Mexico’s Finance Ministry took out 50 billion pesos ($3.4 billion) from the state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, according to a statement sent to the Mexican Stock Exchange.

The payment this month was meant to “make management of public-sector finances more efficient,” according to the filing from the oil company, known as Pemex. The withdrawal marks a departure from the government’s usual methods of obtaining revenue from Pemex, which include taxes and royalties.

Pemex typically provides about a third of the federal budget, and its contributions dropped this year as the oil company faced production declines and falling crude prices. During the first 11 months of 2014, taxes paid by Mexico City- based Pemex declined by about 260 billion pesos, or 22 percent, from the same period of 2013, according to records.

The withdrawal shows “a near addiction to Pemex’s revenue by the ministry,” Fluvio Ruiz, a board member of the oil company’s petrochemical unit, said in a phone interview. He said he had no prior knowledge of the disclosure through his role at the company.

Pemex and Finance Ministry press officials declined to comment.

[readon1 url="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-27/mexico-withdraws-3-4-billion-from-pemex-as-oil-revenue-shrinks.html"]Source:www.bloomberg.com[/readon1]

The past year has seen new automotive assembly plants begin production — Nissan, Mazda and Honda, plus the announcements of three new ones — Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz.

Following close behind are those firms that play a supporting role in auto manufacturing, the makers of the parts that the big automakers need.

Among them is TE Connectivity, which will move its plant from Shakopee, Minnesota, to Sonora, bringing 144 jobs and a US $20-million investment.

Another is Delphi with a new factory in Chihuahua: 327 jobs and $109 million coming out of Michigan

In March, Advanced Motors transferred some production from Texas to Monterrey, moving 60% of its employees. A division of the Japanese firm Nidec, the company makes electric motors.

Another Japanese company is investing some 360 million pesos, or US $25 million, in a plant in San Luís Potosí. JTEKT will move some of its steering systems production from Japan to the new factory.

In addition to being close to the firms that buy their products, auto parts makers are also benefiting from the same advantages that the car makers enjoy in Mexico: location, free trade agreements and quality labor at low cost.

Automotive production is expected to reach over 3.3 million units this year, surpassing 3 million for the first time, and climb to a little more than 3.6 million in 2015.

[readon1 url="http://mexiconewsdaily.com"]Source:mexiconewsdaily.com[/readon1]

Southwest Airlines has extended its flight schedule for travel through Aug. 7, including adding daily service between Orange County's John Wayne Airport and Austin, Texas, beginning June 28.

Fares for once-daily nonstop flights between Orange County and Austin will start at $119 one way.

Nonstop once-daily service between Orange County and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, will begin June 7 with fares as low as $148 each way.

Southwest's nonstop service between John Wayne Airport and San Jose del Cabo/Los Cabos, Mexico, will increase with a second seasonal daily round trip between April 8 and Aug. 7.

The service is subject to approval from government agencies. Customers can book flights and make travel plans at http://www.Southwest.com.

Puerto Vallarta, one of Mexico's leading resort destinations, reports 2014 was one of its best years for the travel and tourism industry with ever growing numbers of visitors, new hotels, more flights and an increase in cruise ship arrivals.

The popular seaside resort was ranked No. 2 in the most popular destinations in Mexico in the 2014 edition of TripAdvisors Travellers Choice, an award based on the opinion of travellers worldwide.

Azimut Yachts Mexico was named the exclusive Azimut Yachts dealer for the region.

Azimut Yachts Mexico has a network of sales and service outlets in Mexico City, Cancun, Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta.

“The Mexican market is of great importance for the Azimut Benetti Group,” the company said in a statement. “Since September 2014, when the Mexican office opened, four units have already been sold, including the brand-new Azimut Grande 112.”

The new Azimut Yachts Mexico headquarters will be inaugurated in Mexico City in February.

For Mexico tourism, 2014 was a year of highs and lows. On a high note, stellar tourism numbers point to the destination’s recovery from the recession and lingering concerns about safety. On a low note, Los Cabos was devastated by the wrath of Hurricane Odile. That story, too, though, has a happy ending, with the destination making a remarkably quick recovery.

It was also a pretty good year for ASTA and travel agents. The Society made significant strides in a number of areas, including membership boosts, lobbying efforts and campaigns promoting the value of agents. On another note, anecdotal agent reports indicated that the unforgiving winter resulted in extremely strong bookings – the likes of which some agents said they have never seen before

Los Cabos Rebuilds in the Aftermath of Hurricane Odile

Just a little more than three months ago, Hurricane Odile made landfall in Cabo San Lucas, devastating the destination.

The Sept. 15 category 3 storm, with sustained winds of 115 miles an hour, pummeled hotels, the airport and local tourist attraction.

In record time, however, the destination dusted itself off and quickly began the process of rebuilding its tourism infrastructure. Incredibly, by the end of this month, tourism officials say 10,000 of the destination’s 14,000 room are expected to be open.

