Jetsettersblog

Hotel Contempo opened in a tropical-garden setting 11 kilometers from Nicaragua’s capital city of Managua.

The boutique hotel has 18 spacious rooms and suites wrapped in gleaming white marble and local white Travertine tile.

Many have Jacuzzi bathtubs and skylights that peek into the 1.2-acre property’s canopy of mango, avocado and breadfruit trees.

Hotel Contempo has a pool, event and meeting space for up to 300 people, a business center, a lobby piano lounge and bar, a wine bar, and a restaurant serving Mediterranean cuisine with a Nicaraguan touch.

The largest country in Central America, Nicaragua has spectacular beaches on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, thousands of acres of untouched rainforest, a dozen volcanoes, the second-largest lake in the Western Hemisphere, charming historic cities with Spanish Colonial architecture, and friendly, welcoming people.

There are countless opportunities for ecotourism, agritourism, water sports from surfing to deep-sea fishing and adventure activities from canopy zip-lining to volcano sand skiing, all at extremely affordable prices.

Hotel Contempo was designed and built by a prominent Nicaraguan entrepreneur, Jaime Osorio Bustamante, whose family runs a variety of businesses in Central America. Bustamante plans to add 18 more rooms and suites and a spa to the hotel by year’s end, and create a string of Contempo boutique hotels throughout Central America.

Until July 30, Hotel Contempo will offer special opening rates ranging from $110 to $170 a night, including breakfast and Internet access. Shuttle service to and from the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport, a 20-minute drive, is $5 per person.

For reservations, email reservaciones@contempohb.com call 505-2279-9226 or 505-2278- 8949, or visit www.contempohb.com For destination information, visit www.visitanicaragua.com

THIS LINK.

Downtown Colorado, Inc. (DCI), a nonprofit membership organization committed to building better Colorado communities through educational and technical assistance, has launched a Colorado heritage tour website at 

The website is designed to guide visitors and residents in their visits to Colorado’s historical attractions in and around the Colorado Main Street communities.

The Colorado Main Street Program is designed to revitalize traditional downtown districts within the context of historic preservation.

The program uses an approach that advocates a return to community self-reliance, local empowerment and the rebuilding of central business districts based on their traditional assets of unique architecture, personal service, local ownership and a sense of community.

For more information, call 800-265-6723 or visit www.coloradoheritagetravel.org

Marriott Rewards members can now also earn points for booking a cruise with CruisesOnly, a division of World Travel Holdings.

Marriott Rewards members have been able to redeem points for cruises with CruisesOnly since last year — for details, visit www.mr.cruisesonly.com. CruisesOnly offers trips with 17 different cruise lines to destinations around the world, including Alaska, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, New England and Bermuda.

Points can be earned in the following amounts: 3,000 points for purchasing a one- to five-night cruise; 6,000 points for purchasing a six- to eight-night cruise; 10,000 points for purchasing a nine- to 12-night cruise; and 20,000 points for purchasing a cruise of 13 nights or more.

Travelers can book cruises through CruisesOnly on Azamara Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Costa Cruises, Crystal Cruises, Cunard, Disney Cruise Lines, Holland America Cruises, MSC Cruises, Norweigan Cruise Line, Oceana Cruises, Paul Gauguin Cruises, Princess Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Silverseas Cruises, The Yachts of Seaborn, Uniworld River Cruises, Viking River Cruises and Windstar Cruises.

For more information about Marriott Rewards, call 800-450-4442 or visit www.MarriottRewards.com

To underscore the Danube delta’s significance, UNESCO has declared it a world biosphere reservation. Work on a “Natura Trail” is currently being completed as one of 29 such routes all across Europe.

In the Danube delta, visitors tour the trail by canoe, houseboat, or solar-powered ship. The delta of Europe’s second-longest river covers an area of 170,000 hectares along the Romanian Black Sea coast. The delta, with its maze of side arms, forms a reed-covered habitat for over 300 bird species. The flora of the region is home to birds not only from Europe, but those from Asia and Africa as well.

