Canada wildfire: Images show Fort McMurray devastation

Pictures obtained by the BBC show large parts of the Canadian city of Fort McMurray in ruins following a devastating wildfire.

The exact scale of the damage is difficult to assess, as access to the city is restricted.

Officials have given few details other than to report that 1,600 homes and other buildings have been destroyed.

However, people who have seen the damage say whole neighbourhoods have been wiped out.

One picture shows the ruins of many houses, with a car untouched by fire. In another, a destroyed church is surrounded by rubble.

Some parts of the city, in the province of Alberta, have been defended resolutely and are still standing.

The city's airport suffered only minor damage despite being licked by flame and engulfed by smoke.

Only the "Herculean" efforts of fire fighters saved the facility, says Scott Long of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency.

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• The images of whole neighbourhoods in ruins are shocking but they will not surprise the people of Fort McMurray who fled knowing that their city was in danger of being consumed by fire.
  The fire in the province of Alberta covers 850 sq km (328.2 sq miles), and the entire city of almost 90,000 people was evacuated three days ago.
  Most fled south but some of those who headed north have been airlifted to safety.
  A police-escorted convoy of 1,500 vehicles was passing through the city along the only safe route to Edmonton and Calgary to the south, but police have told the BBC it has has been suspended because of flames up to 200 feet high on both sides of the road.
  It will take approximately four days for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to escort all evacuees from sites north of Fort McMurray, authorities said.
  For nearby communities though the danger has not receded.
  Officials are predicting that it will be "weeks and weeks" before the fire is completely out. The region has not had significant rain in two months.

The skies above the empty and smouldering city are full of strange shapes.

There are clouds that billow like bright white cauliflowers, boiling rapidly as they change by the second.

There are clouds illuminated by vertical streaks of a dull red from the fires on the ground.

And there are giant clouds stretching as far as the eye can take in with a single glance, great walls of smoke blown sideways by the strong winds.

The helicopters - almost 150 of them, we are told - look puny in the face of such a dramatic display of nature's power, but occasionally they do seem to be making progress in slowing the fire's march across the plains.

Ultimately though, says Bill Stewart, co-director of the University of California's Center for Fire Research and Outreach, only nature can stop it entirely. Source: BBC News

Elections: Labour's Sadiq Khan promises a 'better' London

Labour's Sadiq Khan has vowed to do all in his power to make London "better", as he was sworn in as the new mayor.

Referring to his council estate roots, Mr Khan, the city's first Muslim mayor, said he wanted all Londoners to have the same opportunities he has had.

It comes as Defence Secretary Michael Fallon defended Conservative Zac Goldsmith's campaign, describing it as the "rough and tumble" of politics.

The much-criticised campaign questioned Mr Khan's alleged links to extremists.

Mr Khan beat Mr Goldsmith, by 1,310,143 votes to 994,614, giving him a larger personal mandate than either of his predecessors, Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone.

He has announced he will step down as MP for Tooting, meaning a by-election will be held to elect a new representative in Parliament.

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The former Labour minister's victory in London ends eight years of Conservative control of City Hall.

It has also given a boost to Labour after its poor performance in Scotland's election which saw it slump to third place behind the Conservatives.

Following on from its London success, Labour has also won Bristol's mayoral contest, with candidate Marvin Rees beating the incumbent, independent George Ferguson, by a comfortable margin.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn welcomed Mr Rees' victory, saying in a tweet: "Another Labour mayor who will stand up for their city!"

But Mr Corbyn was absent from Mr Khan's swearing-in ceremony earlier on Saturday.

Mr Khan - who nominated but did not vote for Mr Corbyn in the Labour leadership contest - said he was "not sure" why, adding: "We'll have to find out what he was doing."

Where to Find Hotel Deals? Try a Hotel.

When reserving a hotel room, do you book directly with the hotel, or through an online booking site like Expedia or Priceline?

If you answered the latter, hotels are trying to change that. And you may stand to gain.

A few weeks ago Hyatt Hotels began offering discounts to members of its loyalty program who book their rooms through Hyatt instead of a third party such as Travelocity. The announcement came after Marriott International introduced new discounted rates for loyalty program members who book directly with Marriott (which created an unambiguous marketing campaign called “It Pays to Book Direct”). Both chains announced their discounts in the wake of Hilton Worldwide, which said in February that it was rolling out the largest marketing campaign in its nearly 100-year history to tell its loyalty program members that they would receive discounts on rooms at more than 4,500 hotels around the world if they booked directly.

