Argophilia

Αργοφιλία: For the love of the journey.

World

Pandemics and Other World Health Cataclysms

Aleksandr Shatskih

You don’t have to be a rabid conspiracy theorist to imagine calamity. For many people in the world, living today, calamity has been a fact of life. Just look at Fukushima residents, Japan as a whole, or dozens more places anyone could name. Nothing is more horrifying, and somehow interesting too, as the dynamic of human catastrophe. Maybe this fact is because we are often at our very best during such times.

Wyndham Names Joel Goldman VP Development

Aleksandr Shatskih

News from Wyndham Hotel Group, Joel Goldman was appointed Vice President of Development for the group for the UK and Western Europe. Goldman, who has spent the past couple of years with Luxury Hotel Partners in the US, has also previously been Director of Cushman & Wakefield Hospitality, will now report to Michael Poynter, Senior Vice President and Managing Director EMEA.

Seattle Great Wheel Now Open

Aleksandr Shatskih

After several months of construction, Seattle residents and visitors can enjoy the historic Seattle Great Wheel. For nearly 30 years, Seattle businessman and restaurateur Hal Griffith longed to create a Ferris Wheel for the city, but encountered many setbacks to its development over the decades. Workers eventually realized Pier 57 would be an ideal location and completed the project in under a year.

Tune Hotels To Award Exciting Trip Along Silk Road

Aleksandr Shatskih

Tune Hotels will sponsor a winner to explore the ancient Silk Road. Beginning August 5, 2012, and approximately 30 other explorers will begin a month-long four-wheel drive (4×4) expedition spanning over 10,000 kilometres along China’s piece of the Silk Road. The journey begins in Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in western China bordering Tajikistan and ends in the Chinese northern city of Tianjin, near Beijing.

Tuscany Suggestion: Hotel Castello di Casole

Phil Butler

For those of you headed to Tuscany this Summer, the 41-suite boutique Hotel Castello di Casole is one option that should not be overlooked. Located on a most picturesque 4,200-acre estate, the hotel offers not only a wellness center and superb regional cuisine, but incomparable vineyards and a wondrous game reserve too. Timbers Resort’s announced the grand […]

Tune Hotels Touches Down in Bangkok, Thailand

Aleksandr Shatskih

Following on from the runaway success of its Pattaya and Hat Yai properties, Tune Hotels has announced the grand opening of its third hotel in Thailand, and its first in the capital city Bangkok, on October 1, 2012.

Airline Consumer Protections Need Polishing

Aleksandr Shatskih

After almost 35 years after the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, an advisory committee is established to review airline consumer protections, whose rights will be defended by the director of the Consumer Travel Alliance, Charlie Leocha.

Library Hotel Collection Moves With WIHP

Aleksandr Shatskih

Selected to reinvent all Library Hotel Collection’s websites, hotel marketing agency WHIP expands their already considerable brace of interdependent hotel clients with four extraordinary boutiques in New York, and more to come from Budapest to Toronto in the coming weeks. The hospitality sensation of ITB Berlin, WIHP Convert website design renders a result ending the way Every hotel website should look like, at least according to Robin Wauters at The Next Web.

Olympic Torch Passes Through Dumfries

Aleksandr Shatskih

The lovely Scottish town of Dumfries was this morning’s temporary host for the Olympic torch on its last leg through Scotland. Everyone in Dumfries along with tourists in town for the big event or just visiting got up fairly early in the morning to get down to the town center and see the torch passing by while […]

Travel IQ Quiz: Are You Ready for Vacation?

Aleksandr Shatskih

Ready to test your vacationability quotient? Okay, maybe you don’t have to be a professor of geography to take a trip, but tweaking your sense of wonder and place is not a bad idea, is it? We started a series of fun questionaires last week, and thought this week’s contingent should be a little more challenging.