India among London's fastest growing tourism markets: Report

Agencies
September 1, 2017

New Delhi, Sep 1: The number of Indians visiting the British capital London is set to increase by a huge 90 per cent by 2025, according to official data released today.

Last year, 0.27 million visitors from India came to London and that figure is set to hit 0.52 million in the next eight years.

In terms of spend, visitors to London from India spent 258 million pounds (USD 333 million) in 2016, which is projected to rise to 721.2 million pounds (USD 931 million) by 2025 – a 180 per cent increase, according to the data by London & Partners, the business arm of the Mayor of London's office.

Besides India, the other fastest growing markets for visitors to London by 2025 include China (103 per cent growth), the US (43 per cent) and the UAE (43 per cent).

"Visitors to the capital bring huge benefits – the industry boosts London's economy, as well as supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs and showing the world that London is an open, welcoming and diverse city," said Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, at the launch of a new 'Tourism Vision for London' during the city's "Autumn Season" launch.

London's tourism industry is worth 11.6 per cent of the capital's GDP and 9 per cent across the UK as a whole.

Tourism numbers in London are set to rise sharply, with more than 40 million people expected to visit the city by 2025, a 30 per cent increase on the 31.2 million visitors in 2016.

Visitor spending is also set to grow by almost 50 per cent to 22 billion pounds (USD 28 billion) a year, up from 14.9 billion pounds (USD 19.3 billion) in 2016.

The surge in visitor numbers could be bolstered in the short-term by currency fluctuations, and according to research from London & Partners around two-thirds of international visitors say they're more likely to visit London given a more favourable currency rate.

According to a separate Google research, London leads worldwide searches for city and short breaks ahead of Barcelona, Rome, Paris and Amsterdam, with the overall number of searches up by 17 per cent year-on-year.

For the new Tourism Vision, London & Partners has collaborated with more than 100 of the capital's tourism leaders, including the Greater London Authority, Gatwick Airport, Hilton and the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, to define a new vision for the tourism industry.

"As a combined force, we believe that if this vision is realised, tourism will drive economic growth and stimulate the city's cultural scene, support even greater numbers of jobs and strengthen London's reputation as an open and welcoming city," L&P said.

The vision states that the growth in visitor numbers is not a given with increasing competition from other destinations, particularly emerging markets that are fighting to attract new visitors. It recommends investments in infrastructure and towards shoring up off-peak visits.

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News Network
May 19,2020

May 18: Risk managers expect a prolonged global recession as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a report by the World Economic Forum showed on Tuesday.

Two-thirds of the 347 respondents to the survey - carried out in response to the outbreak - put a lengthy contraction in the global economy top of their list of concerns for the next 18 months.

Half of risk managers expected bankruptcies and industry consolidation, the failure of industries to recover and high levels of unemployment, particularly among the young.

“The crisis has devastated lives and livelihoods. It has triggered an economic crisis with far-reaching implications and revealed the inadequacies of the past," said Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum.

Environmental goals risk being discarded as a result of the pandemic, the report said, but governments should try to carve out a "green recovery".

"We now have a unique opportunity to use this crisis to do things differently and build back better economies that are more sustainable, resilient and inclusive," Zahidi said.

The report was compiled by the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Advisory Board together with Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc and Zurich Insurance Group.

Risk managers were surveyed between April 1 and 13.

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Agencies
June 7,2020

Boston, Jun 7: Dozens of scientists doing research funded by Mark Zuckerberg say Facebook should not be letting President Donald Trump use of the social media platform to spread both misinformation and incendiary statements.

The researchers, including 60 professors at leading US research institutions, wrote a letter to the Facebook CEO on Saturday asking that he consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language that harms people," especially during the current turmoil over racial injustice.

The letter calls the spread of deliberate misinformation and divisive language the researchers' goal of using technology to prevent and eradicate disease, improving childhood education and reform the criminal justice system.

The researchers' mission "is antithetical to some of the stances that Facebook has been taking, so we're encouraging them to be more on the side of truth and on the right side of history as we've said in the letter, said Debora Marks of Harvard Medical School, one of three professors who organized the letter.

The other organisers are Martin Kampmann of the University of California-San Francisco and Jason Shepherd of the University of Utah.

All have grants from a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative program working to prevent, cure and treat neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The initiative is run by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

They said the letter had more than 160 signatories. Shepherd said about 10% are employees of Chan Zuckerberg foundations.

The letter objects specifically to Zuckerberg's decision not to at least flag as a violation of Facebook's community standards Trump's post that stated when the looting starts, the shooting starts after unrest in Minneapolis over the videotaped killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer.

The letter's authors called the post a clear statement of inciting violence.

Twitter had both flagged and demoted a Trump tweet using the same language.

The Associated Press emailed the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative press office for comment. It did not immediately respond.

Some Facebook employees have publicly objected to Zuckerberg's refusal to take down or label misleading or incendiary posts by Trump or other politicians. But Zuckerberg who controls a majority of voting shares in the company has so far refused.

On Friday, Zuckerberg said in a post that he would review potential options for handling violating or partially-violating content aside from the binary leave-it-up or take-it-down decisions I know many of you think we should have labeled the President's posts in some way last week, he wrote.

"Our current policy is that if content is actually inciting violence, then the right mitigation is to take that content down not let people continue seeing it behind a flag. There is no exception to this policy for politicians or newsworthiness.

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Agencies
August 3,2020

New York, Aug 3: The number of coronavirus cases confirmed all over the world has surpassed 18 million, while the global COVID-19 death toll stands at over 687,000 according to data from the Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Resource Center.

As of 06:00 Moscow time on Monday (03:00 GMT), there are 18,017,556 confirmed coronavirus cases in the world. The global death toll from COVID-19 stands at 687,930. The number of recovered individuals stands at 10,649,108.

The United States remains the country with the largest number of cases (4,665,932) and the highest COVID-19 death toll (154,841), according to the latest data from the Johns Hopkins University.

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