Japan and the Tsunami

It's difficult to articulate the scenes we have seen coming from Japan; with rolling 24hr new coverage, we see the disaster unfolding before our eyes. Of course, Japan is no stranger to earthquakes; for nearly half ah century after the great earthquake of 1923 devastated Tokyo and the surrounding area, causing the deaths of more than 100,000 people, no new buildings were allowed of more than two or three storeys and when, in the 1960s, skyscrapers were eventually allowed, they had to be built to the most exacting standards to cope with earthquakes of the most extreme violence.

Whatever is said about the safety precautions in the construction of nuclear plants and the shaking that people experienced in the earthquake, there have been few reports of large buildings collapsing as they did in New Zealand.

But then perhaps that has tended to lull the Japanese, as it has so many people in advanced economies, west as well as east, into thinking that they had nature tamed. In the post-Second World War years of prosperity and expansion, millions moved from the villages and the fields to the cities and the suburbs.

Japanese culture remains ever-conscious of a rural past and the world of nature. Vengeful spirits and overwhelming forces is the stuff of theatre, cinema and popular art. But it is no longer preoccupies everyday life, until now.

The vast majority of people live in the cities and work at commerce, their lives filled with the sounds of the modern world and the electronic gadgets. Japanese culture is now an urban one and a modern one, just as is happening now in China. No more than in Europe or America does the rhythm of life allow for major disasters where the power of Man and his machines is made to look puny. That is going to be a shock to Japanese society once it recovers from this catastrophe.

Nearly every reporter has commented on the orderliness and apparent calm with which most Japanese reacted to biggest seismic shock for a century. That is no doubt a tribute to the training every child and citizen undergoes for just such an emergency. But it is too easy to confuse that with a spirit of obedience in the populace.

The earthquake and tsunami have struck after nearly a generation of economic stagnation and political paralysis. Japan has had five prime ministers in four years and a change in government two years ago has brought little sense of change or new ideas. The Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, is widely dismissed. The government's standing has been dented by a series of corruption scandals. If it wasn't for the growth of the Chinese market, the resilience of its manufacturing industry and a propensity of its citizens to save, Japan would be on the list for the next crisis in the financial markets. Voters don't expect the system, or the politics, to open up in the foreseeable future.

The fact that Japan's population has borne this situation so patiently to date is less as a consequence of obedience than because there has been no great reason for uproar. The country is wealthy and cohesive enough to maintain a relatively high standard of living, with few external pressures. There is, and always has been, in Japan an overiding sense of fatalism about life, which induces resignation and political passivity.

It is hard to believe that a catastrophe of this magnitude will have no effect on the society and politics. Anyone who knows the way Japan revived after the Second World War and became such an unstoppable success in the 1960s, or who witnessed the way it responded to the oil shocks of the 1970s, can doubt the determination and the ability of the country to pull itself round.

Tsunami in Japan

Incredible footage of the Tsunami as it hits the coast of Japan.

New Government Tourism Strategy - A rant

The new Government Tourism Strategy proposals were published last week and have been met with mass indifference all round.

The problem is it that it fails both the outbound and inbound sectors at the same time by not addressing the tax issues intrinsic in both. Instead of cutting sky-high taxes such as VAT and air passenger duties, which are putting visitors off coming here, ministers instead chose to tinker with bank holiday dates.

Ok, so they said they would move the Bank Holiday (Hurrah) and that we would see and enjoy the benefit from increased traffic due to the Olympics (Mmm, not sure about that one), but the Government's report, while acknowledging the calls for lower taxes, says that, while it will keep the matter under review, "the financial position we inherited means we must give priority to our fiscal base".

In other words, we'll keep VAT and all the other taxes just as they are!

In a nutshell, VAT, APD and TOMs have become the most pressing concerns for the industry as their high rates are making UK tourism most uncompetitive and travel more expensive.

While many European countries have actually reduced APD to encourage activity, the present Government increases it. The Government consistently fails to see the benefits to the UK economy of a buoyant overseas holiday industry and the lack of it in tourism strategy only reinforces this.

The British Hospitality ­Association report said cutting VAT on hotel rooms to 6.5%, as they have in Germany, would help create 236,000 jobs over the next five years and boost visitor numbers. Clearly, we are missing out on an opportunity to create 236,000 new jobs. Britain has just come bottom out of 133 countries for price competitiveness.

