Mexico´s travel industry is on the road to a new milestone: 20 million tourists and $11 billion worth of revenues in a single year, explained John McCarthy, chief of the country´s National Tourism Fund. The high-ranking official said "no wonder the country is going to step up investment to new record highs this year with as many as $2 billion. A considerable chunk of that cash (35 percent) will come from foreign investors and the rest will be forked over by impresarios from the turf."

An $800 million package, datelined until 2007, will be invested in Argentina’s travel industry with a considerable chunk of those funds being poured into the building of new hotels and restaurants, the Argentina Entrepreneurial Hotel & Gastronomy Federation (FEHGRA is the acronym in Spanish) and the Tourism Hotel Association (AHT) reported this week. In addition to building new hotels, this megabuck investment project pursues the streamlining and reequipping of food outlets and eateries across the country, officials from both organizations pointed out.

A grand total of 924,606 foreign tourists traveled to Chile in the first half of the ongoing year, up a blistering 18.6 percent hike from the first six months of 2003, the National Tourism Service (SERNATUR) reported this week. That inflow of travelers generated $520 million worth of gains for the country, a 30 percent increase from the first half of 2003. “This is an extraordinary growth, the biggest number of tourists ever to visit Chile,” said SERNATUR Chief Oscar Santelices.

During the first seven months of this year, Paraguay’s travel industry registered a whopping 36 percent increase from the same period of time in 2003 as nearly a million travelers (996,096) entered the South American nation. Would the current trend remain unchanged for the rest of the year, the country could well exceed the numbers of tourist arrivals chalked up in 2003 and 2002 when 1.5 and 1.3 million trekkers respectively visited the country, the nation’s Tourism Ministry reported his week.

As part of a $5 billion overhaul that kicked off earlier this week in an effort to cut costs, wages and benefits to workers, Delta Airlines announced its intention to lay off between 6,000 and 7,000 employees within the next eighteen months. The U.S. company’s President and CEO, Gerald Grinstein, explained the air carrier is steadily implementing a cost-cutting plan that will hack off approximately $2.3 billion by the end of 2004.

A senior official of the Jamaica shipping industry says the cruise ship sector continues to be a vibrant and growing contributor to the island´s economy, earning between US$80 million to US$100 million annually. Vice President of Cruise Shipping and Marina Operations at the Port Authority of Jamaica, William Tatham, is also predicting that the sector will grow by 10 per cent growth over the next decade.