Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson will travel to the edge of space on Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc's test flight on July 11, Branson's space tourism firm said on Thursday, beating out fellow aspiring billionaire astronaut Jeff Bezos. A successful flight by Branson aboard Virgin's VSS Unity spaceplane would mark a key milestone in a race to usher in a new era of private commercial space travel. It would also mean that Branson would travel beyond Earth's atmosphere ahead of Bezos, the founder of rival space tourism venture Blue Origin. Bezos, who founded retail giant Amazon.com Inc, is slated to fly to space on July 20 along with his brother, Mark, trailblazing female pilot Wally Funk and a so-far unidentified person who plunked down $28 million to join the suborbital jo...
Read MoreDay: July 3, 2021
It's a quiet day at Jungfraujoch, the Swiss tourist attraction dubbed "Top of Europe", a mountain saddle connecting two 4,000-metre peaks in the majestic Bernese Alps. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 5,500 people a day would visit Europe's highest railway station at 3,454 metres above sea level. Now the spacious cabins of the new cable car pass the Eiger North Face almost empty. "Last year, the number of visitors dropped by two-thirds to 362,800. We expect a similar number of guests this year," said Kathrin Naegeli, spokesperson for Jungfrau Railways. Over a million people visited Jungfraujoch in 2019, about 70% of them from Asia. The Eiger Glacier is seen behind as people sit on the terrace of the Restaurant Eigergletscher near Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland June 28, 2021. RE...
Read MoreAssam Minister for Environment and Forest Parimal Suklabaidya on Saturday formally inaugurated the Dihing Patkai National Park. It is a red-letter day for Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts and the state as a whole that the Dihing Patkai has been created as the seventh National Park, the minister said at a function organised here to mark the occasion. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had declared Dihing Patkai as a National Park on June 5 - the World Environment Day- and the official process was completed with the publication of the notification on June 15. The rich floral and faunal diversity of the park, well known for its rainforest, will soon attain the stature of one of the best national parks in the country, the minister said. He called upon everyone to live in compl...
Read MoreThe World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Visit Portugal and the city of Reguengos de Monsaraz have announced the dates for the 5th UNWTO Global Conference on Wine Tourism. Following the success of the past four editions, the Conference will take place on 9-10 September 2021, in Reguengos de Monsaraz in the Alentejo region, in collaboration with the Government of Portugal. Held under the theme ‘Wine Tourism – a driver for rural development’ in a hybrid format to welcome delegates from all around the world, the Conference will focus on the contribution of wine tourism to social and economic regional integration and its great potential to generate development opportunities in rural destinations. UNWTO Secretary-General, Zurab Pololikashvili says: “It is now more important than ev...
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