Hotels have been trying to get travelers to book through their websites and call centers for years, but now major chains are going further than ever to woo travelers away from third-party booking sites, which charge commission fees and have been a barrier to hotels marketing directly to their guests. (Stay tuned: When asked during its most recent earnings call about hotels offering discounts for direct booking, Expedia said that it was considering more flexible ways to work including “testing link-offs from our site on to the direct sites of some of our chain partners,” said Mark D. Okerstrom, Expedia’s executive vice president and chief financial officer.) With hotels and booking sites vying to be the point of sale, travelers are in a position to win, not only scoring perks like room upgrades, but lower rates too.

The discounts at Hyatt hotels are for properties in the United States, Canada and Australia and apply to members of its loyalty program, which is free to join at Hyattgoldpassport.com. Members who book directly can now receive up to 10 percent off reservations made through Hyatt.com, its app, call centers and travel agents. The chain also offers a best-rate guarantee. Later this year, guests who book directly will be allowed to make on-demand requests to their hotel through the app. They can also check in online and manage their reservation on their smartphones.

The new rates at Marriott are available more broadly, at over 4,200 hotels worldwide, to loyalty program members (it’s free to join at marriottrewards.com) who book directly on its website, app, call centers or through certain corporate travel professionals. Karin Timpone, Marriott International’s global marketing officer, said in a statement that the company wants “to help dispel the myth that other travel websites offer better rates for our hotels.” If guests find a better rate within 24 hours of booking directly, Marriott will match that rate and offer an additional 25 percent discount.  Hotel in Agra

Hotels Use Instagram Communities to Curate Travel Guides for Guests

At a time when buzz words like “local” and “authentic” are used to describe nearly every travel experience these days, marketers are turning increasingly to social media, and to residents themselves, to come up with the very content that enables other travelers to have those very kinds of experiences.

Instagram, in particular, is increasingly becoming the channel of choice among hotels, not only for social media marketing opportunities, but as a resource for providing curated travel content for their guests, straight from the locals who live there, as well as from aspiring guests.

“Specific to travel, if you look at the travel booking process, especially the discovery and inspiration phase, traditionally that was coming from TV and print,” said Tom Jauncey, head of brand partnerships for Beautiful Destinations, a creative tech agency that helps travel brands create social media content for Instagram and Snapchat. “Now, we’re in this world of social media where consumer attention is changing. They’re not necessarily reading from magazines but looking to their phones and Instagram to find out the types of places they want to go and where they can stay.”

Jauncey added that “the most progressive hotel brands have a social-first approach, and are using that social first content across other distribution channels for marketing.” Those brands, he said, are looking for unique visual perspectives, and employing the use of aerial form drone video and photography, time lapses, and much more, to produce stunning visual content.

The latest hotels to use Instagram as a way to provide content for their guests are Starwood’s The Luxury Collection of properties, and The Embassy Row Hotel in Washington, D.C. Both are using Instagram in unique ways to not only engage with their guests but create content that goes beyond simple reposts or online Instagram feeds.

Somewhat similar to what Airbnb is now doing with its new City Guidebooks feature, which assembles recommended travel tips on activities from different hosts in a variety of cities, both of these brands are using Instagram communities to come up with useful guidebook, or tour-like content for their guests. Google is also reportedly working on a similar feature for its new travel assistant app that would consolidate reviews and tips from Local Guides users to create guidebook-like content for app users.

The Embassy Row Hotel’s IGDC Walking Tours

In Washington, D.C., The Embassy Row Hotel enlisted the help of a local photographers’ community, called IGDC, to help them create four different Instagram walking tours for guests this summer.

Here’s how it works: Earlier this year, IGDC ran a contest on its Instagram account for local photographers to submit their best images for certain city landmarks in and around Dupont Circle, where the hotel is located. After poring through all of the entries, IGDC and the hotel handpicked 16 winning photos and their photographers. Those photos were used to put together informational cards with maps, highlighting the most Instagrammable spots for guests to take photos and visit, and they include The Phillips Collection, the Woodrow Wilson House, the Brass Band at the metro, and the Spanish Steps, among others.