Air service, meanwhile, has returned at a steady clip, with the Los Cabos International Airport expected to be 100 percent operational by the end of the month. Also, nearly all of the restaurants and attractions are open, as are virtually all of the destination’s golf courses.

Now, tourism officials are working to get the word out that the destination is, for all intents and purposes, back in business with the #unstoppable campaign, whose hashtag is being used to document Los Cabos’ return to normalcy. “It’s inspiring, but that’s what good marketing is for,” wrote TravelPulse senior editor Barry Kaufman in a first-hand report from the destination last month. “To inspire. To welcome guests back and assure them that Los Cabos is still an amazing, exciting destination.”

Mexico Tourism Continues on Upward Swing

If this year’s stellar tourism numbers are any indicator, it appears that Mexico has, for the most part, recovered from the recession and overcome lingering perceptions regarding the destination’s safety.

As 2014 draws to a close, Puerto Vallarta is reporting one of its best years on record as the number of flights into the destination continues to rise. Flight frequencies were up 23.87 percent in October over the same month in 2013, and rose 22.6 percent in October compared to September’s figures.

Puerto Vallarta is also experiencing a significant rise in hotel occupancies. During the first half of the year, occupancies increased by 7.9 percent, and tourism officials say they expect to close the year up 13.7 percent over 2013.

For its part, tourism officials from neighboring Riviera Nayarit say the destination is also experiencing a strong year, and several new projects are expected to accelerate business even further.

By next summer, construction will be completed on the new Hard Rock Hotel Vallarta International Convention Center, the largest such facility ever built in Riviera Nayarit.

Costacapomo, a new Mexico National Trust for Tourism Promotion (Fonatur), project currently under development will include more than 3,000 hotel rooms, a 18-hole golf course and two beach clubs. The development goes hand in hand with a new Jala-Compostela-Las Varas-Bahía de Banderas highway, which is slated to open next year.

Following a 16.4 percent jump in arrivals this summer, thanks to more nonstop and connecting flights than ever before, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo is gearing up for what it hopes will be one of its strongest winter seasons ever.

Westjet launched its winter season with thrice-weekly service out of Calgary, while Sunwing Airlines added flights from Winnipeg, Kelowna and Regina-Saskatoon. On Dec. 20, Delta Air Lines will debut new service to the destination from Los Angeles, with five departures a week.

Officials from the Cancun Convention & Visitors say they expect to exceed 2013 numbers this year, reporting a 16.7 percent increase in international visitors in the first eight months of 2014 for a total of 4.6 million international visitors compared to 4.1 million during the same period last year. The destination has also welcomed a host of new and rebranded hotels this year, which has likely played a role in boosting tourism numbers.

ASTA Woos Agency Groups, Bolstering Membership

This year, ASTA made significant strides in in its efforts to beef up its membership ranks, with a number of agency groups either voting to make membership in the Society mandatory or strongly urging their members to join.

The announcements are a clear indicator that travel advisors are recognizing the association’s efforts as essential to the viability and success of the travel agency segment going forward.

In October, Travel Leaders’ Franchise Advisory Board voted unanimously to make ASTA membership mandatory for all Travel Leaders franchisees, following similar mandates made by Signature Travel Network, MAST and the American Marketing Group, parent of consortiums Travelsavers and NEST.

Travel Leaders franchisees will be required to join ASTA within the next two years, and Travel Leaders Franchise Group will maintain its ASTA premium membership.
Signature Travel Network will now require ASTA membership in main offices. MAST will subsidize membership dues for its agency members; and the American Marketing Group, parent of consortiums Travelsavers and NEST, rejoined ASTA, encouraging their agency members to do the same.

ASTA Lobbying Efforts, Agent Promotional Campaigns, Pick Up Steam

In the last year alone, ASTA has been at the forefront of lobbying efforts against s regulations involving mandatory hazardous waste warnings for clients by agents, new distribution capability, full fare and price disclosure, travel insurance regulation, ancillary fees, “transparent” airfares, and state sales and hotel taxes.

ASTA claims to have saved the travel agency business $180 million in taxes in just the last year due to its lobbying efforts to counter new tax proposals—and that’s just scratching the surface of government and state regulations that ASTA must deal with on an annual basis.

In tandem with these efforts, ASTA also made strides in promoting the value of agents to consumers this year. For starters, the Society launched a Google marketing campaign promoting the value of travel agents, which it said has garnered more than 3.5 million impressions in the marketplace.

ASTA has also developed a series of PBS infomercials about agents that have run in 150 markets in the U.S. The association has also succeeded in increasing the traffic to its consumer Web site, TravelSense.org, which features profiles of its member agents, doubling the number of agent referrals this year to 1.3 million, ASTA said.

