2013年5月30日星期四

Arnica is nondrowsy, has no side effects


Sleep problems can turn a good vacation bad overnight. Luckily, there are a number of natural options for improving sleep. At the most basic level, you can try an eye mask and earplugs to block out stimuli. china silk road tour Dr. Brainard recommends a magnesium supplement before bed to "promote relaxation and calmness." For more stubborn sleep issues, she suggests Herb Pharm Relaxing Sleep Tonic, an "herbal blend with valerian, sold in a small one-ounce size convenient for travel." Aching muscles everywhere prove that airplane seats were not designed with comfort in mind. If your destination has a bathtub, Dr. Brainard recommends getting into a warm bath full of Epsom salts to help relax your muscles. Another effective treatment is arnica (in homeopathic-tablet or topical-cream form), since it "helps to relieve stiffness, swelling, bumps, bruises, trauma, and inflammation.

Arnica is nondrowsy, has no side effects, and is safe to use with other medications and with children."Silk road tours  Bugs have impeccable taste in vacation destinations. They love beaches, nature, and beautiful sunsets. Dr. Brainard recommends WishGarden Catnip-Oil Bug Spray as an alternative to DEET-based toxic bug sprays. According to Dr. Brainard, "Recent research from Iowa State University shows that catnip oil has produced the best results over other essential oils for bug protection." And if you're one of those people who seems to get mosquito bites no matter what you apply to your skin, Dr. Brainard suggests taking vitamin B1 (thiamine) starting about two weeks before your departure to buggier climes. "Thiamine is believed to help repel bugs by creating an odor undetected by humans that bugs are repelled by," she explains.Dr. Brainard suggests arnica for scrapes and bruises (and since it's also a great option for sore muscles, it really earns its place in any suitcase). She also likes tea-tree oil as a natural first-aid antiseptic alternative. She also suggests Herb Pharm Original Salve, a "soothing topical skin salve made with organic herbs and olive oil and wild-crafted beeswax."

2013年5月29日星期三

IATA under fire for levels of input in NDC creation



Pummeled by charges that its efforts to design the New Distribution Capability (NDC) standards have been unilateral, IATA in November created a steering committee that, Kashgar tours beginning last month, gave nonairline stakeholders a say in setting the agendas for some meetings about its development.Arriving at a standard is essential in order for all parts of the airline distribution channel to exchange data and communicate efficiently. But within that channel, a lot of players brushed off the steering committee concept as offering too little input, too late in the game.Two GDSs, Sabre and Travelport, said the steering committee in no way offered the level of input they are seeking, since it only allows nonairline stakeholders input on setting meeting agendas and leaves them with no decision-making power  or even real input  in the development of NDCAmadeus, has been more conciliatory than other GDSs in public statements about NDC, but it said that travel agencies have been underrepresented in IATA workshops on the proposed standard.

IATA, as a representative of the airlines, is under no legal obligation to seek input from any nonairline persons or groups. But many groups that see themselves as stakeholders insist that for NDC to be embraced widely throughout the distribution channel, it has to meet the needs of GDSs, travel sellers, technology companies and other key players in the air distribution channel."For [NDC] to work, it has to have value for all stakeholders,"silk road group tour said Eric Leopold, director of passenger services for IATA. Moreover, he said that in forming the steering committee last November, "IATA acknowledged that people want to be more involved."What IATA and NDC opponents cannot agree on is what constitutes "involved."The six-member steering committee is limited to setting agendas and discussion topics for meetings of the Distribution Data Exchange Working Group (DDXWG), which consists of 30 entities: 10 airlines, five agencies and 15 technology companies.

2013年5月27日星期一

George has noticed that even extends to the roadways



This is the third summer in a row that a group of Kentucky football players have traveled to Ethiopia for a service trip. On Saturday, the latest bunch of Wildcats did something that none of their predecessors did, visiting two local prisons.The day started with a drive of a little more than an hour from their guest house in Addis Ababa to Debre Zeit, a town approximately 30 miles southeast of the Ethiopian capital city. There, Jonathan George, china silk road tour Kevin Mitchell and Avery Williamson met an Indian family and helped prepare a meal. They cooked a goat, made injera a yeast risen flatbread - and boiled eggs to bring to the prisoners.The two facilities they visited were small, housing between 20 and 30 inmates who are awaiting trial. Along with food, they took along soap, toothbrushes and Bibles."We really got a chance to interact with them because they let us actually hand the food to the prisoners," George said. "One of the guys even asked me for my phone number."