For more information, visit www.romaniatravel.com

Cuba Travel Services, Inc. will relaunch weekly nonstop flights from Los Angeles to Havana next week. Departures will be from Los Angeles International Airport at Terminal 6. Cuba Travel Services, Inc. had to shut down their nonstop Los Angeles to Havana flights due to the Bush administration.

It has been able to restart the service since the Obama administration reversed the Bush administration policy to allow Cuban Americans to once again visit family annually and without limitations on the definition of who is considered family.

In addition to servicing the Cuban American community on the West Coast under the Office of Foreign Assets and Control and U.S. Treasury guidelines, Cuba Travel Services, Inc. will be able to provide a more accessible route and cost-effective travel services to journalists, government officials and researchers that qualify under a general license and sports teams, religious organizations, educational facilities and other organizations or individuals who qualify for and are issued a specific license to travel.

For more information, visit

www.CubaTravelServices.com

El Conquistador Resort in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, has been awarded the AAA Four Diamond Award, joining its sister resort, Las Casitas Village, in receiving the honor.

During a brief ceremony held at the resort, Stan Soroka, managing director of El Conquistador Resort & Las Casitas Village, received the award from AAA Travel Counselor Hugo Rojas, and AAA Division Manager Renaldo Iñesta.

“Our resort is distinct from any other on the island, from our cliff-side location, to our vast array of amenities and services; this award is a reflection of our continuing efforts to provide our guests with the utmost quality, service and experience,” Soroka said.

To qualify as a AAA Four Diamond property, hotels must offer guests an extensive array of amenities combined with a high degree of hospitality, service and attention to detail. Designated AAA Four Diamond properties are also upscale in all areas, including accommodations, which are progressively more refined and stylish.

Furthermore, the physical attributes of the property must reflect an obvious enhanced level of quality by way of the range of facilities and services offered.

Located on the eastern tip of Puerto Rico near the fishing village of Las Croabas along the length of a 300-foot bluff, the El Conquistador Resort spreads across 500 acres and overlooks the converging waters of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

The resort destination offers 750 redesigned guestrooms and suites, a recently opened Coqui Water Park; private Palomino Island, which offers an array of water sports and other recreational activities; a Golden Door Spa; an Arthur Hills 18-hole golf course; a casino equipped with table games and a new collection of slot machines; as well as numerous dining options including an outpost of New York’s famed steak restaurant, Strip House.

For more information, call 888-543-1230 or visit
www.ElConResort.com

www.LasCasitasVillage.com  or

www.waldorfastoriacollection.com

Famous for its green initiatives and proficient use of alternative energy — wind, solar and biofuel — Denmark also leads the world in “pedal power.”

In 2008 the International Cycling Union named Copenhagen as its first-ever “Bike City” (www.bikecitycopenhagen.com  )  and municipalities throughout the world have a new name for the process of making their cities more bike-friendly: They call it Copenhagenizing. (www.copenhagenize.com ).

Copenhagen and other Danish cities, such as Århus, Odense and Aalborg, all have clearly designated bike lanes (that drivers observe) and upgrades to infrastructure almost always include provisions for cyclists.

It is estimated that 36 percent of Copenhageners — nearly half a million people — bike to work, to school, to the shops and to meet friends for dinner or a movie, collectively pedaling nearly 685,000 miles every day. The city’s goal is to raise that total to 50 percent of the population by 2015.

One way Danish cities keep tallies of cyclists is with cykelbarometers that use sensors to count the bicycles passing a given point and display running daily and yearly totals.

The newly formed Cycling Embassy of Denmark (www.cycling-embassy.org ) is an information clearinghouse on cycling and bike culture. Its resident experts include city planners, engineers, cycling promoters, equipment manufacturers and more who share their expertise with city planners, politicians, NGOs and others seeking to build bicycling culture in their locales.

