Canaries, parakeets and zebra finches will no longer chirp from small cages in the shadow of Notre Dame cathedral, after Paris voted to close its 19th-century bird market, deeming it inappropriate for this day and age. Held on Sundays, the market on the Ile de la Cite island in the Seine river has been a magnet for tourists and Parisians with children for decades, but an animal rights group’s campaign against it and plans to renovate the site led to a city council decision to close it. “The market had become the epicentre of bird trafficking in the Paris region, including of endangered birds,” Paris deputy mayor Christophe Najdovksi told Reuters. “A second reason for closing it is that the conditions in which the birds are presented are no longer acceptable,” he said. ...
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15-year-old polar bear male, called Nord, has moved to Ranua Zoo in Finland on Monday February 22nd, 2021 Nord came from Denmark, Skandinavisk Dyrepark. Nord was born in Moscow Zoo and the transfer was performed due to recommendation from EAZA´s (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria) polar bear coordinator. Nord left Denmark on Friday, February 19th, and he arrived to his new home on Monday morning. The transportation went well and Nord had a good appetite the moment he got to his new den. Nord will spend first days in his new home by getting used to his surroundings and his new keepers, and he might be hiding in the den occasionally. If all goes well, he will meet the female, Venus, later this spring. So far they will live in their own enclosures, and cubs are not expect...
Read MorePrevented from travelling abroad by the pandemic, Kazakhs are flocking to the magnificent glaciers of the Tian Shan mountain range near their country’s biggest city, Almaty. “The number of tourists last year was several times bigger than in previous years, especially local tourists,” says mountain guide Mikhail Kamirasov. “People can’t go abroad now and they have started going to the mountains. This is literally a pilgrimage site now.” A tourist visits the Oktyabrskaya cave of the Bogdanovich glacier located in the Tian Shan mountain range near Almaty, Kazakhstan February 20, 2021. REUTERS/Pavel Mikheyev Kamirasov takes visitors to the Bogdanovich glacier 3,500 metres (11,500 feet) above sea level and featuring a bowl-shaped formation which some have used to produce otherworldly ...
Read MoreAnantara Golden Triangle offers unique virtual field trips for children in lockdown
Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort has introduced a complimentary service for school children in lockdown that stars elephants in a personal call live from their natural habitat in Northern Thailand’s ancient jungle. During the video call, children around the world can virtually participate in a jungle field trip of unique and once-in-a-lifetime elephant experiences, including the resort’s Walking With Giants signature experience that provides an optimum way of getting to know the elephants and develop a deeper emotional connection with them. The community initiative follows the success of the luxury resort at the confluence of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, and the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation’s (GTAEF) twice-daily livestreams of rescued elepha...
Read MoreWith vaccine passport on the horizon, Thailand hopes to welcome tourists in 3rd quarter
Vaccine Passports are going to become a reality soon and they are certainly going to help in resurrection of COVID-battered travel and hospitality sector. Passport, or a documentation of COVID vaccination will prove you as safe from either contracting an infection or infecting others. Such travellers will face lesser restrictions and quarantine free travel. Thus, ailing tourism industry can start welcoming tourists again. Many countries and organisations have already bee working in this direction. Thailand has said that it nears vaccine passport and can now hope to welcome tourists in third quarter. European Union is mulling vaccination passports as well, with possibility or EU countries reaching an agreement on Thursday. Global airline industry body IATA has been already working on it...
Read MoreBritons rushed to book foreign holidays after the government laid out plans to gradually relax coronavirus restrictions, giving battered airlines and tour operators hope that a bumper summer could come to their rescue. Bookings flooded in on Monday evening and Tuesday following the government’s announcement on Monday that travel could restart from mid-May, with Spain and Greece the most popular destinations, airlines and holiday companies said. However, travel industry is yet not happy with the announced plans, as it feels that delaying the return of international travel until at least mid-May, could mean the Travel & Tourism sector simply won’t survive and struggling SMEs will just disappear. EasyJet said that bookings on its flights from Britain for this summer had jumped b...
Read MoreThailand has welcomed golfers from South Korea for the country’s new golf quarantine programme in a bid to boost tourism revenue hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. About 40 South Koreans are undergoing quarantine at Artitaya Country Club, an hour north of Bangkok, where they were tested on arrival last week, Tourism Authority of Thailand deputy governor, Thapanee Kiatphaibool, has said. Thailand has been successful in controlling coronavirus cases, but strict border controls have decimated its tourism industry, with revenues dropping by 83% as it went from 40 million visitors in 2019 to 6.7 million last year. The golf quarantine programme is drawing only a small fraction of around 250,000 South Korean golfers who visited Thailand in 2019, but officials hope it will grow at...
Read MoreBrussels’ cavernous basilica is one of the largest churches in the world but COVID-19 rules allow only 15 people at a time to attend mass there, the same limit applied to much smaller religious venues in Belgium. Dozens of worshippers of different religions and clergy demonstrated in the centre of the Belgian capital on Sunday calling for a change to the rules. Parishioners, who can only gather in a group of maximum of 15 people at the same time in the building, attend a mass in the Belgium's national Koekelberg basilica, one of the largest churches in the world, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Brussels, Belgium February 21, 2021. REUTERS/Johnny Cotton “Here, more than in any other building in Belgium, this law is an incredible absurdity,” said the Catholic ba...
Read MoreTourists curious about Russia’s imperial past can now ride on a special train running through the Ural mountains along the route travelled by some members of the royal family before their execution in 1918. The train making the three-hour journey between Yekaterinburg and Alapayevsk is equipped with a royal family-themed wagon where tourists can try on clothing similar to that worn by Russian nobility in the early 20th century. Upon arriving in the town, tourists are taken by bus to places of importance in the lives of the royal family members who were killed there. “On the night of July 18, 1918, eight people were thrown in here alive,” priest Father Serafim said, pointing to a snow-covered mineshaft. “These included Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fyodorovna (Romanova)”. ...
Read MoreZiggurat hopes to bring together several faiths – and hopefully lure more visitors
Pope Francis is due to hold an inter-religious prayer service at the ancient Mesopotamian site of Ur when he visits Iraq next week - an event local archeologists hope will draw renewed attention to the place revered as the birthplace of Abraham. Popular with Western visitors in the 1970s and 1980s, Ur is scarcely visited today after decades of war and political instability shattered Iraq’s international tourism industry. The coronavirus crisis now also keeps local tourists away. A general view of the ancient archeological site of Ur, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Abraham, ahead of the planned visit of Pope Francis, in Ur near Nassiriya, Iraq February 18, 2021. REUTERS/Mohammed Aty Located about 300 km (200 miles) south of the capital Baghdad, the site comprises a...
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