world food trip insolvent

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2024 state of the culinary tourism industry report released.

LONDON , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The World Food Travel Association (WFTA), the world's leading authority on food and beverage tourism, announced today that its "2024 State of the Industry (SOTI) – Food & Beverage Tourism" report has been released and is now available as a free download.

The SOTI report is the WFTA's annual bellwether assessment and analysis of the food and beverage tourism industry (also known as culinary tourism or gastronomy tourism). Every year, the Association interviews leading industry experts and provides expert analysis in the form of this thought leadership report. This year, twelve trends are discussed and broadly cover developments in authenticity; localism; sustainability; diversity; AI; consumer behavior; influencers; health and wellness; social media; and customer loyalty.

The report is used by businesses, organizations and tourism offices to inform their strategy, marketing and related planning decisions over the coming 12 months. The report is oriented for professionals in the food, beverage, tourism and hospitality industries. Academics and researchers may also find the content of value.

Interested parties can learn more or download a free copy of the report in English, French, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese from this link .

ABOUT THE WORLD FOOD TRAVEL ASSOCIATION (WFTA)

The World Food Travel Association (WFTA) is a global, non-profit, non-political organization whose mission is to work with destination marketers and their stakeholders to facilitate the discovery and appreciation of unique culinary cultures by travelers.. Founded in 2003, the WFTA is the world's leading authority on gastronomy tourism and the global voice of the industry. Every year, the WFTA provides insights, resources, tools, research, and events to a network of 150,000 professionals in over 150 countries to help the industry grow. The Association's knowledge, tools, and training assist professionals, organizations, and destinations in leveraging their culinary culture and heritage to create a stronger sense of place, which increases visitor arrivals, strengthens a destination's brand equity, boosts local pride, generates export demand for the area's food and beverage products, and makes a significant local economic impact.

Media Contact: Erik Wolf (+44) 7827 582 554 [email protected]

View original content: https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/2024-state-of-the-culinary-tourism-industry-report-released-302070263.html

SOURCE World Food Travel Association

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Participant, studio behind 'Food, Inc.' and 'An Inconvenient Truth,' shuts down

Memo released tuesday informed participant's staff of 100 that the 20-year-old studio is winding down operations.

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Participant, the activist film and television studio that has financed Oscar winners like "Spotlight" and socially conscious documentaries like "Food, Inc," and "Waiting For Superman" is closing its doors after 20 years.

Billionaire Jeff Skoll told his staff of 100 in a memo shared with The Associated Press Tuesday that they were winding down company operations.

"This is not a step I am taking lightly," Skoll wrote in the memo. "But after 20 years of groundbreaking content and world-changing impact campaigns, it is the right time for me to evaluate my next chapter and approach to tackling the pressing issues of our time."

LAID-OFF EMPLOYEES SHUT DOWN LIBERAL OUTLET’S DIGITAL TOWN HALL MEETING BY FLOODING IT WITH THUMBS DOWN EMOJIS

Since Skoll founded the company in 2004, Participant has released 135 films, 50 of which were documentaries and many of which were tied to awareness-raising impact campaigns. Their films have won 21 Academy Awards including best picture for "Spotlight" and "Green Book," best documentary for "An Inconvenient Truth" and "American Factory" and best international feature for "Roma."

FILE - Jeff Skoll arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" at the Arclight Hollywood, July 25, 2017, in Los Angeles. Participant, the activist film and television studio that has financed Oscar winners like "Spotlight" and socially conscious documentaries like "Food, Inc," and "Waiting For Superman" is closing its doors after 20 years. Billionaire Skoll told his staff of 100 in a memo shared with The Associated Press on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, that they were winding down company operations. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)

Participant was behind films like "Contagion," "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Lincoln" and "Judas and the Black Messiah," the limited series "When They See Us" and also a sequel to their documentary "Food Inc," which they rolled out this month. Their films have made over $3.3 billion at the global box office. But the company had a "double bottom line" in which impact was measured in addition to profit.

Skoll stepped back from day-to-day operations of the company years ago. Veteran film executive David Linde has been CEO of Participant since 2015, during which they had their "Green Book" and "Roma" successes.

