other cities. The youngest selfie takers of all were to be found in Bangkok, where the average age for females was 20.3 and males 22.7.

“We use automatic image analysis to detect a few things about the selfies so how angry are people, how calm are they, how much do they smile,” Stefaner said. Moscow had by far the highest proportion of female selfie takers – 82% of them were women.

Read the article at www.ibtimes.co.uk/london-crowned-capital-city-grim-selfies-1531853

Source: www.ibtimes.co.uk

#Bangkok #Berlin #BigBang #Brasil #By #England #Ferie #Foto #Hovedstad #Instagram #London #Mobil #Moskva #NewYork #Reise #Russland #SaoPaulo #Selfie #Show #Smil #Software #Somerset #Storbritannia #Telefon #Thailand #Turisme #Tyskland #USA #Utstilling

#Brazil #Capital #City #Exhibition #Germany #Holiday #Mobile #Moscow #Photo #Russia #Smile #Telephone #Tourism #Travel #UnitedKingdom

www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

Oslo

Annonsørinnhold

Oversikt over salgene: De beste kuppene nå

Norway’s capital city Oslo announced plans to divest its US$9 billion pension fund from coal, oil and gas companies as did 19 French cities and others from around the world, cities-today.com reports.

The divestment bandwagon sprung to life at COP21 as campaign group 350.org announced the divestment plans of the cities and an array of other institutions ranging from Europe’s largest pension fund Allianz to the London School of Economics.

Oslo will become the first capital city to completely divest itself of fossil fuels and joins Münster in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Uppsala, Sweden and Melbourne, all of which have committed to go fossil free.

In announcing these measures and more, Kevin de León, California State Senate President, whose seat lies in Los Angeles, outlined how the world’s seventh largest economy has grown while cutting carbon emissions.

“You can decouple and delink carbon from GDP,” said de León. “This is not a white paper or a study. We have created 500,000 jobs, half-a-million in the renewable energy sector.”

This year, California passed Senate Bill 185, which forced the state pension plans”the largest in the US?to divest from coal companies. De Leon stated that US$0.5 trillion of assets will be coal-free. The Bill is the first measure of its kind in the US.

COP21 host nation France led the divestment charge with 19 cities endorsing the policy including Lille, Bordeaux, Dijon, Saint-Denis, Rennes, Ile-de-France and others.

On 25 November, the French National Assembly adopted a resolution encouraging public investors, companies (especially those in which the state owns shares) and local authorities not to invest in fossil fuels anymore. The resolution is the first step to formalising the policy as law.

Stephen Heintz, President of Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and other panellists emphasised the economic sense of divesting from fossil fuels as well as the moral imperative. He noted that when his business made the decision to divest in 2014, businesses with around US$50 billion in assets had chosen to divest. After 14 months, that figure has shot up to around US$2.4 trillion.

The result, as former French Minister for Development Pascal Canfin (now senior advisor at the World Resources Institute) pointed out, is that fossil fuel companies’ share prices are tanking with, for example, coal companies in Australia down 95 percent.

Read the article at www.cities-today.com/oslo-becomes-first-capital-city-to-shun-fossil-fuel-Companies

Source: www.cities-today.com

#Australia #Bordeaux #By #California #Dijon #England #Ferie #Frankrike #Gass #Hovedstad #IleDeFrance #Klima #Kull #Lille #London #LondonSchoolOfEconomics #LosAngeles #Melbourne #Miljø #Minister #Nasjonalforsamling #Norge #Olje #Oslo #Parlament #Pensjon #President #Reise #Rennes #SaintDenis #Senat #Storbritannia #Sverige #Turisme #Tyskland #Uppsala #USA #Utvikling #Victoria

#Capital #City #Climate #Coal #Development #Environment #France #Gas #Germany #Holiday #NationalAssembly #Oil #Parliament #Pension #Sweden #Tourism #Travel #UnitedKingdom

www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

Photo credit: airlinesanddestinations.com

Once regarded as a minnow amongst the big Scandinavian and Nordic airports, Iceland’s Keflavik Airport has been expanding, and continues to do so at a very fast rate, centreforaviation.com reports.

It is still a minnow relatively speaking – Stockholm Arlanda, Copenhagen and Oslo Gardermoen airports all handle in the region of 25 million passengers each year or more,

while Helsinki Vantaa Airport handles around 16 million. Compared to this, Keflavik Airport’s 3.9 million passengers in 2014 is small fry indeed in the land of the codfish.

But its growth rate of over 20% was more than three times greater than the average rate recorded by those four peer airports. Moreover, Keflavik’s monthly passenger growth so far this year (Jan-2015 to Oct-2015) averages almost 26%.

This report looks at what is causing that growth, which airlines are driving it (focusing on flag carrier Icelandair), and how the airport authority is going about catering for it.

It also throws some light on what has made Iceland one of the fastest growing tourist – and transit – destinations and how that remains a conundrum for both Keflavik Airport and Icelandair.

As an airport representing the capital city, Keflavik is only a regional giant when compared to Vagar, which serves Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands (around 250,000 passengers annually) or Kangerlussuaq, the hub airport for Greenland, which handles much less than that.

So for comparison purposes only the four main capital city airports are dealt with here.