Danish architect, urban planner and founding member of the Cycling Embassy of Denmark, Jan Gehl (www.gehlarchitects.com ) already has consulted on projects for cities as diverse as Melbourne, Australia; Mexico City and New York City to make them more sustainable and bike-friendly based on the Copenhagen model.

Copenhagen also will showcase its commitment to two-wheeled travel when it hosts the Velo-City Global bicycling conference in June 2010 (www.velo-city2010.com ).

Other upcoming cycling events include CSC Copenhagen Cycling on Sept. 20.

Another project, called SmartBiking, will be implemented by the time Copenhagen hosts the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Dec. 7 to 18. Developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),

SmartBiking employs a “smart tag” system that allows cyclists to exchange information and relative position with each other, and to track the number of miles they pedal.

It also corresponds with a Facebook social networking application called “I Crossed Your Path” for cyclists who want to connect with others they might pass on their usual bike routes.

Copenhagen’s City Bikes — possibly the first program of its kind in a major city. (www.bycyklen.dk ) — runs from spring through fall with 110 bike racks throughout the city filled with 2,000 customized City Bikes.

By inserting a 20-kroner coin into the bike’s lock, a rider frees the bike from its chain and may then ride it anywhere within the city.

When the bike is returned and relocked to any City Bikes rack, the rider’s 20-kroner coin is returned. Several Copenhagen hotels, including the Hotel D’Angleterre (www.dangleterre.com ) and the Copenhagen Admiral Hotel (www.admiralhotel.dk ), have bikes available for guests’ use. Organized bike tours, such as City Safari (www.citysafari.dk ), also are popular with visitors.

For those who wish to cycle long distance, Denmark has 11 national cycling routes totaling nearly 2,500 miles, and a route recently was mapped out for the 391-mile journey between Copenhagen and Berlin. For more information, visit www.bike-berlin-copenhagen.com  .

For more information on Denmark or Copenhagen, visit www.visitdenmark.com/cycling  or www.visitcopenhagen.com

Tucked away in a fairytale pocket of rainforest and lit to perfection with hundreds of candles and romantic chandeliers is the award-winning Flames of the Forest venue that from this month is open to the general public when it plays host to Saturday evening dining

Destined to redefine tropical north Queensland’s dining scene, Flames of the Forest’s Saturday evenings in the rainforest will provide guests with a ravishing environment to enjoy intimate celebrations, small wedding receptions and special occasions.

Guests will indulge in an exquisite three course menu for just $85 per person comprising a choice of entrée, main and dessert dishes created with love from the region’s freshest and best quality ingredients.

Since 2003, Flames of the Forest has gained an international reputation for its rainforest experience featuring a local Aboriginal cultural performance in a spectacular candlelit setting that has operated, and will continue to do so, three nights a week.

And soon, with the advent of its Saturday dining concept, will become a memorable experience for everyone to enjoy.

Flames of the Forest’s managing director, Amelia Hannaford said in August 2008 the operation relocated to a stunning new rainforest venue that provided greater scope for staging tailor-made events. “With more space and infrastructure at our fingertips we soon realised that the drama of our rainforest venue could be utilised as an amazing setting for dinner.”

Saturday evening dining effective Saturday, 11th April 09. The cost per person is $85.00 for a special three course menu.

Full wine list and transfers also available. Bookings essential on Tel: 07 40 993 144. For further information: www.flamesoftheforest.com.au

Background Information: New Venue

After opening in 2003, Flames of the Forest has achieved much acclaim, establishing itself as one of Tropical North Queensland’s most spectacular dining experiences.

And now, in response to its success, Flames of the Forest is on the move to a new and bigger rainforest location…..just down the road!

Flames of the Forest is the inspiration of Amelia and Nick Hannaford of Hannaford’s Events that has been hand-making original and beautiful events for the past 15 years in Australia and Asia-Pacific. Clients include multi-national corporations, incentive organizers, brand-marketers, rockstars, royalty and now….lovers set to tie-the-knot.