Harsh Winter a Boon For Travel Agents

This year’s extraordinarily harsh winter was one for the record books, and for many, best forgotten. Based on anecdotal reports from agents, particularly those with client bases in the Midwest and Northeast, the inclement weather produced another kind of record: unprecedented bookings.

Judy Nidetz of Travel Experts in Chicago said she was inundated with client requests for vacations this winter. “I usually am busy at that time of year anyway but it seemed like the phones were just ringing like crazy,” she said.

“I had a client call me from Chicago saying, ‘Get me out of here,’” said Barbara Fishman, a Travel Experts agent based in Peachtree City, Ga. “All I had to send was the 10-day forecast at the One and Only Palmilla in Cabo San Lucas,” she said, and the client immediately signed on to a weeklong vacation at the resort in early February.

Space, however, was at a premium. Nidetz booked a cruise out of Florida for a Chicago client – but flights were overbooked. “So they actually drove two days to Florida from Chicago,” she said. “That’s how badly people wanted to get away.”

Suffice it to say Nidetz and Fishman were not alone. Victoria Pandolfo, an agent with Altour in Chicago, said the agency got “slammed” this winter, with more clients traveling to farther-flung destinations like Tahiti and Fiji to ensure they really were getting out of the cold.

In addition to South Pacific destinations, agents said they sold a healthy numbers of charter flights to Mexico, including Cancun and the Riviera Maya, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas.

Alyssa Schulke of Schulke Travel, a Travel Experts affiliate out of Minneapolis/St. Paul, cited Puerto Rico as another popular 2014 winter vacation venue, in part because passports aren’t an issue. “Because of the last-minute nature of some of the travel, a lot of my clients’ passports weren’t up to date,” she said. “Also the flights are relatively convenient and you don’t have to change money.”

[readon1 url="http://www.travelpulse.com/news/travel-agents/travel-2014-the-top-mexico-and-travel-agent-stories-of-the-year.html"]Source:www.travelpulse.com/[/readon1]

Last winter, Eugene Gushuliak was in the kitchen of his Mexican time share when he collapsed and blacked out.

Gushuliak, 73, doesn't remember the events that followed - the ambulance that took him to the Puerto Vallarta hospital, the three specialists enlisted for his care, or the flight that brought him back to Winnipeg.

What he does know is that the three-day hospital stay to treat a heart problem, along with the flight home with his wife, nurse and doctor, added up to $90,000. It was a bill his travel-insurance company took care of completely.

Virginia Gushuliak said she and her husband have been vacationing in Mexico for years and have never taken chances when it came to buying travel insurance.

Alex Bittner, the head of the Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada, said while the cost of a policy can put people off, the value should be weighed against the potential of receiving a bill for thousands of dollars.

"I always say, know your trip, know your policy and know your health," said Bittner, who is president of the volunteer-run industry group.

Other tips on buying travel insurance:

Ensure that the policy will cover you for the length of your trip and can be extended for any reason.

Know what medical conditions and emergencies are covered. For example, some policies exclude treatment stemming from high intensity sports, such as hockey.

Check the payout cap. A good travel insurance plan can have a payout of up to $5 million.

Read the fine print on pre-existing health conditions that could result in a rejected claim. Last month, a Saskatoon couple made the news when they were hit with $900,000 medical bill after their baby was born prematurely while on vacation in Hawaii. Even though Jennifer Huculak-Kimmel's doctor had cleared her for travel, Blue Cross rejected the claim.

[readon1 url="http://www.montrealgazette.com/travel/Make+sure+travel+insurance+suits/10457118/story.html"]Source:www.montrealgazette.com[/readon1]

This company produces conferences where family-friendly destinations meet to do business with travel agents specializing in family vacation packages; their information reaches 45 million people on a monthly basis.
The family market is one of the most important segments for the Riviera Nayarit, which is why the Riviera Nayarit Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) participated in the TMS Family Fall Conference 2014 towards the end of November.

This company produces conferences for family destinations and expert travel agents, writers, bloggers and market influencers, and they spotlighted the Riviera Nayarit as their guest of honor this year in Carlsbad, California.

TMS Family Travel also announced that from April 23-25, 2015, they will hold their annual conference in the Riviera Nayarit during an event titled TMS Family Travel Summit 2015, as they consider the destination ideal for family travel.

24 communications media, 24 PR agency representatives and 18 speakers representing airlines, travel agencies, hotels and more were present by during the three days of the November information exchange.

The group has business ties to over 700 thousand hotels around the world through more than 200 reservation sites. They manage 24 languages and serve 45 million visitors per month, fielding an average of two million searches a day.

It’s important to point out that in December 2013, Punta Mita’s beaches were selected among the Top 5 Best Beaches for family surfing trips thanks to their safety, tranquility and beauty. The list was published by one of the top communities specializing in surfing, The Inertia.