Read the whole article at http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/keflavik-airport-and-icelandair-are-booming-but-it-is-uncertain-their-success-can-continue-unabated-255267 

Source: www.centreforaviation.com

#Arlanda #By #Danmark #Ferie #Finland #Flyplass #Flyselskap #Færøyene #Gardermoen #Grønland #Helsingfors #Helsinki #Hovedstad #Icelandair #Island #Kastrup #Keflavik #København #Norden #Norge #Oslo #Passasjer #Reise #Reykjavik #Skandinavia #Stockholm #Sverige #Torshavn #Turisme #Vagar #Vantaa

#Airline #Airport #Capital #City #Copenhagen #Denmark #FaroeIslands #Greenland #Holiday #Iceland #Nordic #Norway #Passenger #Sweden #Tourism #Travel

www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

Baku

Annonsørinnhold

Superkupp innen sport og friluft du gjør nå

Following the tense relations between Turkey and Russia, Russian tour operators are looking for alternatives to visiting Turkey and they are currently reviewing Georgia, georgiatoday.ge reports.

At a meeting in Omsk city, managers of local tour companies announced they do not consider the “closing” of the Egyptian and Turkish market the biggest problem for Russian tourism. They highlighted that Russian holiday seekers could head to Batumi, Georgia’s Black Sea coastal city and capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara,, instead of Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, or Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.

Batumi

According to Yuri Lokhmankin, director of the travel company “Compass-M” with 20 years of work experience in the tourism industry, Turkey is an important touristic destination for Russian tourism, but it isn’t the only one.

“I think that there are some problems with Turkey, but it isn’t so bad we cannot solve it. We have more than enough places to go on this planet, attractions, resorts, seas, oceans and more. I think the problem is with the choice we won’t have for the next year,” Lokhmankin stated.

According to director of the “Eurasia-Tour” company Larisa Savostianova, the tourism industry in Russia goes back to 1999.

“Now we are developing Azerbaijan and Georgia as alternatives to Turkey’s touristic destinations. Remembering those tours that have been before, believe me, today Azerbaijan is like the Emirates.”

Lokhmankin supported his colleague and added that “if Batumi is a small Abu Dhabi, then Baku is Dubai.”

According to the director of the tourism agency “Russkurort” Tulegen Bekmagambetov Russia was an important provider for the Turkish tourism market and if Turkey is closed off for years it will lose its position as the number 1 resort country.

Mr.Bekmagambetov emphasized that Russia should work on replacing Turkey in the tourism market.

Read the article at www.georgiatoday.ge/news/2167/Russian-Tourism-Agencies-Consider-Georgia-Alternative-to-Turkey

Source: www.georgiatoday.ge

#AbuDhabi #Adsjaria #Aserbaidsjan #Attraksjoner #Baku #Batumi #By #Charter #Dubai #Egypt #Emiratene #Ferie #ForenteArabiskeEmirater #Georgia #Hovedstad #Omsk #Reise #Reisebyrå #Republikk #Resort #Russland #Svartehavet #Tbilisi #Turisme #Turoperatør #Tyrkia

#Adjara #Attractions #Azerbaijan #BlackSea #Capital #City #Emirates #Holiday #Republic #Russia #Tourism #TourOperator #Travel #TravelAgency #Turkey #UnitedArabEmirates

www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

Singapores nyåpnede nasjonalgalleri holder til i denne bygningen – Old Supreme Court Building, som tidligere har huset både landets høyesterett, og fungert som rådhus – City Hall, for Singapore. Bygningen i kolonistil i St.Andrew’s Road ble oppført på 1930-tallet, mens Singapore ennå var en britisk koloni.

Enten du er interessert i kunst, eller bare har et ønske om å bli litt mer kulturell, er bystaten Singapore verdt et besøk. Der finnes nemlig flere kjente museer, og 24.november i år åpnet også landets første nasjonalgalleri, skriver Dagbladet.

I tillegg til en samling av sørøstasiatisk kunst fra 1800-tallet og fram til i dag, bør du sjekke ut hagen på takterassen, med fantastisk utsikt over Padang mot Marina Bay.

Kilde: Dagbladet

National Gallery Singapore: www.nationalgallery.sg

#Arkitektur #Britisk #By #Ferie #Galleri #Hovedstad #Høyesterett #Koloni #Kultur #Kunst #Museum #Nasjonalgalleri #Reise #Rådhus #Singapore #Terasse #Turisme

www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at hovedsteder@gmail.com

Carlson Rezidor styrker sin posisjon som det ledende internasjonale hotellkonsernet på det afrikanske markedet og legger nå til Ghana og Uganda i porteføljen, med åpningen av henholdsvis Radisson Blu Hotel Accra Airport og Radisson Blu Hotel Kampala, skriver bladet Kapital Reise.

Hotellet i Ghanas hovedstad Accra vil inneholde 207 rom og åpner dørene i løpet av 2017. Hotellet i den ugandiske hovedstaden blir et eksklusivt hotell med 195 rom, og vil ta imot de første gjestene i fjerde kvartal 2016. 

Carlson Rezidor åpnet sitt første hotell i Afrika i 2000 – Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotell i Cape Town, Sør-Afrika. Siden da har kjeden bygget opp et nettverk av 51 hoteller og 11,.500 rom i 21 ulike land på det afrikanske kontinentet.

Med 30 hoteller under bygging har kjeden dessuten den største porteføljen av hoteller og rom under utvikling i Afrika.

Les mer på www.rezidor.com

Kilde: Kapital Reise

www.kapital.no

#Accra #Afrika #Airport #By #CapeTown #Ferie #Flyplass #Ghana #Hotell #Kampala #Radisson #Rezidor #Reise #SørAfrika #Turisme #Uganda #Waterfront