sábado, 8 de enero de 2011

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What to expect at theme parks in 2011

California tourism is in a bright spot

Snow hits Lake Tahoe area, Utah, Colorado slopes early and often this season

Lake Las Vegas: Former Ritz to reopen as Ravella hotel on Feb. 11.

Las Vegas: Golden Nugget's new ATM dispenses the real thing [Updated]

How Mexico's drug war affects tourism

Violence has increased, but some areas are relatively safe and airlines are adding flights.

Some Mexican states, such as Baja California Sur, above, remain relatively calm. Across the country, the number of international visitors rose in 2010 despite the drug war. (Dario Lopez-Mills / Associated Press)

What can travelers expect from Mexico in 2011? That's at least a $64-million question, given the many Americans who visit the country every year. And the answers seem to point every which way.

Across Mexico, international visitors and drug-war casualties rose in 2010. As the country moves into its third century — and President Felipe Calderon's drug war moves into its fifth year — experts say both trends could well continue.

Airlines are adding Mexican destinations. Several notable new lodgings are opening, including a pair in southern Baja California and two more in artsy, historic San Miguel de Allende.

Gloria Guevara Manzo, Mexico's tourism secretary, has set a 2011 goal of boosting total tourist numbers by 15%.

And yet, "we're probably going to see similar or higher levels of violence next year," said Charles Pope, assistant director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

The Mexican government counted 12,456 drug-war deaths in the first 11 months of 2010, nearly twice as many such deaths as it counted in all of 2009. Although the violence has been spreading, about 45% of those deaths occurred in two states: Chihuahua (which includes Juárez, the murder capital) and Sinaloa.

Meanwhile, several other states remain relatively calm, including Baja California Sur, which includes Los Cabos and La Paz. (That state reported six drug-war deaths in the year that ended June 30.) In much-visited Quintana Roo (which includes Cancún and Playa del Carmen), 42 drug-war deaths were counted during that time.

In the state of Baja California, which includes Tijuana and the northern half of the Baja peninsula, the drug-war death tally was 352 for the 12 months that ended June 30. That might seem an alarming number, but it marked a decrease from 589 killings a year earlier.

"It's quite remarkable" to see tourism and violence tallies rising together at the national level, Pope said.

In its most recent Mexico warning, on Sept. 10, the U.S. State Department (www.travel.state.gov) outlined how the drug-war trouble varies by region and recapped its longstanding advice about concealing your jewelry, traveling mostly by daylight, staying in well-trodden tourist areas, avoiding gypsy cabs and other measures.

For more advice and regional specifics, look at the guidance the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (www.fco.gov.uk/) gives to Brits bound for Mexico.

And while you're looking, remember that overall travel to Mexico has been rising. In the first 10 months of 2010, Mexican officials say, the country received 8.2 million international visitors by air, business and leisure combined. That's 17.8% more than during the same period in 2009 and 6.4% more than in 2008. The number of Americans in that group — 4.9 million — was up 13.5% over 2009.

Those numbers don't mean the tourist trade is thriving; the continuing deep discounts on Mexican cruises in 2011 are a clear sign that it takes price-slashing to fill beds. But for many businesses, 2010 marked the beginning of the long crawl back after a disastrous 2009, when the drug wars and a spate of fatal flu cases scared away million of travelers.

Though the weak recovery has kept many Americans and Canadians from traveling abroad, Mexico tourism spokeswoman Elizabeth Tjaden said, many see Mexico as a more affordable option.

In Los Cabos, hotel occupancy in 2010 ran about 5% ahead of that in 2009. As the tentative recovery continues, Gonzalo Franyutti, president of Los Cabos Convention & Visitors Bureau, said in an e-mail that he expected many lodgings to offer "added value" deals in the months ahead, while airlines increase Mexico flights.

Earlier this month, Alaska Airlines launched thrice-weekly flights between San Jose and Los Cabos, four flights weekly between San Jose and Guadalajara and three flights weekly between Sacramento and Guadalajara.

Meanwhile, Virgin America on Dec. 16 started flying between San Francisco and Los Cabos five times a week. On Jan. 19, the carrier will start flying between LAX and Cancún (five times weekly), and on Jan. 20, it will start flying between San Francisco and Cancún (three times weekly).

Though recession has delayed or killed many hotel projects across the country, others have been completed.

