Incredible India: Gear up to cruise along Kerala

There is finally some good news for tourism in India. Global cruise liners are forming a beeline for the Cochin port. The tourism industry in God's Own Country hopes to revive in the coming months.

Hair it's: top 10 moustache-dense nations

Sydney: In a growing campaign to refer to November as Movember, men around the world are being encouraged to grow a moustache for 30 days to raise awareness and funds for prostate and testicular cancer.

Men's website AskMen.com has come up with its list of the 10 most moustache-dense countries to mark the fund-raising campaign that is believed to have started in Australia in 1999.

Getaway: Best locations for vacations in 2010

Singapore: Next year, it may be worth a visit to El Salvador, Lake Baikal or Cork, with these destinations featuring in a new Lonely Planet travel guide for the top places to go to in 2010.

The Best in Travel 2010, released on Monday, is the travel company's fifth in its annual collection of the best places to go and best things to do in the year ahead.

First hotel in space on schedule, to open in 2012

Barcelona, Spain: The company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says they are still on target to accept the first paying guests in 2012.

The Barcelona-based architects of Galactic Suite say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing €3 million, or $4.5 million, for a three-night stay. During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 90 minutes.

Indians take a break, holiday abroad

Singapore: The just-concluded ITB Asia 2009 in Singapore, Asia's largest tourism fair, provided pointers suggesting that outbound tourism traffic from India would surpass the inbound traffic.

"If it is not already happening, outbound traffic from India will surpass its inbound traffic. With the growing prosperity of middle-class Indians, more and more of them are venturing into far-flung destinations such as Switzerland, UK and the USA in the West, and Japan, Singapore and other destinations in the East.

Want prosperity? Index ranks Finland as place to be

Singapore: For those who value their freedom of expression as much as health, wealth, and prosperity, then Finland is the place to be, with an index ranking the Nordic nation the best in the world.

The 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index, published on Tuesday and compiled by an independent policy, advocacy and advisory organisation - the Legatum Institute, ranked 104 countries which are home to 90 per cent of the world's population.

Kashmir's famed houseboats hit by conservation rules

Srinagar: For nearly a century, hand-carved houseboats bobbing on a placid lake drew millions of visitors to the stunningly beautiful Himalayan region of Kashmir.

But today a grand houseboat where Beatle George Harrison once stayed sits rotting and half-submerged in the mirror calm Dal lake, one of Kashmir's main tourist attractions.

Global tourism expo 2010 to be held in Mumbai

New Delhi: To provide an integrated business platform for domestic and international players in travel trade, Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation will organise a Global tourism expo in Mumbai next year.

The Mumbai International Tourism Expo (MITE) will be held at the Bombay Exhibition Centre from January 7 to 9, 2010 in association with Conference and Exhibition Management Services.

Smelly, fat, seat-kickers worst plane commuters: poll

New York: Smelly people, fat people and people who cough and sneeze are the most disliked passengers to be seated next to on an airplane, according to a survey.

Almost half of the people polled by a travel website said passengers with poor hygiene are the worst, while 30 per cent dislike people who cough and sneeze and 15 per cent don't like sitting next to fat passengers.

Skydivers claim highest landing ever near Everest

Kathmandu: Three skydivers, including one Indian, made the highest parachute landing ever at a drop zone near Mount Everest, Nepal officials said on Thursday.

Two Britons, Leo Dickinson and Ralph Mitchell, and one Indian, Ramesh Tripathi, sky-dived from a plane flying at 20,000 feet (6,100 metres) on Tuesday.