A router for the pocket
Visitors to Shizuoka can now make use of a pocket router for Wi-Fi Internet connectivity in Japan at absolutely no cost and have Shizuoka City Tourism to thanks for this service.
A router for the pocket
Visitors to Shizuoka can now make use of a pocket router for Wi-Fi Internet connectivity in Japan at absolutely no cost and have Shizuoka City Tourism to thanks for this service. The only condition is that the tourist promises to take a picture of the service centre at Shizuoka JR railway station and post it on the social networks. The visitor can take the router across Japan and leave it at the airport wherever they fly out. The router is available at Shizuoka JR Railway station from 9am to 5.45pm daily excepting December 29 to January 1. Call (+81-54) 253 1170.
All that jazz
British jazz-pop singer and songwriter Jamie Cullum recently launched the Asia-Pacific chapter of the “Jazz Legends at St Regis” series with a gig at the St Regis Bangkok’s Drawing Room. Introduced earlier this year at the St Regis Washington DC, “Jazz Legends at St Regis” is an intimate set of performances scheduled to take place at St. Regis properties around the world. The series celebrates contemporary jazz while simultaneously bringing a modern interpretation to beloved tunes played at the brand’s flagship hotel in New York in the 1930s and 1940s.
Mighty on the Mekong
Member countries in the Mekong River region should build up long-term strategies and action plans to boost co-operation of river-based tourism in the future, the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) told participants during a recent workshop in Da Nang, Vietnam. Each country has lot of potential to draw many more visitors to Mekong River. The country should invest in infrastructure and facilities in matching the service from country to country, the world body said. Ports, accommodation, navigation, environment and services should also be developed in each country to handle river-based tourism. – Viet Nam News/ANN
Tighter border control for EU
The European Union (EU) plans to tighten external border controls, performing more detailed checks on its own citizens as well as third country nationals. EU justice and interior ministers met in Brussels last week to discuss ways of ratcheting up security and countering terrorism, in response to Paris attack by Islamic State. Two of the suspected terrorists who died carrying out the attacks in Paris are thought to have entered the EU via Greece, posing as Syrian refugees. The rules of Europe's border-free Schengen zone make it harder to identify these individuals, as they are entitled to travel freely within the bloc, and generally undergo less rigorous checks than non-EU citizens when they enter.
Indonesia boosts tourism
The government has announced its aim to attract one million Japanese tourists to Indonesia by 2019 on the back of revamped tourism policies. I Gde Pitana, deputy of overseas tourism development at the Tourism Ministry, said recently that the number of Japanese tourist arrivals had begun to show significant annual increases. The ministry recorded data showing 500,000 tourist arrivals from Japan in 2014 with the number predicted to grow to 600,000 by next year. The government recently issued a free visa policy for tourists from 90 countries, including Japan, in hopes of bolstering foreign tourist arrivals to this year’s target of 10 million. |– The Jakarta Post