In the historic expat refuge of San Miguel de Allende, about 180 miles northwest of Mexico City, an upscale 67-room Rosewood San Miguel de Allende hotel is scheduled to open in early February. Opening rates begin at $295 a night (http://www.rosewoodsanmiguel.com).

Also in San Miguel, the boldly contemporary boutique Hotel Matilda, with 32 rooms, opened in September. Mid-January rates begin at $266 weekdays, $295 weekends (http://www.hotelmatilda.com).

In La Paz, the CostaBaja hotel complex open in November on the site of the old Fiesta Inn, with a spa, 250-slip marina and golf course designed by Gary Player. It has been offering its 115 hotel rooms for $139 to $329 (http://www.costabajaresort.com).

In Cabo San Lucas, Grand Solmar Land's End Resort & Spa (the fifth Solmar property in Los Cabos) is scheduled to open in February with 119 suites (solmar2-px.trvlclick.com/solmar.html).

In Mazatlán, the beachfront, 71-room Las Villas Hotel & Spa opened in June within the Estrella del Mar resort area. Pre-tax rates begin at $120 a night for a standard room (http://www.mazatlanhotellasvillas.com).

—Christopher Reynolds

Guías S.E.N. (Sociedad Española de Nefrología)

El caparazón: Vídeos: Cyriak, maestro de la paradoja

El caparazón: Vídeos: Cyriak, maestro de la paradoja.

Vídeos: Cyriak, maestro de la paradoja.

Posted: 07 Jan 2011 02:02 PM PST

Volvíamos el otro día a hablar de Pogo, de cómo el copyright limita la creatividad. Igual de creativo pero en un sentido distinto y creo que más introspectivo recordamos ahora a Cyriak a través de una de sus últimas creaciones, en este caso un video musical: “We got More”.

Representando al ciudadano como ” media”, metáfora del empoderamiento digital y creativo, no queda concepto o realidad que no sea capaz de deconstruir: alturas y suelo, espacios públicos y privados, simetría y caos, lo rápido y lo estático, si Pogo era maestro de la remezcla, Cyriak lo es de la paradoja.

No os lo perdáis, es excepcional:

Su propia presentación en Cyriac.co.uk lo ejemplifica:

Hello, I am Cyriak from 100 years into the future, where I have been exhumed and sent backwards in time via cyberspace in order to welcome you to the unabridged contents of my brain-damaged imagination.

Sencillo y genial también el Homenaje a Mandelbrot (padre de los fractales) que tenéis al principio.

Dejo, por último, una de las primeras creaciones que le descubrimos. Estuvo por aquí hace unos 3 años ya. A ver si os suena….

En fin… añadidos todos a El caparazon Tv, otra de las formas de procastinación que he encontrado estas navidades.

Slow Job Growth Dims Expectation of Early Revival

Mike Segar/Reuters

Job seekers at a career fair at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., this week.

By MICHAEL POWELL and SEWELL CHAN

Published: January 7, 2011

REPRINTS

The year 2010 ended on a disappointing note, as the economy added just 103,000 jobs in December, suggesting that economic deliverance will not arrive with a great pop in employment.

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Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

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The Labor Picture in December

Economix Blog: Comparing Recoveries: Job Changes(January 7, 2011)

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Joanely Carrero was hired full time at a Target store in Miami a week ago. She previously worked there as a seasonal employee.

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Signs still point to a long slog of a recovery, with the unemployment rate likely to remain above 8 percent — it sits at 9.4 percent after Friday’s report — at least through the rest of the president’s four-year term.

President Obama is not unaware of the political dangers posed by high unemployment. On Friday he appointed a new head of his National Economic Council, Gene Sperling, to replace the departingLawrence H. Summers.

The latest report was also a let-down for some within the White House, as recent economic data had suggested that the recovery would gain speed going into 2011. The political stakes are high, as Democrats and Republicans wrestle over who should take credit for the progress of the jobs market, or the blame for its failure to ignite.

“We need collective patience,” said William C. Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business. “You can’t recover quickly from a disaster like we’ve been through.”

With local governments continuing to shed some jobs, all of December’s gain came from private employers. In fact, private employment grew each month last year. The unemployment rate, which is based on a separate survey of households, fell from 9.8 percent in November, though a substantial part of that drop is caused by Americans leaving the work force.