George said he went into the day more curious about the differences between American and Ethiopian prisons than nervous. After getting a first-person view of what daily life is like for the prisoners, George learned quite a bit."It was a great experience," George said. "Of course,Silk road tours  their prisons were a lot different than our prisons. I looked at the inside of their cells and they were all laying on the floor."The three student-athletes found out that inmates are not provided many basic necessities. Instead, they must rely on family members and friends to bring them what they need. Inmates also take care of each other, sharing what they receive from the outside with one another. silk road culture tour That's an outgrowth of Ethiopian culture, something George has seen up close the last three days."They're really accepting of us," George said. "We interact with people everywhere we go. It's been a great experience with the people. They're really nice, generous people."

2013年5月23日星期四

SERS urged to cut travel budget further



State lawmakers are insisting that the School Employees Retirement System board shave an additional $18,000 a year off of its travel budget, saying recently-passed self restrictions do not go far enough.Silk road tours The board set the limit at $8,000 per member last month in response to a controversy surrounding a planned trip to a conference in Hawaii using retirees' money.At the meeting, the council asked the Highway Patrol Retirement System board to adopt the same policy. The HPRS board currently does not have travel limits, although it spends less than other pension boards. Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, agreed that figure is common across the nation. And Jason Seligman, silk road culture tour an assistant OSU professor who moderated yesterday's panel at the Riffe Center, said the Center for State and Local Government Excellence also uses a figure of about 8 percent.

"Remember the background,"Rep. Kirk Schuring, R-Canton, told fellow council members. "There was a change in their travel policy based upon the concerns of not just this council, but the public at large.”Lisa Morris, the executive director for SERS, said board members tend to need more education because most do not have college degrees.The controversy began in March, when three board members were planning to use retirees' money for a conference in Honolulu. All three dropped out of the conference,china tour packages and one has resigned citing health problems.Meanwhile, a trio of pension experts on a panel put together by Ohio State University's John Glenn School of Public Affairs said the state pension funds' assumed annual rate of investment return  about 8 percent  is realistic. State Treasurer Josh Mandel called the assumption into question last week, saying the pension funds are built on a "house of cards"that endanger the retirement funds of current and former state workers."It's consistent with very long-term trends, which is what the pension funds are concerned about,"said Ron Snell, former director of state services for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

2013年5月22日星期三

Bring a Smile to your Customer's Face



Work takes a heavy toll in our life and often to catch up with the rat race we end up making compromises on our social and personal life. So to make things lighter and increase business prospects many companies have come up with travel incentives. Travel incentive is a way through which companies promote their business and sales by offering travel and tour packages to their customers. This is a great way to boost your business, after all who does not like to travel to exotic locations? It is a difficult task to transform prospects to clients and travel incentives is one way through which this task can be done efficiently. Many types of incentives have been tried out on prospects like cash and kind incentive. However it has been found that travel incentives can work wonders and that is exactly why more and more companies are opening up to the idea of giving travel incentive to their prospective clients.
A study that has been conducted on finding out the effectiveness of travel incentives has come up with attractive numbers. It has been seen that businesses have reported a 25% increase in profits after using travel incentives to lure prospective customers to buy their goods and products. Cheap china tour package Products sell really fast when there is tag of travel incentive attached with them. People love to travel and if they get a chance to do this when they buy certain goods, they are more than willing to take up this offer. Today people possess almost all types of material goods, so it becomes difficult to choose material incentives by which you can lure them to buy your goods. In such a scenario travel incentives scores well, because when you give a whole package to a prospective customer as they are bound to take up the offer and end up becoming your customers.silk road travel Recreation travel incentive in fact is cheap for a company, because the companies buy this in bulk and that is why they end up buying the travel or tour package at a much lesser price. Vacations have an everlasting memory and if you are giving out a travel incentive for the entire family, than be rest assured that you will benefit from this.

2013年5月20日星期一

Travel Insurance Put At Risk By Lone Travellers



A rapidly increasing number of Britons is putting their travel insurance at risk by booking different parts of their trip separately, a new study carried out by Marks and Spencer Money has recently revealed.china silk road tour According to the research, an increase in internet availability and usage is responsible for the new numbers: an entire half of British holiday makers book their travels independently instead of using a travel agent. But the drawback of shunning the traditional package holidays is that travel insurance policies may not cover all aspects of an individually booked trip, says M&S.Commenting on the popularity of self-booked holidays, M&S Money revealed, perhaps unsurprisingly due to the recent surge in internet use, that as many as 78% of people with internet access use it to research holiday costs and destinations. According to the study, the most popular reason for a trip abroad is now to see family and friends, rendering the package holiday obsolete.