"I founded Participant with the mission of creating world-class content that inspires positive social change, prioritizing impact alongside commercial sustainability," Skoll wrote. "Since then, the entertainment industry has seen revolutionary changes in how content is created, distributed and consumed."

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Skoll added that their legacy "will live on through our people, our stories and all who are inspired by them."

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Former Post Office executive says he should not have said Horizon was robust

David Miller, then chief operating officer, tells inquiry he cannot recall 1999 meeting in which comment was made

A former Post Office executive has told a public inquiry that he “should not have said” to its board that the Horizon IT system was “robust and fit for purpose” and agreed there had been a “missed opportunity” to investigate post office operators’ concerns.

David Miller, who retired in 2006 as chief operating officer of the Post Office, had been told of problems with Horizon when he held meetings with post office operators in June 1999, the inquiry into the scandal has heard.

Miller told a hearing on Tuesday that he did not remember a Post Office board meeting in July 1999 where minutes show he gave assurances to executives that the Horizon system was “robust and fit for purpose”.

“I should not have said it was robust. I make the assumption that the board minutes are correct – so I did say it,” Miller told the inquiry.

The Post Office, which is owned by the UK government, pursued hundreds of post office operators for more than a decade, alleging financial shortfalls in their branch accounts, prosecuting them and demanding they pay back thousands of pounds.

It has since emerged that discrepancies had been caused by IT bugs within the Post Office Horizon computer system.

At the inquiry, Miller was shown an internal Post Office presentation about the history of Horizon given by Dave Smith, a former Post Office IT programme manager, in 2010 – four years after Miller had retired.

In one slide, Smith wrote that Post Office officials had “felt they had been shafted” and alleged a “stitch-up” by the government and Fujitsu, the IT company that developed the Horizon system.

The slide in Smith’s presentation read: “Whilst the group board signed up to the deal (Sunday afternoon in CEO’s kitchen) they did so with a gun pointed at their head – ‘sign this or all the other things you want you can forget’.”

The slide also quoted Miller as saying that his feelings towards Fujitsu were the same “as I would have for the man who had just shoved 15 inches of bayonet up my posterior”.

Miller was asked by Emma Price, counsel to the inquiry, whether he had ever made such comments, to which he replied: “Absolutely not.”

In 2004, Miller signed off on a legal settlement paying about £180,000 to a post office operator who was suing the Post Office. Julie Wolstenholme blamed losses at her branch on IT faults in the Horizon system and backed up her legal case with a report from an independent IT expert who called Horizon “clearly defective”.

Miller agreed there had been a “missed opportunity” to investigate the problems and told the inquiry he had not read the IT expert’s report or the advice of a barrister that Post Office should settle the case.

“I should have said stop … let’s review this properly and understand what happened here,” he said, adding that inside the Post Office there had been a “lot of knocking” of the IT expert’s report by others in the Post Office and by Fujitsu and it had not been given “sufficient weight”.

David Mills, the former chief executive of Post Office, told the inquiry that when he joined the Post Office in 2002 the business was “technically insolvent”.

“It did not take me very long to realise that it was a burning ship losing £1m a day,” he said. He told the inquiry that the board was more focused on solvency than prosecutions of post office operators and did not identify risks.

“I did not have the brain power to cope with more than I was coping with … I’m sorry I didn’t,” he told the inquiry.

He said it was “unusual” that the Post Office had the ability to prosecute and investigate its own cases but said he was “not aware” the organisation could do this until late in his tenure before he left in December 2005.

The future of Nick Reed, the embattled Post Office chief executive, will be determined this week with the publication of an independent report by a barrister which had been triggered by allegations against him, including claims of bullying. Reed denies the claims.

• Post Office Horizon scandal
• Post Office

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Bankruptcy of U.K.’s Largest Travel Operator Strands Thousands of Vacationers

The U.K. government is undertaking the largest repatriation effort since WWII to bring home 150,000 Thomas Cook customers

Jason Daley

Correspondent

Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of travelers around the globe found out that they were potentially stranded when Thomas Cook, one of the largest and oldest travel agencies and charter airlines in the world abruptly announced it was bankrupt. The firm immediately began liquidating assets and laid off its 22,000 employees. The event has put the British government on the hook for bringing 150,000 of its citizens home, the largest repatriation effort by the country since World War II.

