Ahead of the Olympics, All Eyes Are on Tahiti’s Mythic Wave

Paris est une fête! Especially during the Olympics. The French title of Hemingway’s legendary memoir A Moveable Feast is an apt encapsulation of what can only be called a dramatic vibe shift in the French capital in the last few weeks. Indeed, Paris is a party. The opening ceremony elated even the most hardened of local skeptics of the Olympic Games—locally: les Jeux Olympiques, the JO. Since then, the city has been suspended in a Disney-esque euphoria; the JO is now a multi-week carnival of good cheer.

Beyond Simone Biles going for gold and the opening ceremony, one of the most talked about aspects of the Summer Olympics in Paris is the athletes village — and one of the biggest hotel companies in the world is in charge of maintaining it all.

While most American cities aren’t considered easy to navigate by foot, a recent study by travel insurance experts AllClear ranked one popular Southern city as the most walkable in the country. AllClear examined topographical information for more than 240 cities around the world, taking into account average elevation and range, and assigned each city a score — and ultimately, it was New Orleans that was named the most walkable city in the U.S. and the fourth most walkable city globally.

For Olympics viewers that have recently caught Paris wanderlust, a low-cost carrier has affordable flights to make your trip to France a reality.  Norse Atlantic Airways recently updated several one-way flight deals which include New York (JFK) to Paris (CDG) for as little as $112 one-way throughout the fall and even into 2025. From the west coast, travelers can score one-way flight deals from Los Angeles (LAX) to Paris (CDG) for as little as $188 throughout the fall. All of the deals are located on Norse’s main homepage. Travelers can filter the flight results by inputting their home city or destination, and even set a maximum budget.  Beyond Paris, travelers can also get deals to London's Gatwick airport for as low as $72 one-way.

Paris is hosting this year's Summer Olympics — but that's not where we kicked off the Games.

Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, departed the island for Paris, France yesterday (August 7) to attend the Olympic Games. While in Paris Minister Bartlett will be instrumental in promoting Jamaica as a premier tourist destination through the Jamaica Tourist Board’s (JTB) Jamaica House initiative.

Rarely on the podium and banned from the Olympic opening ceremony, fifteen Russian athletes competing at this year’s Games have an uneasy status as “Individual Neutral Athletes” following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Singapore has been recrowned as the country with the world’s most powerful passport in 2024.

France knocked out world and pan-American football champions Argentina after winning 1-0 in Bordeaux on Friday, in a heated game that ended with a massive brawl that followed more than ten minutes of stoppage time.

Amid the cafes and boutiques of Athens’s Kolonaki neighborhood is a housewares shop that’s also a showcase for Greek craftsmanship. It’s the first brick-and-mortar location for Crini & Sophia, the brand that the former interior and set designer Maya Zafeiropoulou-Martinou founded in 2022. Its wood-and-rattan shelves, two-tone marble floors and furniture are all made by Greek artists, while one window is decorated with a vinelike steel and spray-paint piece by the Cypriot sculptor Socrates Socratous. The shop’s goods are designed by Zafeiropoulou-Martinou, whose inspirations include the colors in Francis Bacon paintings and the Amazon rainforest. Linens are produced in Portugal before being embroidered in Greece with patterns that often take cues from antiques on view at Athens’s Benaki Museum. Hand-painted ceramics and glassware are made in partnership with artisans in New York, Greece, Italy and France. When it comes to designing your own table, Zafeiropoulou-Martinou encourages layering. “The pattern isn’t just the plate or the tablecloth,” she says of her pieces, “but a puzzle of the two on top of each other.”

Hilton’s growth strategy in Asia Pacific is multifaceted. It is the fastest growing hotel company in the region, with almost 1 in 4 hotel rooms under construction bearing a Hilton flag.

Major sports events attract not only fans but also tourists interested in experiencing the atmosphere and culture of the host city. For example, the Olympic Games or the UEFA Champions League offer the perfect occasion for tourists to explore the host cities while enjoying the sporting excitement. Civitatis, the leading curated online marketplace for guided tours and activities for Spanish and Portuguese-speaking consumers, recommends that tour and activity companies make the most of this growing segment and suggests a few strategies to leverage the rise of sports tourism: