Three news stories from Hawaii this week, all oif which are related.  First, Hawaii's travel arrivals dropped last year (2007) about 1.2% from the previous year (2006), mostly due to the economic crisis in the US mainland.  This year is likely to be flat, as well.

Residents across the islands are complaining about the impacts of illegal vacation rentals on their communities.  The second story talks about this issue on Kauai, which is trying to keep its rural character in the face of growing tourism pressures.  The third story covers the same issue on Oahu, which banned vacation rentals many years ago.

All of today's stories come from eTurboNews.com.

Three travel and tourism news stories today (30 Jan 2008):

1. Kenya's recent political problems and resulting ethnic violence have  had a devistating impact on the country's once thriving tourism industry.
2. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) recently announced plans for a border-free travel region among its 10 countries by the year 2010.  That is not very far off.  Will they be able to deliver?
3. Three people on an Alitalia flight were arrested for refusing to turn off their cell phones which were interfering with the plane's navigation system and caused an aborted take off from Milan, Italy.  they face up to 3 months in jail.

 (It is alreay January 30th here in Singapore!)

Three stories from Singapore's Straits Times newspaper from last week:

Two hydrofoils full of tourists collided in fog between Hong Kong and Macau, sending many to the hospital.

India starts a campaign to protect foreign female tourists from sexual molesters -- mostly groping, which seems to be a major problem in that country.

 The US is still trying to gain back the international tourist arrivals that it received prior to 9/11.  To do this, an increasing number of states and cities are running advertisements for the first time in Europe.

These stories came from the local newspaper in Singapore.  I found the links above by searching online for similar stories.