And the policy does not address the biggest problem affecting inbound tourism. If you are a company based here trying to sell the UK abroad, you suffer a huge competitive tax disadvantage.

Most visitors coming to this country from long-haul markets (such as North America or Asia) buy their holidays through tour operators. In this country, they are taxed under the Tour Operators' Margin Scheme (TOMS). TOMS is applied to the margin between the cost of the components and the price charged to the consumer.

This margin is not profit. It contains everything not directly supplied by another company. All in-house supplies and all staffing are taxed under TOMS, as are agents’ commissions, marketing, and sales costs. These expenses are the process of adding value. TOMS is thus a levy on the investment made in order to assemble, sell, and deliver visitors to the UK. For a long-haul operator, it is equivalent to a corporation tax of 800%.

If a company is based outside the EU, TOMS is not collectable and so not paid. Thus nearly all incoming operators that sell to consumers are now based off-shore.

Conversely, as this tax is on “services supplied in the EU,” all non-EU holidays sold in the UK (say, to Turkey or to Florida) are untaxed. Thus TOMS is a tax on exports and grants tax-free status to our tourism imports.

For a UK-based company, it is overwhelmingly more sensible to invest in selling non-European holidays than to try and sell a UK holiday to a visitor.

This problem is not actually to do with the level of VAT, but the way in which it is applied to exports. We desperately need to attract visitors to this country. But the process of doing so is subjected to a punitive level of taxation.

Really there should be no VAT on exports which are used abroad. Tourism is an export but the creation of holidays in the EU for visitors from outside the EU is subject to VAT under TOMS. That is different from every other type of export and it’s clearly disadvantageous to inbound tourism.

If the government is serious about encouraging more people to come here, then the Minister needs to go to Brussels and convince the other member states to reform TOMS because there is a massive disincentive on EU-based companies promoting EU-based holidays.

Government Tourism Policy 2011.pdf

Brilliant Icelandair Video

OK. Back to the frivolous. Now I've flown Icelandair many times and they are a brilliant airline - but this video for their new uniforms is barking.

My Icelandic's not up to scratch to be able to work out what they're taking about in the cabin - So if someone could translate I'd be most grateful!

..But I get the gist.

Enjoy (and sorry about the frame size..)

Tahrir Square a tourist destination?

Tourism experts are calling to make Tahrir Square a tourist destination as a memorial to the 18-day protests staged in the square which resulted in the toppling of former President Hosni Mubarak's regime. While we applaud the idea, isn't this just a little premature?

Hisham Zaazou, assistant to the Tourism Minister, said squares worldwide, especially in European countries, have become tourist destinations due to their significance in history. Tahrir Square has become a symbol of a popular revolution, he said. There should be a memorial or an obelisk with photos of the 25 January revolution and a list of martyrs’ names in the square, added Zaazou, who anticipates that tourists will be interested in visiting.

Tourism expert Amr Badr suggested creating a mural in Tahrir Square about the revolution, and making the square part of tour programs.

Abdel Rahman Samir, member of the 25 January coalition, said artists, the ministries of culture and tourism, and governorate officials should coordinate efforts.

Protesters have already created an impromptu memorial in the square that includes photos and information about those who died during the protests.

However, with the departure of President Hosni Mubarak, only the first stage of Egypt's transformation will have been achieved. What follows could merely be a reorganization of the existing system without fundamental progress towards change. The next steps from the opposition are crucial and will essentially decide the direction of the revolution.

The army still holds all the cards, and it is one of their own, General Omar Suleiman, who has already assumed the interim presidency in all but name. As head of the General Intelligence Service since 1993 and a strong supporter of Egypt's pro-western stance, he has warily been accepted by the US as an acceptable face of the transition. But a genuine political and economic transition is clearly what the US now wants, and as the main sponsor of Egypt's military budget, is likely to have been exerting pressure on the army high command from behind the scenes.

Now that the military has publicly stated that it supports the 'legitimate demands of the people', the risk is that the speed of change may be blocked by satisfying the demands of the obvious losers in their midst. If a civilian political establishment is really going to take the place of the army in coming months, the senior military establishment will have to forego some of their considerable financial and material benefits.