The research revealed that 29% of Brits now book every element of a holiday separately, meaning that no one company holds overall responsibility: the flight, hotel, and activities are all individually and separately organised. Consequently, travel insurance becomes less reliable. In the past, a travel agent would have been responsible for the entire holiday and, if a flight was cancelled or delayed causing a traveller to miss a later flight,china tour packages  the travel agent would organise alternative travel. However, taking control of booking means taking control of cancellations and delays and can result in extra costs - travel insurance does not properly cover a DIY holiday in the same way it would do a package deal.According to M&S Money, 35% of UK travellers encountered a cancelled or delayed departure during their last trip, 21 per cent of whom were travelling independently and were not covered by insurance. These statistics highlight the importance of adequate travel insurance for solo holiday makers.

2013年5月9日星期四

Funny Money Tricks the Travel Industry Likes to Play



Hold on to your wallet. Businesses don't just want to get their hands on your cash when you're on the road -- they also want more of your money, and on their terms.Take what happened to Gordon Angell when he was visiting La Paz, Mexico, recently. Many restaurants in town display the "Visa" and "MasterCard" stickers, signifying that they accept credit cards.But on Angell's first evening, after finishing a meal at a restaurant, his server informed him the credit card machine didn't work, and pointed to an ATM. He paid in pesos."The following evening we went to another restaurant called The Three Virgins," he says. "We made sure that we asked them if they accepted credit cards and they said 'yes.' Surprisingly, when we offered to pay our bill, it was a repeat of the previous evening. Their machine was 'not working.' They told us to use the ATM."The ploy allegedly uncovered at The Three Virgins is just one of two interesting tricks used by clever businesses to get more of your money when you cross a border.
In a way, these little games assume you won't think about money, and do the necessary math.It's no secret that any businesses would prefer your cash, for example. After all, they don't have to pay any fees to Visa or MasterCard. But saying the business is "cash only" is a turnoff to many tourists, who don't carry a lot of local currency.So in order for the restaurants to have their metaphorical cake and eat it too, they tell a little white lie. Yes, they accept credit cards. But you didn't ask if our machine works. Those naughty virgins!Here's another interesting sleight of hand involving money. It happened to Chris Hynak on a recent stay at Bluebay Hotel in Zanzibar. When he checked in, an employee informed him that all of his incidentals would be charged in shillings, the native currency of Zanzibar."I figured this wouldn't be a problem," he says. "I would simply pay my bill by credit card and have the amount of shillings converted by Visa at the daily rate, which as of today is slightly more than 1,600 shillings to the dollar."

Rolling Stones' First American Show Was At San Bernardino Swing



Pop music's British Invasion of the 1960s gained one of its first footholds right here in Southern California. Silk road tours The Rolling Stones launched their first American tour with a performance at San Bernardino's Swing Auditorium on the night of June 5, 1964. The band's first album, "England's Newest Hitmakers The Rolling Stones," had been released in the U.S. just two months previously.Local promoter Bob Lewis initially had tried to sign the Beatles for the San Bernardino gig, but the deal with a New York booking agency fell through at the last minute and he was offered the Stones as a consolation prize. Lewis remembers, "I had never heard of them, but my son said they were cool, so I said OK."San Bernardino radio station KMEN, which sponsored the show, hyped the Stones on the day of the concert as "Britain's bad boys" and "the ugliest band in England." KMEN disc jockey Brian Lord drove to meet the band, who had arrived in Los Angeles two days earlier, and accompanied them to San Bernardino.

Nowadays, tickets for the Stones' new "50 Years and Counting" anniversary tour that just launched in Los Angeles range as high as $2,375, but tickets to that 1964 show in San Bernardino, which co-starred the Byrds, were only $5. Even at those prices, a less-than-capacity crowd of 3,500 showed up at the 5,000-seat Swing, but fans were enthusiastic.The previous weekend," Lewis remembers ruefully, "San Bernardino High School had held their graduation ceremony at the Swing and stairs had been put in at the front of the stage so graduates could walk up and receive their diplomas. Well, we just left those stairs there for the Stones concert. We were so new at this. We didn't know what to expect. Well, china tour operators with those stairs, there were all these girls rushing the stage during the show. They could just run up there. In fact, one of those girls actually stole Mick Jagger's tambourine. Somebody out there has a real nice souvenir of that concert. "The Stones performed 10 songs that night, including the audience favorite, "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66," the lyrics of which mention San Bernardino by name.Lewis, now 84 and retired, with homes in Claremont and San Diego, remembers, "The crowd was so crazy that the Stones didn't even take a bow at the end. They did what was called a London Exit. They just threw down their instruments after the last song and ran off the stage. "