Hotel and restaurant news

Training is what determines whether traveling with your pet will be easy and enjoyable or no fun at all. A calm, well-mannered pet who likes to be around people is a joy to be with. Dogs and cats are social animals, and training helps your pet to communicate with you by putting human words to dog and cat behaviors. If you think your pet needs ...

There's only one thing lonelier than sleeping alone, and that's...eating alone." So philosophizes a regular patron at the restaurant featured in Mostly Martha, a wry movie about a love-starved chef. Yes, indeed, some people will endure anything -- even a life-time of bad sex -- just to avoid eating solo. On the other hand, M. F. K. Fischer, the late, great food and travel writer, gloried in ...

Female general managers are still a comparative rarity in the hotel industry, but Shamini Pather, GM of The Royal Palm Hotel in Umhlanga, is convinced they have the ability to do the job and warns with a smile that they could even take over the grip on the big jobs held by men. Recently appointed GM of the hotel on Palm Boulevard, Pather, who began her ...

Naples and Amalfi Coast  Top budget pick This stretch from Sorrento to Salerno is heavily discounted in winter and early spring. Temperatures can be cool then, but the reason to go remains beauty---whether from off-road belvederes, or amid gardens in Ravello. Good deal: SITA blue line buses from Sorrento to Salerno. Canada Top budget pick  If you like Maine and bargains, you'll love the Canadian province of New Brunswick, just ...

Hurricane Season in the Caribbean lasts from June 1 through November 30. Although it's rare to see a large storm in either June or November, you can never be sure what Mother Nature is going to do. Here's some helpful information on how to weather any storms you might encounter while traveling in this region. Airlines If you are scheduled to fly into an area where a ...

Protea Hotel Southern Belle is one of the largest houseboats on Lake Kariba, Africa’s largest artificial lake. The luxury vessel offers its guests the chance to take in the wildlife and sunshine in a leisurely manner. The trip to the boat requires a flight into Lusaka International Airport followed by a three-hour trip to Manchinchi Bay, on the north-eastern end of the lake, where the ...

InterContinental Hotels & Resorts will highlight work that its hotels around the world are doing to sustain and enhance their local destinations throughout the week. In partnership with National Geographic’s Centre for Sustainable Destinations,  Responsible Business Week will see InterContinental hotels from around the world take part in activities that ensure their location remains an appealing place to visit for future generations. Building on the success of ...

By request from a number of businesses in the tourism and hospitality industry, the closing date for entries in the 2011 Imvelo Responsible Tourism Awards programme has now been extended to Wednesday, 7 September. The awards are organised by the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (Fedhasa) in conjunction with Absa, the National Department of Tourism, Eskom, the Industrial Development Corporation, the Department of Water Affairs ...

Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington Laid out in 1840, Stoke Newington's Abney Park is one of the "Magnificent Seven" private cemeteries (of which Highgate and Bromptonwent on to greater fame) created when parish graveyards could not cope with Londoners' propensity to pop their clogs. Now kept as a woodland memorial park and nature reserve, it's one of the city's most peaceful spots. Don't miss the chapel, ...

In this third part of a five-part series, Susan Reynard chats to management and staff at Hilton Sandton to find answers to the burning question: What brings guests back? Human resources and training departments take care of the mechanics of a hotel – staff. And as every hotelier knows, your reputation as a business and a brand is in the hands of your staff. Ensuring that ...

To help you make the most of your time in London while you're at the Olympics, we have launched a new version of our interactive guide to the city compiled by Guardian writers, bloggers and local experts. As well as all the good stuff we've been adding in the build-up to the Games – such as Tony Naylor's guide to the best budget eats around ...

In recent decades, Catalan cuisine has undergone a transformation as Catalonia continues to rediscover its roots and identity. Experimental cuisine d'auteur in Barcelona has transformed this Mediterranean port city into one of the hottest culinary destinations in Europe. Below are ten classic restaurants that currently reign as a few of the city's best: Botafumeiro On Gracia's main thoroughfare, Barcelona's finest Galician restaurant mobilizes fleets of waiters in ...