Patrick Collinson at the Guardian reports that the 178-year-old travel company has experienced financial troubles for the past decade after merging with another travel group called MyTravel. Cook absorbed that company’s substantial debts while at the same time contending with increasingly competitive online travel hubs. That, plus a decline in bookings following Brexit uncertainty, all led up to the situation on Monday. When the company was denied a $250 million loan from private investors to stay afloat, it led to the immediate dissolution of the company.

Ben Perry at AFP reports that the bankruptcy has forced the government to step in. In a project dubbed Operation Matterhorn, the U.K. government and Civil Aviation Authority are lining up private flights to bring people home. “All customers currently abroad with Thomas Cook who are booked to return to the UK over the next two weeks will be brought home as close as possible to their booked return date,” the government wrote in a statement. It's not clear what, if any, type of arrangements are being made for non-U.K. travelers.

Any future travel plans arranged through Thomas Cook are canceled and customers will be refunded, mainly through government-back insurance, as Ceylan Yeginsu and Michael Wolgelenter at The New York Times report. The insurance will also reimburse hotels for customer stays, but some resorts don’t appear to have been made aware of that. Nightmare scenarios from people currently on vacation are slowly coming to light. Ian Westbrook at the BBC reports that all guests booked through Thomas Cook in one hotel in Spain had been locked out of their rooms and forced to pay out of pocket if they wanted to get back in. Several couples of elderly people were reported sleeping on couches in the hotel lobby. Molly Olmstead at Slate reports that up to 50,000 people are currently stuck on various Greek islands.

The New York Times reports that the shuttering of the company could have major impacts on certain destinations that rely heavily on Cook’s travel packages. The island of Crete, for example, receives 400,000 visitors booked by Cook annually. The Canary Islands receives about 3.2 to 3.6 million visitors via Cook charter flights each year.

Thomas Cook was started back in 1841 by cabinet maker Thomas Cook of Leicestershire, a supporter of the temperance movement. At that time, he arranged for a special train to carry supporters 12 miles to a temperance rally. As CNN reports, Cook continued to organize trips to temperance events and Sunday schools until 1845 when he organized his first commercial trip to Liverpool, complete with a travel guide for the event.

From there, things snowballed, and a decade later Cook was organizing trips to visit continental Europe, the United States and Egypt. In 1872, the company, continued by Cook's son, even put together the first round-the-world tour. Over time, it became the largest tour operator in Britain. It was considered so important that, after World War II almost bankrupted it, the tour agency was nationalized from 1948 to 1972.

When the company asked the government for a bailout this time around, the Boris Johnson administration said no. The New York Times reports that U.K. transportation secretary Grant Shapps pointed out that the company was billions of dollars in debt, and that a short-term bailout would not have saved it in the long run.

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Jason Daley | | READ MORE

Jason Daley is a Madison, Wisconsin-based writer specializing in natural history, science, travel, and the environment. His work has appeared in Discover , Popular Science , Outside , Men’s Journal , and other magazines.

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World's largest food program is in 'desperate situation' and running out of money as quickly as October

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The U.N. World Food Program (WFP), the largest anti-hunger initiative around the globe, is grappling with the worst funding shortage in its 60-year history and "we are in a desperate situation," Executive Director Cindy McCain said on Sunday.

"It's a combination of things -- it's COVID, it's climate change, it's conflict and also the cost of being able to do business," McCain told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl about the reasons behind the lack of money. "Those things combined and, of course, a world that has kind of grown tired of all this. There's a great malaise right now within countries about foreign aid and giving."

"The bottom line is those that are going to suffer [are] those who can't afford to," McCain said.

In September, the WFP said it "has been struggling to meet the global need for food assistance .... And for the first time ever, WFP has seen contributions decreasing while needs steadily increase." The organization has already had to make "significant cuts in hot spots such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Jordan, Palestine, South Sudan, Somalia, and Syria."

