Gulf Air has become the latest airline to ban smoking on all flights. Most major airlines have now outlawed cigarettes. However, Emirates, which is also based in the United Arab Emirates, still has smoking areas, and allows passengers to light up in First Class.
Dusit Laguna Resort and Siam Safari Nature Tours have formed the Elephant Help Project Phuket to provide medical care for almost 200 elephants that are working in the tourism industry. Most of the elephants have been trucked to Phuket from other regions of Thailand. The Free Jumbo Campaign aims to return Phuket's captive elephants to the forests of northern Thailand.
For each elephant that is released, 300,000 baht (about HK$60,000) must be raised to purchase the animal from its owner, pay for transport, vaccinations and monitoring after its release. Elephant Help donations boxes have been set up at the Dusit Laguna Resort and around Phuket. Monitoring shows that elephants released in the wild not only survive, but reproduce . . . until the loggers move in, of course.
This month the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group will open the Ananda Hotel, which is set in the Himalayas in 40 hectares of forest, in palace grounds. The Ananda, 260 kilometres north of New Delhi, is a spa hotel, with conference facilities and a rooftop boardroom with panoramic views. It features 75 luxurious rooms and suites.
A US resort has come up with a novel way to give its guests exercise. If they want mushrooms with their breakfast, then they must go out and hunt for them.