Travel Stories and News for 4/21/2009 : Kathika Travel Website

Below is a list of travel stories and news for 4/21/2009

Study says: hotel guests want high-tech amenities – via gadling
Times are changing for hotels – for years, hotels were judged for the quality of their toiletries, or how many stars their restaurant managed to score, but hotel guests are increasingly paying attention to the high tech features at the hotel.

High Speed Rail Going Nowhere Fast – via cbsnews.com
It sounds lovely, but before you go to sleep with visions of bullet trains dancing in your head, it’s worth examining the numbers more closely. Any real-life high-speed rail system on the scale Obama is promising would be vastly more expensive than the $13 billion he has committed; in fact, it would require close to half of the $787 billion contained in his recently passed stimulus package.

Your tour operator is bankrupt — so who pays your hotel bill? – via Elliot.org
There’s an interesting story developing north of the border involving a bankrupt tour operator, several Caribbean resorts and thousands of vacationers. When Canadian tour company Conquest Vacations closed its doors last week, it left many of its bills unpaid. Now hotels are essentially forcing their guests to pay their hotel bills twice, often using heavyhanded and threatening tactics.
photo credit: Giorgio Montersino