Foreign briefing: Tourism still vital in hard-hit Australia

1. Australia

Australia has had one of its more disastrous summers. Floods, fires and cyclones have affected nearly every state, and recovery will take a long time.

Worst hit was the state of Queensland, which suffered through historic floods only to face one of the largest cyclones Australia has seen. The disasters affected the capital, Brisbane, along with holiday locations such as the Sunshine Coast, Townsville and Cairns that are popular departure points for the Great Barrier Reef.

The reef itself, popular with divers, has escaped relatively unharmed. Some coral sites around Cairns have been significantly damaged, but others are unscathed, according to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

“The Great Barrier Reef is large, and while Cyclone Yasi has had a terrible impact on some communities, the impact on the reef itself is localized,” a spokesperson for the authority said. “Tourism operations across most of the reef are still open for business.”

People hoping to visit the reef need to check ahead before they plan their trips. As of last week, tourism operators in Townsville, the Whitsunday Islands, Cairns and Port Douglas were up and running, but other places, such as the islands of Dunk and Hinchinbrook, weren’t ready for visitors. In unaffected areas, deals were to be had, such as lodging in Whitsundays that started at $70 a night a couple.

Tourism in the southern state of Victoria, which also experienced record flooding in January, has been less affected. Grampians National Park was open (although some areas remained closed), for instance, as were the towns of Wartook, Dunkeld and Halls Gap.

In the rest of Australia, bushfires earlier this month around Perth in western Australia had minimal impact on national parks, and they did not affect the city. Flooding in the northern part of New South Wales had minimal ongoing impact on popular beach destinations such as Byron Bay.

Info: Queensland Tourism and Whitsundays, https://www.queenslandholidays.com.au; Parks Victoria, https://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au.

— Jennifer Bennett

2. Thailand

Pattaya, one of Asia’s most popular beaches, could disappear in less than five years, a victim of intensified coastal erosion hastened by sea currents and city development. The eastern Thai beach is losing several feet of sand each year, scientists say.

— Reuters

3. Estonia

The Viru Hotel in Tallinn has opened clandestine rooms that were used by the Soviet KGB secret police during the Cold War. The new exhibit, “Viru Hotel and the KGB,” includes equipment used to tap guests’ telephones and relay communications to Moscow.

— Reuters

4. Britain

Some London homeowners are asking up to four times the normal rent for their apartments around the April 29 wedding date of Prince William and Kate Middleton. The city’s roughly 120,000 hotel rooms are expected to fall far short of demand by royalty buffs.

— Associated Press

5. Canary Islands

After a scuffle broke out, police removed more than 100 of 168 passengers from a Belgium-bound Ryanair plane preparing to take off from Lanzarote island, a spokesman for Spain’s Interior Ministry said. Ryanair said passengers “became disruptive and refused to comply with crew instructions” after a requirement to pay a gate bag fee “for outsized luggage.” The displaced fliers had to find other carriers.

— Associated Press

Caution spots

The State Department recently issued warnings or alerts for these areas:

Bahrain and Tunisia, because of the potential for ongoing political and social unrest.

Britain, because of the potential for terrorists to attack transportation systems.

Egypt, because of the ongoing security and political situation.

Mali, because of kidnapping threats against Westerners in the north of the country.