The hotel infrastructure in the Riviera Nayarit offers a 100% family-oriented format and there is no doubt these public relations actions will make the region more attractive to family travel.

Puerto Vallarta has had a record amount of tourists visit this year. Additional flights, cruise ships and new hotels helped the resort destination book more rooms in 2014 than in pervious years.

This year will be one of the best years for tourism in Puerto Vallarta on record. The resort destination in Mexico has seen an increase in the number of travelers, new hotels, more flights and more cruise ships, leading to more tourism.

According to Mexico’s Ministry of Tourism (SECTUR), Puerto Vallarta registered an occupancy rate of 64 percent in the first nine months of 2014. Also, the number of guest rooms booked for this year was more than two million, about 70,000 more than in 2006. That year held the previous record for the highest number of rooms booked over the past 10 years.

Different elements contributed to the spike in tourism, including the number of flights to the region. October 2014 saw a rise of about 23 percent more flights than in October 2013. Alaskan Airlines also offered a direct flight this year from Portland to Puerto Vallarta.

Cruise ships visited the Mexican city at a high rate, with 116 ships docking in Puerto Vallarta in 2014. Two new hotels, Hotel One and Holiday Inn Express, opened locations in the resort city this year.

For more information, visit www.visitpuertovallarta.com

Tour operator TUI has been busy in the promotions department since the inauguration of the London and Manchester direct flights to the Vallarta-Nayarit International Airport. Their most recent undertaking was a FAM trip for 26 of their sales agents to the destination.

The agents, who work in different branches of the company, toured the Riviera Nayarit and Puerto Vallarta as a training exercise in order to increase sales to the region, thus bolstering the direct flights that began in May via Thomson Airways.

The agents enjoyed the area’s iconic synergy of luxury and nature during their stay, which extended from December 6th through the 11th.

The Riviera Nayarit Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) was invited by the organizers to hold a presentation for the sales agents in order to share in a direct and simple manner the many reasons why British tourism would enjoy the region.

A highlight of the presentation was bird watching, a favorite pastime of the English and one of the Riviera Nayarit’s top attractions thanks to its many endemic species and flocks of migratory birds that come to winter in its forests.

According to TUI, the objective of this trip was to expand the knowledge and consciousness of the products and brands so that this firsthand experience of the destinations would generate more confidence from clients during the sales process, as well as allowing the salespeople the opportunity to share the new information with their colleagues who were unable to attend.

It’s important to note that the flights from England to the destinations have been very popular with the British public and areas adjacent to the United Kingdom.

Investment in Latin America's IT and telecoms sectors will grow by 5.7% and 6% respectively in 2015 for a total of US$347bn, according to consultancy IDC.

According to the consultancy, IT growth in 2015 will outpace the global average of 3.7% but will be below other emerging regions such as Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa.

Speaking during a webinar on Wednesday, IDC Latin America president Ricardo Villate said Brazil would grow at a moderate pace of 3.2% in IT due to the slowing economy, while Mexico would steam ahead with 6.3% growth.

Chile, Peru and Colombia are all expected to perform above the regional average.

IDC observed that SaaS will impact the enterprise hardware market, which will see only a 4% growth rate. IT services will grow 6.5%, while software will rack up an 11% rate.

The Brazilian magazine Via G has published another article that included the destination in addition to the results obtained from the initial negotiations between the Riviera Nayarit Convention and Visitors Bureau and the South American publication, which specializes in the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transexual (LGBT) market.

The article in question is titled “The Best Destinations for Gay Honeymoons,” and is a listing of tourism destinations that include Mexico’s Pacific Treasure.

From the magazine: “Located on the coast of the Mexican Pacific, the Riviera Nayarit is already known to the North American and Canadian LGBT public. Many have a second home here to escape the rigors of the northern winters. Its charming blend of beaches and villages is made even more so thanks to the unpretentiousness and warmth of its people.”

It goes on to state: “The region is also famous for its grand luxury hotels and the highest number of 5 diamond hotels in Latin America. Many of these resorts already hold symbolic weddings for gay couples.”

Revista Via G is a bimonthly publication with 20 thousand copies distributed in restaurants, nightclubs, bars, hotels and art galleries; 99% of these issues are sold. Over two thousand subscribers receive their magazines at home; 87% of the readers fall into the A/B socioeconomic segments and are between the ages of 25 and 50.

Brazil has 9.4 million economically active people within the LGBT segment; together they generate an income of $3 billion USD a year. Over 70% earns a salary above the national mean, owns a computer with Internet access and has a valid passport for travel.

There’s no doubt the destination is right on the mark by courting this segment with its high purchasing power and desire for luxury and nature, a combination the Riviera Nayarit is well-prepared to offer.

http://revistaviag.com.br/saiba-quais-os-melhores-destinos-para-lua-de-mel-gay/