The anti-corruption group Transparency International annually publishes a “corruption perceptions index,” which measures the level of government corruption in each country. In the latest index, which was released in November, the majority of the 180 countries analyzed scored below five on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (perceived to have [...]
Posts under ‘Honduras’
USA Today Lays Off Social Media Savvy Travel Editor
In two posts last month, I discussed how USA Today published a review of the new guide book Frommer’s Honduras, which failed to mention anything about the country’s recent coup. It was only a short moment after I sent a “tweet” about the first post before USA Today’s travel editor Chris Gray Faust began to [...]
AP Blamed for Weak Frommer’s Honduras Review
It seems that the Associated Press deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the somewhat misleading story highlighting Frommer’s Honduras that appeared in USA Today last month. The sad truth is that several other publications ran the same exact article. While this doesn’t excuse USA Today or any of the other publications for not [...]
USA Today Gives Frommer’s Honduras an ‘Easy Pass’
A couple of weeks ago I cited a story that appeared in USA Today about Frommer’s first guide book on Honduras as an example of the tendency of the travel media to gloss over the negative aspects of the destinations they cover. [UPDATE: USA Today's travel editor Chris Gray Faust commented: Hi. Just want to [...]
Lonely Planet, Ex-Writer Trade Blows on Travelojos
Two posts last week (here and here) mentioned some disparaging remarks the author of Lonely Planet’s guide to Colombia made about Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The author, Jens Porup, made the unflattering characterizations of these countries in a speech in Bogota before Colombia’s minister of tourism and other highly ranked officials. His comments generated a [...]
I Heart Central America’s Random Taglines
Do tourism slogans actually work? I doubt it. At best, they manage to associate a place with some unrelated, but positive concept–like love. At worst, they make a fantastic punchline about a destination that few people would want to visit. Take one of the oldest travel slogans: “Virginia is for lovers.” I’ve lived near the [...]
Happy Independence Day Latin America
September 16th is a special day for me. Besides being my birthday, it’s Mexico’s Independence Day. Yesterday, September 15th, marks the independence of: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Each one of these Central American country’s broke free from Spain on the same day in 1821. Chile’s Independence Day is Sept. 18th, while [...]
Tourists Safe in Honduras Despite Coup, Experts Say
American citizens should defer all non-essential travel to Honduras until further notice, the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa recommended today in a public announcement. The notice was issued in response to the events surrounding the coup of Honduras President Manuel Zelaya. The government of Honduras has imposed a curfew from 9 pm June 29th to 6 [...]