After discovering their first fairytale pocket of forest (some five years before Flames of the Forest was born), the idea to create a night time event came quickly according to Amelia. Since then,

Flames of the Forest was launched and went on to forge an enviable reputation in its own right as a world-class attraction.

Amelia says Flames’ new rainforest venue is even more spectacular than the previous one and with the new infrastructure on site enables their team to accommodate groups of up to 900 guests for full sit down events.

Flames of the Forest is open to the public three nights a week presenting an evening set amid hundreds of candles and flames featuring a traditional and authentic Aboriginal performance with story telling, music and song from local brothers who spent their childhoods in the valley.

Combined with a magnificent six course plattered banquet dinner, guests have the opportunity to enjoy a magical and memorable evening while meeting new people amid the towering grandeur of the forest at night.

Flames of the Forest has won awards for its innovation and food and recently was listed in Australian Traveller Magazine as one of the ‘Top 100 Things to do in Australia….that you’ve never heard of!’.

In addition to opening to the public Flames of the Forest is an enchanting and dramatic venue for group entertaining. From weddings to corporate groups to car launches, every event is different but features the same stunning rainforest setting as its backdrop. Recent clients have included Toyota, which featured Flames of the Forest (complete with a performance by Leo Sayer) as the finale event of its new Landcruiser launch.

Amelia says the outdoor setting has many distinct advantages to more traditional indoor ones.

“For example, you can have fireworks going off during dinner without leaving your seat!”

She adds, “Added to that, there are no noise restrictions allowing guests to party on into the small hours.

“With it’s expanded infrastructure and capacity, Flames of the Forest’s new venue is a significant addition to the business tourism facilities available in Tropical North Queensland and we hope it’s exclusive nature and beauty will attract groups to the area – and as such, a venue of this type with on site infrastructure is not available elsewhere in the country,” she said.

Just 15 minutes from Port Douglas, 40 minutes from Palm Cove and one hour from Cairns, Flames of the Forest is a world away from the everyday.

For information contact: Tel: 61 7 4099 3966 email: info@flamesoftheforest.com.au  or www.flamesoftheforest.com.au

Vanuatu’s outer islands are becoming more accessible for travelers with boutique cruise company, Island Escape Cruises, announcing a new cruise departing from Espiritu Santo for a five day exploration of remote islands including Pentecost, Ambrym and Asanvari.

The luxury 10 cabin vessel will operate in Vanuatu over the winter season between May and October.

There will be two five day Vanuatu itineraries to choose from – The Secrets of Bali Hai and The Tropic of Paradise.

These can be combined for a ten night cruise if preferred.

The itineraries will cover remote islands, visiting the amazing land diving on Pentecost, the mystique and live volcanoes of Ambryn and the rainforests, natural swimming pools and waterfalls of Asanvari.

Along the way passengers will visit the glorious beaches of Santo and anchor on the vibrant coral reef systems of the Maskelyne Islands.

Annie Niatu, general manager of the Vanuatu Tourism Office says,

“We are pleased that Island Escapes is opening some of the outer islands up for travelers to discover the beauty and intrigue of these islands.

The operation also shows that Espiritu Santo is really emerging as a popular island option for Australian travelers.”

Since Air Vanuatu commenced direct flights from Brisbane to Espiritu Santo last year the destination has become increasingly attractive to Australian travelers. Espiritu Santo is graduating from primarily a dive Mecca and becoming an island paradise.

The island is attracting a new cliental with more boutique style resorts opening each year.

This month Ratua Private Island will also open offering a level of sophistication that is being dubbed ‘primitive luxury’. Moyyan House by the Sea has also proved popular for those looking for an island getaway close to Australia.

After a few days experiencing Espiritu Santo travelers can hop aboard Island Escape Cruises to discover the mysteries of the surrounding island’s wildlife, and discover the rituals and festivals of the unique island cultures.

The vessel has an expert local guide on board as well as small boats so that passengers have the freedom to discover their surrounding paradise however they choose.

Visit www.vanuatu.travel for more information on the destination
Visit www.islandescape.co.nz for more information, prices or to make a booking.

