The International Airline (GIA)incurred a pre-tax loss of $84 million as a result of the 2007/8 hajj operations, the Secretary of State for Works, Construction and Infrastructure, Lamin Bojang has told parliamentarians.“GIA has registered a turn over of $241 million, while total operating expenses amounted to $157 million” SoS Lamin Bojang said.He went on to state that GIA contracted and paid for 600 block hours from Euro Atlantic Airways when it needed only 210, adding that the company could not find a buyer for the remaining 390 block hours.According to the SoS, GS Aviation has failed to honour the terms of the agreement with GIA. “I wish to point out that the GS Aviation has not made any investment in GIA during the first year of the management contract, contrary to the terms agreed on.However SoS Bojang said that given this very poor performance, “my Department of State is currently reviewing the contract with GS Aviation with the aim of formulating a new management plan to improve the performance of the enterprise.” Responding to questions on road construction, the SoS stated, that during the past ten years, five trunk roads were constructed, while only three feeder roads were completed in the period, 2006-2008. He reiterated Government’s desire to rehabilitate major roads but added, “Notwithstanding, government is aware of the importance of feeder roads and has embarked on their rehabilitation as well.”Mr Bojang finally stated that a nationwide feeder road program has been submitted to the EU for consideration and funding.”In a related development, the Secretary of State for Forestry and the Environment, Momodou Kotu Cham, also responded to questions concerning the Bijilo Forest Park. In answering questions by Baboucarr Nyah, honourable member of Banjul South, the SoS noted that it is not the government’s intention to heavily invest in the park.He said plans are afoot to bring in the private sector to increase investment in nature conservation. This includes forests and wildlife parks which have favourable eco-tourism potential. These may include Bijilo Forest Park,” he concluded.
Daily Archives: September 1st, 2008
BRISBANE–> will need an additional 3000 hotel rooms in the next 10 years to meet demand, says Brisbane’s peak promotional agency.Brisbane Marketing chief executive John Aitken says city hotels continue to be packed during the week, and visitors often struggle to find accommodation.”Brisbane has an 80 per cent occupancy rate which is high and we know, due to the amount of business travel, there is often so much demand during peak business weeks that hotels have to turn away guests,” Aitken says.
He says Brisbane Marketing’s Invest Brisbane team, together with Tourism Queensland and financial services group KPMG are working on a feasibility study for more five and six-star hotels. “The reason we are doing this is because the availability of hotel rooms of a suitable quality plays an important role in the depth and diversity of the economic development of a city,” he says.Aitken says there are ways to make hotel investment viable apart from raising room rates, and Invest Brisbane’s study will examine ways to encourage development. “Mixed use seems to be the most common approach at present,” he says.
Aitken’s comments come after John Hudson, managing director of property group Thakral, told The Courier-Mail last month Brisbane’s top-end hotels would need to increase their room rates by 50 per cent to attract more investment.Hudson, whose company portfolio includes the Sofitel Brisbane, says despite the city’s need for more hotels, investors are not willing to commit to projects because returns are so low.While several mixed-use, boutique-style hotels are in the pipeline, Action Group Australia is the only company planning a stand-alone hotel.The company plans to build a 316-room, four-star hotel in Elizabeth St.
Managing director Andrew Nehme says a shortage of office space in the city means most developers are not considering a move into hotel construction.”If a developer has a choice between office and hotels at the moment, they’re going to go office because of the return,” Nehme says.
JETSTAR passengers stranded on Thailand’s popular resort island of Phuket will board a plane today headed for .A Jetstar spokeswoman said a charter flight from the airline will depart Sydney Airport this morning at 10am (AEST) and land at Phuket by 4pm local time.An estimated 263 holidaymakers became stranded on Friday when Phuket and two other airports in Thailand’s south were closed following an eruption of political unrest in the country.
Once the passengers board the flight, it will depart at about 6pm local time today and arrive in Sydney tomorrow morning around 6am (AEST).All Jetstar passengers who began their trips from another destination will be transferred to flights headed for their point of origin. Passengers who flew on other airlines will be responsible for their own return trips home.”It’s an evolving situation,” the Jetstar spokeswoman said.
Before Phuket airport resumed flights yesterday, about 15,000 airline passengers had been stranded since anti-government protesters marched on the island’s airport on Friday, forcing a cancellation of all the nearly 120 daily flights.Similar protests closed down the airport in nearby Krabi and the southern commercial centre of Hat Yai, although Hat Yai has since reopened. The anti-government protests are centred on Bangkok, where up to 25,000 people have occupied the main government complex calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.The protests turned violent on Friday when activists
clashed with police, and about 35 people were injured.
A GIANT 11-month-old baby who is already the size of an eight-year-old is baffling doctors who are trying to establish how the ballooning bub got so huge.According to Britain’s Daily Mail, the Columbian baby already weighs a whopping 28 kilos, the average weight of an eight-year-old boy in the country.The normal weight for an 11-month-old baby is between 6 and 7kgs.The baby’s mother, Milena Orosco de Agudelo, said her son started ballooning at just two months old., the Daily Mail reports.”He had some test done and the results show that he has a thyroid malfunction,” said Ms Orosco.But doctors want to carry out further tests on Ms Orosco’s baby son.Doctor David Dias, of the Barranquilla Pediatric Hospital, said: ‘The baby will undergo more tests to see if he’s obese or we’re dealing with hyperthyroidism.’
