The European airline Norwegian will soon open its first crew base in New York. The next base in Fort Lauderdale will be opened during the first quarter of 2014. Norwegian is the first European carrier to establish crew bases in the Unites States and to offer several hundred jobs to American crew. Norwegian’s entry into the U.S. market will also create millions of jobs in the travel- and tourism industry.

Thailand Koh Phi Phi’s pioneering barefoot luxury dive resort Zeavola recently furthered their environmental efforts, leading a team of conservationists and nature-lovers in a garbage sweep of the waters and shores of Chong Kiew beach and Nui Bay. While the resort’s main beach is cleaned up to three times a day, the other two nearby beaches are exposed to the monsoon winds and can only be cleaned after the weather pattern changes in early November.

Participation in EMITT increases every year, new countries take their place, medical tourism and winter tourism become a brand with EMITT Fair. Amongst the countries taking place in EMITT Exhibition for the first time are Nepal, Mauritius, Cambodia and Mongolia as well as Greece who come together under a single roof for the very first time in EMITT Fair which is getting ready to set a new participation record.

In 2013, airberlin was once again able to increase capacity utilization. In yearly comparison, Germany’s second-largest airline company increased capacity utilization by 1.3 percentage points, to 84.9 percent. airberlin transported a total of 31,535,867 passengers, making 2013 the fourth year in a row to exceed the 30 million passenger mark. The available seat kilometers (ASK) for 2013 amounted to 57.251 billion and the revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) amounted to 48.575 billion.

Hotel rates remain stable in German cities + Zurich, London and Moscow remain the most expensive cities in Europe +New York has the most expensive room rates in the world. The average price for hotel room nights remained stable in most German cities in 2013. Hotels in the trade fair city of Cologne saw the most significant increase in price with an average of three per cent.

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, is celebrating a year of record-breaking success after achieving its highest ever passenger and cargo volumes in 2013. Nearly 12 million people flew with Etihad Airways last year, marking a significant increase of nearly 16 per cent in comparison to 2012’s figure of 10.3 million.