Harbour Town – Australia’s favourite outlet shopping destination

It’s been a busy year for Harbour Town shopping centres across Australia.

Based at premium locations around the country, Harbour Town centres have long been known as Australia’s leading purpose-designed outlet shopping destinations – and now they’re getting even bigger and better.

The past year has seen not only the opening of a new centre in Melbourne’s Docklands, but more than 30 new outlet stores open in the Adelaide Centre as well as some of the nation’s top brands join Harbour Town in Perth and on the Gold Coast..

In a retail first for Melbourne Docklands, the much anticipated Harbour Town shopping centre opened its doors at Waterfront City in October last year.

Set across two levels and spanning more than 41,000 square metres, the open air shopping precinct offers an exceptional mix of specialty and outlet stores.

What’s more, Harbour Town Melbourne has incorporated a unique new retail concept, The Designers’ House, into its planning which features an exclusive range of high end fashion collections and a luxurious lounge and powder room.

“Customers of The Designers’ House enjoy personalised attention from experienced sales staff who are on call to answer their every request,” Harbour Town’s National Marketing Manager Angela Gore said.

“They are also invited to join regular, elegant VIP nights to preview the latest collections.”

In the country’s South, Harbour Town Adelaide opened its latest extension in December 2008.

The 30 outlet store extension boasts big brands including iconic Australian clothing and accessories retailer Windsor Smith, music store CC Music, French lingerie label Simone Perele – along with leading supermarket operator Woolworths.

“Harbour Town Adelaide offers state-of-the-art design features in a convenient location that is close to Adelaide’s CBD and within the rapidly expanding Adelaide Airport precinct – needless to say it’s an extremely attractive retail opportunity,” Angela said.

Ms Gore said shoppers and tourists from Adelaide and regional South Australia were strong supporters of the centre’s existing outlet stores and there was robust demand for a broader shopping experience.

“The extension further diversifies Harbour Town Adelaide’s product offering, with new tenants bringing a range of new products to the centre – with everything from fresh food and produce to clothes, health and beauty products,” Angela said.

There’s also been plenty of action at Harbour Town Gold Coast which has welcomed more big brands to its award-winning precinct.

A Speedo outlet store is among the latest to open following a string of new leases to high profile sportswear and fashion labels including French Connection, Universal Store, Lacoste, Marco Polo, Steve Madden and Unit Clothing.

Rounding out the new mix at Harbour Town Gold Coast is an outlet for EB Games, Australia and New Zealand’s largest video game retailer representing popular platforms including Playstation, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and DS.

Moving over to the West Coast, there are plenty of ‘firsts’ going on at Harbour Town Perth.
The West Perth centre has welcomed Western Australia’s first one-stop-shop for iconic street wear label Industrie and a second store for Industrie Kids.

“Industrie is known as one of the elite streetwear brands for men, and for the first time in WA we have a dedicated store that also caters for women,” Angela said.

The Harbour Town Perth store stocks all the latest Industrie trends for men, women and kids at brand direct prices.

Shoppers are delighted that Harbour Town’s newly-opened Cue store has become the exclusive WA stockist of one-off Veronika Maine designs. Ms Gore said Harbour Town’s Cue outlet was the only Perth store to offer the Cue range – together with Veronika Maine samples – at brand direct prices.

Leading French lingerie label Simone Perele has also launched a WA-first boutique at Harbour Town Perth. The Simone Perele store is one of only two dedicated outlets in Australia and sees Harbour Town join the ranks of world-famous Paris fashion boutiques, including Galleries Lafayette and Le Bon Marche, in featuring the exclusive range of ultra-feminine lingerie.

Visit Harbour Town’s Tourism Lounge, a great place to meet, relax, refresh and store your bargains. And here’s a good tip: ask for the special Tourism Club card offering even bigger discounts on already reduced outlet prices. Facilities include parcel minding, complimentary refreshments and toddler stroller loan.

Harbour Town shopping centres are located in premium locations in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and the Gold Coast.