The army may well have won plaudits for its restraint until now. If a continuation of military control with an acceptable civilian face is the outcome of the current turmoil, the world will continue to see protests re-emerging, as the reality sinks in that the fundamentals of state power have not changed.

We earnestly hope that a transition to a democratic state occurs peacefully and with open and transparent elections including all parties, including the National Democratic Party.

Then we can start thinking about building monuments, let's just wait a little while shall we?

Countries to Visit #23 - ALBANIA

We did some work in Montenegro last year and had the opportunity to pop over the border and have a quick look at life in Albania. We liked what we saw and so we are please to see this nice little piece in the Independent:

'Albania, a former Eastern-bloc country rebranding itself "a new Mediterranean love," is set to be one of the hottest destinations of 2011.

Named top of Lonely Planet's "countries to visit in 2011" last year and an "emerging destination" by the Financial Times, the country offers low prices, a good climate and a rapidly-developing infrastructure.

Visitor numbers were up 42.5 percent for the first three quarters of 2009, the most recent figures published by Albania Tourism, and although the majority of visitors still come from neighboring states such as Kosovo, Albania is putting itself on the map.

The Financial Times lauded the country's "quiet, affordable Mediterranean beaches" and rugged landscape, while Lonely Planet predicted "Albania won't be off the beaten track for much longer."

So what can this year's tourists look forward to when planning a trip to Albania?

1. Dig. Albania has a long history dating back to the Illyrian, Greek and Roman civilizations and is fast becoming an archeological hotspot again after a lull at the end of Communist rule. Don't miss learning about the history of Durres, which is built on top of the settlements of Epidamnos (or Dyrrachion).

2. Eat. Albania's food reflects its geographic position, partly Mediterranean, partly Asian. Tavë kosi, the national dish, is baked lamb and rice, served with yogurt sauce (phenomenally popular in its own right in Albania).

3. Get outdoors. Albania has a stunning landscape, offering adventure in the mountains and relaxation on the beaches. Don't miss Pogradec and Lake Ohri (on the Macedonian border), the 2.4 million-year-old lake protected by UNESCO for its biodiversity and harboring unique species covering the entire food chain.

4. Sunbathe. Both the Adriatic Coast and Ionian Coast offer beautiful, quiet beaches with warm temperatures, alongside towns with a rich cultural history.

5. Witness. Albania's capital Tirana is a relatively young city (founded 1614) and is still going through a period of intense change from the collapse of Communism over 20 years ago. Infrastructure is improving and the city is being tidied up in an attempt to make it more European - its evolution is a reflection of the country's development as a whole.'

http://www.albaniantourism.com/

We encourage people to have a look, you'll be surprised.

Chernobyl open for Visitors?

We are all for enterprising ideas, new products and exploring new markets but we think a tour of Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4 is probably a tour too far.

Nearly 25 years after Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4 exploded, wreaking nuclear devastation upon the surrounding area, the Ukrainian government is allowing tourists to enter the exclusion zone set up after the accident on official tours starting this year.

Though it was previously possible to tour the disaster zone through private tour companies, 2011 brings the first official and legal tours authorized by the Ukrainian government.

Visitors will tour the 30-mile radius exclusion zone on a route designed to minimize exposure to harmful radiation, and have the opportunity to see the reactor from a safe distance, in addition to viewing how nature has taken over the nearby ghost town of Pripyat, abandoned by its 50,000 residents after the disaster.

The disaster occurred on 26 April 1986, 01:23, at reactor number four at the plant, near the town of Pripyat during an unauthorized systems test.

A sudden power output surge took place, and when an attempt was made at an emergency shutdown, a more extreme spike in power output occurred which led to the rupture of a reactor vessel as well as a series of explosions.

This event exposed the graphite moderator components of the reactor to air and they ignited; the resulting fire sent a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive area, including Pripyat.

The plume drifted over large parts of the western Soviet Union, and much of Europe. As of December 2000, 350,400 people had been evacuated and resettled from the most severely contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. According to official post-Soviet data, up to 70% of the fallout landed on Belarus.

Following the accident, Ukraine continued to operate the remaining reactors at Chernobyl for many years. The last reactor at the site was closed down in 2000.

Fifty deaths, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers, are directly attributed to the accident although it is estimated that there may ultimately be a total of 4,000 deaths attributable to the accident, due to increased cancer risk.

Leave well alone, we think.