Beginning on May 6 and running through August, the hotel will have a new card each month that features four photos and four different spots for guests to explore. The debut of the first walking tour will coincide with First Friday Dupont, a neighborhood art walk.

Coincidentally, IGDC, which was established in October 2011, uses Instagram to feature photos from local photographers from throughout the D.C. area and it got its start from local photo walks and events among local shutterbugs.

“We were just formed with our photo walks and events that revolve around photography,” said IGDC Founder Holly Garner. “We create together, and our role in the city and how we document our time in the city has gotten the attention of companies and museums around town who want to tap into the local perspective.” Those other local businesses and organizations include the National Gallery, West Elm, and Drink Juicery, Garner said.

While the Destination Hotels property has invited IGDC to the hotel for events in the past, the walking tours project allowed both to work together much more closely than ever before.

“Out hotel is very active on social media, and we’ve hosted [IGDC] for dinners and events before, and we thought this would be a perfect synergy between the two,” said Sarah Vinning, director of marketing for The Embassy Row Hotel. “What better than to feature these photos and tips on D.C. from the real experts on Instagram? I know when people travel, they are looking on Instagram for tips and inspiration already. We just went one step further to develop something we could give directly to our guests as soon as they arrive.”

In Garner’s opinion, asking locals to participate in delivering travel advice and tips to guests makes perfect sense.

“I think it’s a pretty smart strategy, in my opinion,” said Garner. “We are the boots on the ground, so to speak. We know this city really well. When people are visiting D.C and don’t really know it beyond tourist books, by looking at local photographers and Instagram, they get a feel for this city beyond the same old places those books tell you to go to. It can be so much more refreshing and interesting. You’re taking advice from locals, and not from people who are paid to tell you where to go or what to do.”

The Luxury Collection’s Global Explorers Campaign

Working with Beautiful Destinations, The Luxury Collection recently created an Instagram campaign inviting Instagram photographers to apply to become a “global explorer” by sharing one of their most inspirational travel moments on the social media channel and using the hashtag #theluxurycollection.

After receiving a certain number of entries, Beautiful Destinations and The Luxury Collection will pick, on a rolling basis, up to two to four photographers to send to one of its properties around the world. There, they will be asked to film video and capture photos of the destination and the hotel. That content will then be accumulated into Digital Destination Guides that guests can easily access; in fact, the guides will be the first thing they see when they sign on to use one of the hotel’s Wi-Fi networks.

On May 1, for example, The Luxury Collection announced it will be sending four photographers to Venice to capture social-first content of The Gritti Palace and Hotel Danieli, as well as the surrounding area.

Jauncey said The Luxury Collection, which had been a client of Beautiful Destinations since November 2015, came to his team with the idea of doing destination guides but wasn’t sure yet what kind of editorial format to use. “We said, ‘What if it’s all visuals?’ We pitched them the idea to use drones and video and amazing photography to sell the destinations and the experiences around them,” Jauncey said.

This campaign also marks the first time Beautiful Destinations has asked its Instagram community to participate in a campaign. “We thought it would be really interesting to plug into that community and inspire our content creators to create content for our clients and have all these great personalized stories,” said Jauncey.

Hoyt H. Harper II, global brand leader for The Luxury Collection said that, in addition to curating content developed by the Instagram community, the guides will also feature content from experts in the field, including local hotel concierges.

He also said, “We know our guests are socially active, and we know that 75 percent of our target consumers visit travel websites for fun at least once a month for fun or for inspiration. We want to provide them with that information and inspiration though the channels that they visit.” view  Hotel in Agra

Top 10: the best luxury hotels in Rome

An insider's guide to the top luxury hotels in Rome, including the best for rooftop restaurants, Colosseum views, sumptuous spas and lavish bedrooms, in locations including the centro storico and the Piazza di Spagna.

