The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) released its 2005 Travel and Tourism forecasts for 174 countries and the world and an assessment of the impact of the Indian Ocean Tsunami on the industry today at the 5th Global Travel and Tourism Summit in New Delhi, India. Releasing forecasts prepared on its behalf by Oxford Economic Forecasting, which follow the United Nations standard for Tourism Satellite Accounting, the WTTC reported that the record robust recovery started in 2004 should continue through 2005 at a healthy rate.

Latin America has won back a considerable chunk of the investment confidence it lost last year and chances are there´ll be a major cash flow in the course of 2005, according to a research study presented by Dresdner Bank Lateinamerika, a German bank. The report entitled Perspectives for Latin America in 2005 called the ongoing raise of foreign investment in the region impressive. All in all, the region is expected to grab roughly $50 billion in direct investments, up a blistering 60 percent from 2004.

Delta Airlines disclosed Tuesday plans to restructure its technical operations unit in a bid to save $240 million over a period of five years. The troubled airline, negatively impacted by rising fuel costs and tight liquidity, mentioned in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, that it plans to outsource heavy maintenance on the MD-88 and MD-90 planes from Avborne of Miami, Florida.

The airline industry will lose an estimated $5.5 billion in 2005, the International Air Transport Association chief executive said at a conference on Monday. Attributing a bulk of the loss to high fuel costs, IATA CEO Giovanni Bisignani said at an air finance conference in New York that fuel hedging levels will fall to 20 percent in 2005 from 40 percent in 2004.

The feverish tourist pace that thumped in Cancun and the Mayan Riviera these days is expected to go on undisturbed into the summer, even though the numbers won’t be that high when spring breakers come to enjoy their vacations, said Dario Ocampo, tourism secretary in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. Mr. Ocampo is confident that as we speak, the local travel industry is registering sellout occupancy rates, even though many visitors came in advance for the Holy Week festivities and the end of the spring breaker season is far from over.

Scuba diving tourism in the Caribbean could lose up to 85 percent of its gains by the year 2015 if the destruction of coral reefs goes on unnoticed, that according to a report issued by the World Resources Institute (WRI), an environmental think-tank. Nearly 60 percent of the world´s coral reefs are being threatened by human activity and although they cover less than one percent of the earth´s surface, coral reefs are the most productive ecosystem in the sea and yield approximately $375 billion in goods and services each year, according to the Cousteau Society.