Travel News Monkey

Lithuania is fast gaining reputation as a tourist destination that offers stunning scenery, imposing architecture, and great food and drinks at low cost. Forests, sands, lagoons, and the Baltic invite visitors who were deprived of enjoying all that Lithuania had to offer during the Soviet era.

The Dead Dunes, once home to fisher folk now house remains of their residences buried under the shifting sands. The unique Spit, a UNESCO World Heritage site, attracts tourists in droves and is well-connected via a scenic route to Klaipeda. Klaipeda is the third-largest city in Lithuania and its only port. The route is lined with beautiful Scandinavian-style houses, fishing villages, and quaint hotels. Lithuania is trying hard to attract British tourists. It has in its favor great outdoors, good food which is exceptionally cheap, bars, and five national parks that cover diverse fauna and flora.

Read more about what to expect on a visit to Lithuania.

A high-powered British committee has recommended taxing low-cost foreign airlines that are taking traffic away from Britain and to foreign tourist destinations. The committee has proposed a VAT on aviation fuel in order to protect domestic tourism. Travelodge director of communications Greg Dawson has stated that in the period from 1995 to 2002 when no-frills flights gained momentum inbound tourism spend fell by 16% implying that Britons were being lured away from domestic tourist spots because of the attraction of cheaper air travel abroad.

During the same period, outbound tourism spends increased by 48%. Dawson considers not charging VAT as equivalent to subsidizing the budget airlines by the government, a move he says will lead to a tourist trade deficit of £25 billion by 2020.

It does appear that Dawson is coming down a tad too harshly on the budget operators who are opening up Britain for tourists from other countries. He claims that a 10% reduction in the number of overseas flights, presumably by the low-cost carriers, will create more than 31,000 jobs in the UK in the next 12 years and at the same time generate £1 billion for several British seaside resorts.

Along with Eastern Europe and the Asian sub-continent, Egypt too has jumped on to the medical tourism bandwagon and is doing well. Health tourism has become a lucrative trade for Egypt because of the prohibitive cost of medical care in Europe and America. This, coupled with low travel costs, Egypt’s already healthy tourism industry, and a good infrastructure has led to the country establishing itself as one of the forerunners of medical tourism. 1 in 10 patients from the EU opts for medical treatment outside his own country. Not only are Egyptian hospitals and health care centers benefiting but also the entire economy is experiencing a positive trickle down effect.

Tourists that come for medical attention provide business to hotels, restaurants, shops, etc. Health tourism or medical tourism is not a particularly modern phenomenon; in ancient Greece Epidaurus was a popular destination for those who wished for the god Asclepius to cure them of their illnesses. As far as Egypt is concerned, inspite of its reputation as a tourist destination, the country still does not have a mature health care outsourcing industry. The reason is lack of awareness amongst tourists and poor advertising by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism.

The country has an impressive 1350 natural springs with waters that have myriad therapeutic uses. Recently, the MoT and the Egyptian Tourism Authority hosted an ambitious conference to promote health tourism in Egypt. Such information dissemination will also help establish greater co-operation between public and private sectors. Egypt hopes to increase the number of tourists to its shores to 11 million by 2012 and to this end it hopes that medical tourism will play a big role.

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One great advantage of a shoestring budget for traveling is that you get to experience the places you visit more closely; there is a sense of adventure plus you get to find out how good a financial planner you are. Fortunately, the internet has opened up a lot of options for the intrepid traveler. Take a look at these sites and find out if you can avail the advantages they offer.

Sites such as www.nectar.com and airmiles.co.uk offer reward schemes wherein your points do not expire and the air miles earned come in handy when you wish to travel. If you have been tardy in accumulating reward points then worry not! Budget airlines are there to ensure that you get to reach your dream travel destination. These include Ryanair and EasyJet. Sites such as www.ebookers.com are a good source for comparing prices of fares.

Sites such as www.couchsurfing.com and www.hospitalityclub.org can help resolve your accommodation woes. Through these sites you can get in touch with kindly and kindred souls who are willing you to offer some food and a couch to sleep on. Most members are from the US and Europe with a fair number from Australasia as well. The best thing is that your hosts do not expect reciprocation and they host you for free.

Another great concept furthered by the internet is that of home-swap. You can list your property on sites such as www.homebase-hols.com and homelink.org.uk describe your property nicely, post some flattering pics and voila you could have streams of visitors coming to you requesting to swap their digs with yours for the period of their vacation. There are many members from Britain and its former dominions. If you have a home that is well-located to suit the tastes of travelers looking to see the city, the country, or get a bit of both then you really are in luck, you may not have to book a hotel ever again for your stays abroad.

A little bit of research will tell you that there are many places in Europe that are inexpensive to visit and yet offer all the delights that the tourist within you itches for. Countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, etc are worth considering. How would you like to travel, gain work experience, and benefit the world at the same time. You can do all of this if you have the time and inclination. You can look up no-cost placements at www.org.uk, if you are lucky you could find work in places as diverse as archaeological digs in the French Caribbean, South and Central America, as well as Asia.

Foreign travel is becoming an increasingly expensive thing for American tourists and the dollar is showing no signs of appreciating in the near future. For the sake of example consider this – five years ago, a hotel room priced at $200 Canadian cost $126 when it took just 63 U.S. cents to buy one Canadian dollar. Now the same room costs $200 U.S., a 60 percent increase.

If the room was 200 euros, the cost in American dollars was $210 at an exchange rate of $1.05 to one euro; now, with the rate at $1.47, it’s $294, up 40 percent.

A neat article here by Carol Pucci lays down some useful and common sense thumb rules for travelers.