The Morning Call
Joburg’s top spot in Africa
As usual, we did updates on travel and tourism on the continent, starting with South Africa where a study from the annual Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index says Johannesburg is Africa’s most popular shopping destination in 2016.
The index revealed shopping accounted for the largest percentage of visitor spending‚ followed by accommodation and dining out.
Cape Town came in second place‚ Lagos‚ Casablanca‚ and Cairo completed the top five African cities in that order.
Tests begin for ‘fastest train in Africa
We also took a look in to Morocco, early this week the country tested Africa’s first high-speed railway with trains reaching 320kilometres per hour that’s about 200 miles stretch.
Morocco’s TGV, which gets its name from the French abbreviation for high-speed trains, is set to enter service in summer 2018.
The total cost of the project is around $2.4 billion with 50 percent financing by France through various loans.
The train is targeting six million travellers a year after three years of operations. Officials said tickets would cost about 30 percent more than those for the current rail link.
Rwanda holds World Travel Awards event
For the first time the World Travel Awards is being held in Rwanda.
The outstanding event is taking place and in fact winding up today in the country’s capital, Kigali, at the Radisson Blu Hotel & Convention Centre ; The event kick started on Tuesday, with hundreds of leaders from across the hospitality industry in attendance.
As WTA celebrates its 24th anniversary this year, each year, the event continues to cover the globe with a series of regional gala ceremonies staged to recognize and celebrate individual and collective successes within each key geographical region in the tourism sector.
This will be the first time that WTA has held an official event in Rwanda, putting the African country on the map as a growing tourism hub.
Air mauritius,Air seychelles, kenya Airways and south african airways were nominated for the world’s leading airline 2017.
Why you should not travel for plastic surgery
Here is an interesting story of some ladies who traveled for plastic surgery but can’t fly back home.
The three Chinese ladies in question were detained at an airport in South Korea because their puffy post-plastic-surgery faces looked nothing like their passport photos. They showed officials their tickets and travel documents but still could not prove they were the same people in their passports.
The unidentified women flew last week to the nip-and-tuck mecca during China’s Golden Week, a national holiday in which residents are encouraged to take paid vacations.
It was unclear whether the women had returned to their home country as yet. Well, for those planning on going for facial surgery, you might need to rethink.
Watch the report!
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