The First Luxury Art Hotel Roma

When is a hotel not a hotel? When it’s also an art gallery – one which showcases the work of Italian and international artists in both common areas and bedrooms. This 29-room urban refuge is a good, discreet alternative to larger luxe palaces, and in its decked rooftop bar it has one of the best panoramic perches in the centro storico. The rooms follow the compartmentalised layout of Roman apartments, making them intimate and homely (some even have fireplaces). The main ground-floor restaurant is the gourmet’s choice; it’s worth putting barman Luca de Filippis through his paces – ask him to mix you a Frankenstein, then sit back and enjoy the show. view Hotel in Agra

Simhastha fair fails to set cash box ringing for hotels

Hoteliers who licked their chops expecting Simhastha pilgrims to book up rooms are staring at vacancy.

Hotel industry experts say most pilgrims visit Ujjain for a day and go back by evening, thanks to new four-lane roads from Indore, Dewas and Barnagar connecting the historical city.

“They are either taking a late evening flight or train out of Indore and other nearby cities. The room occupancy level in our hotel is about 75%, which is below our expectations,” said Arpit Agrawal of Rudraksh Resorts.

Some hotels are also receiving cancellation requests after adverse media reports about mismanagement during the first shahi snan on April 22, and soaring temperature.

Indore Hotels Association president Sumit Suri attributed the less-than-expected crowd at Simhastha to soaring temperatures and people’s preoccupation with the marriage season.

“Expectations of hoteliers in Indore were not very high as good hotels have come up in Ujjain. But even then, the response has been poor so far. It’s likely to improve during the second week of May,” he told HT. The association has 85 hotels under its umbrella with a combined capacity of about 2,000 rooms and the average room tariff is about Rs 3,000 per day.

Average room occupancy for major city hotels in 2015 stood at 70-75%, propped by increase in the number of business travellers and tourists. Almost all the good hotels have taxi services where they provide the tourists with a chauffeur-driven vehicle and charge on the basis of distance. Taxi aggregators Uber and Ola are also providing daily services from Indore to Ujjain, and the administration is running buses every five minutes from Indore.

“We are happy that road infrastructure and transport services have improved …, but from the business point of view the response has been lukewarm,” Agarwal said.

The ‘home stay’ scheme has also failed to take off due to strict registration norms.

view Hotel in Agra

Greetings From Asbury Park, Opening First Hotel in 50 Years

Designer Anda Andrei and hotel operator David Bowd have transformed the vacant Salvation Army Retired Officers Home into The Asbury, a 110-room hotel that will permit guests to check in at any time of day, for accommodations ranging from ocean view suites to rooms featuring bunk beds that can sleep up to eight.

The company has spent about $46 million on the property, which had an outstanding judgment of $8.5 million against the previous owners at the time of foreclosure.

From the ground floor to the roof, the hotel offers options for the spectrum of Asbury Park's diverse visitors, whom Bowd calls "a melting pot" of young, old, artists, musicians and gays.

Previous rebuilding attempts in Asbury Park — made famous by Springsteen's 1973 album "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J." — have seen grand ideas and great expectations collapse because of shallow pockets in economic downturns. But iStar Inc., which is developing the hotel and beachfront, believes it has a long-term strategy.

"It's all part of elevating the customer experience and trying to make the waterfront great," said senior vice president Brian Cheripka. "You have this eclectic community. This urban vibe. This little city by the sea, and there's this opportunity to get it right."

The beach has been drawing crowds since the late 1800s, and the city once boasted as many as 100 hotels and 600,000 annual visitors, said Asbury Park Historical Society president Don Stine.

Its popularity started to wane in the 1960s, when the development of the Garden State Parkway, a highway that runs the length of the state, opened access to other shore towns and a mall drew customers away from the shopping district. That, in tandem with a race riot in 1970, had Asbury withering away, with seagulls outnumbering humans on the beaches and many hotels being boarded up or becoming de facto homes for the deinstitutionalized, who wandered the streets and boardwalk through the 1980s.

Back then, the city seemed gray and depressing even on a sunny day.

"There was more demolition than construction, especially at the beachfront," Stine said. "You had to have faith Asbury would come back, and I think we're into a great revival of the seashore resort's prime real estate," he said.

The revival began with spurts of development in the 1990s and early 2000s, initially fueled by gays seeking a cheaper alternative to New York's Hamptons and Fire Island. Developers built condominiums and rejuvenated downtown storefronts, which sold or rented for less than other oceanfront towns.

A range of restaurants opened, and a series of annual festivals drew patrons to the city's two major hotels