Long-term unemployment, however, remains a malady without an easy cure. The percentage of the unemployed who have been without work 27 weeks or longer edged up last month to 44.3 percent, virtually unchanged from a year ago. Other indicators, such as the length of the workweek, remained stagnant.

The challenge, still unsolved, is how to add enough accelerant to light an employment fire. The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said Friday that he expected economic growth to be “moderately stronger” this year.

“We have seen increased evidence that a self-sustaining recovery in consumer and business spending may be taking hold,” Mr. Bernanke told the Senate Budget Committee in his first testimony to the new Congress.

He was less optimistic about employment, noting that the job market had “improved only modestly at best.” And he added a cautionary forecast: “It could take four to five more years for the job market to normalize fully.”

Mr. Bernanke noted that housing, an enormous potential driver of middle- and working-class jobs, continued to edge downward. The Fed, he emphasized, plans to proceed with its plans to buy $600 billion worth of government bonds, in hopes of stirring more growth.

President Obama, in a speech at a factory in Landover, Md., accentuated the positive, which was a year of private sector job growth. “That’s the first time that’s been true since 2006,” he said. “The economy added 1.3 million jobs last year.”

Left unsaid, however, was the fact that job growth was not enough to absorb people entering the work force in the United States, much less to shrink the unemployment rolls.

R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia University’s business school and former chairman of the council of economic advisers for President Bush, remains a guarded optimist. He sees signs of the economy gaining speed.

“We could run as high as 200,000 per month this year, but keep in mind that might only bring the unemployment rate down to 9 percent,” Mr. Hubbard said. “That does very little for the person who is long-term unemployed.”

The so-called real unemployment rate, which includes those workers who are discouraged or have given up looking for work, stands at 16.7 percent.

Daniel Alpert, managing partner at Westwood Capital, pointed to a disturbing fact in Friday’s report. “We are seeing what appears to be evidence of structural unemployment,” he said, “among those in the prime, higher-earning 35- to 44-year-old demographic, where unemployment actually increased in December.”

The president’s advisers dispute this. Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the council of economic advisers, agrees that long-term employment poses a great challenge, but he says there are few signs of European-style structural unemployment, in which job seekers essentially surrender hope.

“We are not cutting them off and dumping them out the door,” he says. “The biggest help for them is to drive down the overall employment rate.”

In the days leading up to the Friday report, economists pointed to hopeful signs. Consumer spending was on the rise, businesses were spending more, car sales nosed upward. And private surveys pointed to the possibility of a sharp, even explosive increase in hiring by small and midsize businesses.

Mr. Dunkelberg, however, noted that surveys of his membership showed no strong trend toward such hiring. Fifty percent reported they had no need to seek bank loans, as they had little intention of hiring.

“The consumer still has way too much debt and our members are very cautious,” he said. “Their only capital spending going on is to fix a leaking roof.”

Employment growth decelerated a bit toward the end of the year, with the biggest increases coming in October — the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised that number upward by 38,000 jobs on Friday.

Adam Hersh, an economist with the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, recently ran a calculation to see when, at the current pace, the nation would regain the number of jobs lost during the great recession. The answer was 2037.

“Look, we have a huge employment crisis,” Mr. Hersh said.

Much of the growth last month came in the hospitality sector, which added 47,000 jobs. Such jobs, however, tend to provide lower wages and uncertain prospects for long-term employment.

Manufacturing, a source of encouragement earlier this year, added 10,000 jobs. And health services added 36,000, continuing a year-long rise in that area, fed in part by the aging of the American population.

Local governments shed 10,000 workers, fewer than in some past months, and state employment held more or less steady.

For the longer term, economists see hopeful signs. Some take the view that, in retrospect, the recovery of early last year was a false spring, reflecting only the bounce-back from the deep gloom of 2009. Real signs of recovery, including a pickup in shipping and manufacturing, took hold this autumn, they say.

“It’s pretty clear the economy went into a swoon last summer,” said Steve Blitz, senior economist for ITG Investment Research. “Now the real recovery is beginning, and I expect to see improvement.”

But, he acknowledged, he could as easily point to a glass still half empty. American corporations, sitting atop nearly $2 trillion of cash, are not doing much hiring, even as the president and Congress add the carrots of tax cuts and investment incentives. “The most disturbing fact is that you’re not seeing any breadth in the hiring,” Mr. Blitz said. “It’s looking to be a slow climb.”

Christine Hauser contributed reporting
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