The authenticity of reviews on the TripAdvisor website is to be probed by the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). A firm called KwikChex has suggested that as many as 10 million reviews on TripAdvisor could be fake. TripAdvisor allows consumers to post reviews of hotels, holidays and restaurants and has 45 million visitors each month. South African hoteliers have been concerned about the veracity of some of the ...

Venton Vean, PenzanceOwners David and Philippa Hoyes admit to being guesthouse novices (they were London lawyers in a former life) but there's nothing amateur about their classy little B&B. In a quiet street, a hop and skip from the seafront, it has three immaculate bedrooms – think cornices, cast-iron fireplaces, white-painted floors, cool colours (greys, blues, aquamarines), contemporary furniture and a dash of vintage. You ...

by Lisa Oppenheimer Anyone who has ever flown with a small child can attest to the challenges. Take one toddler, put him in an enclosed space, make him sit still for three or more hours, and voila: unhappy camper.  Still, it is possible to navigate the friendly skies with child and your sanity. It's mostly a matter of thinking ahead. For starters, reserve early. Not only will you ...

First things first: I need a decent brunch so head to The Riding House Cafe on Great Titchfield Street (ridinghousecafe.co.uk) for a pitcher of Bloody Mary and a smoked haddock kedgeree. After getting lost in Topshop and looking at trainers I can't afford in Niketown, I leave the hordes on Oxford Street behind and head down Argyll Street to find the entrance to Aqua Kyoto ...

ECCBehind an unmarked door, up some stairs and set over two storeys of a townhouse, you'll find a super-sexy Parisian cocktail bar, with good dance music, gorgeous decor and a vibe that is super French and super cool. The French owners also run three of Paris's best bars. The cocktails (most around ?10 each) are exquisite and unusual, and include vintage cocktails mixed from spirits ...

Alan Winde, the Western Cape’s Economic Development and Tourism Minister, is in Luanda with a delegation of 78 South African companies, including 21 from the Western Cape, on a trade and investment mission to Angola. At a pre-trip briefing session, Winde explained that the mission forms part of the Western Cape Government's plan to increase exports from the region and grow the local oil and gas ...

Wave dodging and walking at Sennen cove, Land's EndSome of Cornwall's wildest beaches can be a hassle to access with kids and their paraphernalia. But Sennen cove provides eye-popping scenery, sandy-bottomed surf and facilities galore: bang-on-the-beach cafe, beach-side parking, surf hire, loos and seafront shops for supplies and souvenirs. While you can spend all day making footprints in the sand and dodging the shore-break, it's ...

The email announcing that 50 rooms at Dartington Hall have been refurbished in a bid to attract leisure guests, tells a fraction of the story. The hall is on an estate on the banks of the river Dart, bought, in the 1920s, by the American heiress Dorothy Elmhirst and her husband Leonard, son of a Yorkshire curate. He had graduated in agriculture from Cornell in New ...

Crab House Cafe, Wyke RegisI've known the Crab House since it first opened, serving fresh shucked oysters picked from its own oyster beds just outside the restaurant's front door. Oysters – in fact seafood of all sorts – is a passion of Nigel Bloxham the owner and chef, and the cafe is perfectly situated to buy fish fresh from the Portland and Weymouth day boats. ...

Where: Channel Islands National Park lies a few miles off the California coast between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Why: Although the islands are within a day's drive of 12 million people, they receive far fewer visitors than the faraway Galapagos Islands. Yet, like the Galapagos, the Channel Islands are a nature-lover's paradise. There are thousands of plant and animal species here that are not found ...

In this issue: Aruba, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, and Shikoku Island... Indulge: Deep-sea water therapy in Japan For spa junkies who think they've seen it all, Japanese cosmetics guru Shu Uemura's Utoco Spa, on Japan's remote Shikoku Island, is the place for you. Uemura began using mineral-enriched deep-sea water in the 1990s to create his famous skin treatments. At his deep-sea therapy center, Uemura uses this ...

For years, Marseille has been unfairly disparaged as the armpit of France. All the carping began back in the 1970s when this sprawling seaport of 800,000 became a magnet for international drug cartels. A fondness for corruption among the city's politicians didn't help matters, and agitation between the landed gentry and a large immigrant population has fueled decades of racial tension. In recent years, however, Marseille ...