McCain warned on "This Week" that in Afghanistan, for example, the food program doesn't "have enough money to even get through October."

The WFP has been providing crucial services to the needy in the country, which was taken over in 2021 by the Taliban, who then imposed a wave of restrictions.

"Unless we can build up some funding for Afghanistan, we'll have to pull it completely out," McCain said.

Emphasizing the urgency, she said, "Right now, women can't work. They can't hold jobs of any kind. And in the case of WFP, we've been feeding women, feeding women and children. And if we have to pull out, starvation and famine is going to be the result of this."

Karl asked, "Who's not giving money that used to give money? What's happened?"

McCain said other international conflicts had, in a way, overshadowed the broader needs of the hungry around the world at the same time that voters have become warier of sending money overseas.

"Ukraine, for better or worse has sucked the oxygen out of the room. And I -- we certainly understand the need to support Ukraine. But there's other hot spots in the world that are deeply and as much desperate as Ukraine is," McCain said.

"So we have to make sure that we remind the world the importance of taking a look around the globe," she continued. "But people are talking to their parliaments, their parliaments are saying no, their constituents are saying no. And we are facing some of the same things here in the United States."

There were national security implications to supporting at-risk communities abroad, McCain said: "The terrorist groups are feeding people. And it's primarily a lot of the stuff they steal from us."

"We have to pay attention to it because we're either going to feed them now or fight them later. And there's no way about this. And ... as a human being and a humanitarian, we cannot turn our backs on this," McCain said. "We can't. If we don't do it, who will?"

McCain, widow of late Arizona Sen. John McCain, said her husband "would be furious" at the current state of affairs.

"I know he'd be traveling the world to make sure that people got the message and understood the importance and the desperation of the situation we're in," she said.

Cindy McCain, a Republican, has been vocal about her critical views of former President Donald Trump. But asked by Karl about what she thought would be the outcome if he won the 2024 election, she declined to answer specifically, citing her current work with the apolitical WFP.

Still, she said, "We have to consider what's at stake and why and the influence and impact a single human being can have on this situation."

World's largest food program is in 'desperate situation' and running out of money as quickly as October originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

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World Central Kitchen, led by a humanitarian chef, has fed crisis zones for years

Rachel Treisman

José Andrés unloads food packages delivered by World Central Kitchen in Kherson, Ukraine in November 2022. Efrem Lukatsky/AP hide caption

José Andrés unloads food packages delivered by World Central Kitchen in Kherson, Ukraine in November 2022.

The aid group World Central Kitchen said Tuesday that it is pausing its efforts to feed Palestinians in Gaza after seven of its workers were killed by an Israeli strike.

The nonprofit said in a statement that the team was hit while leaving a warehouse where they had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza by sea, a route that World Central Kitchen helped establish just last month.

The organization said the convoy had been traveling in a deconflicted zone, in armored cars branded with their logo and after coordinating movements with Israel's military, which now says it will conduct an investigation of the incident "at the highest levels." Erin Gore, the CEO of World Central Kitchen, called it a "targeted attack."

"This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war," she said.

The U.S.-based organization, which was founded by celebrity chef José Andrés and his wife Patricia in 2010, delivers food to people on the front lines of natural and humanitarian disasters around the world.

Middle East crisis — explained

World central kitchen pauses gaza aid, as netanyahu acknowledges an 'unintended hit'.

It has been working on the ground in the region since Hamas - led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and killed more than 1,200 people, according to the Israeli government. Israeli's military response in Gaza has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, displaced an estimated 1.7 million and left the territory on the brink of famine .

WCK said last week that it had provided some 42 million meals to people in Gaza over 175 days, calling the situation there "the most dire we've ever seen or experienced in our 15 year history."

"More and more people, particularly children, are dying of starvation," Gore and Andrés said in a joint statement. "We've known for months that famine is imminent and the situation is getting worse."

With food scarce and malnutrition rising , international experts have warned that some 30% of Gaza's population is already facing " catastrophic" levels of hunger and that northern Gaza could officially see famine anytime between now and May.

World Central Kitchen isn't the only organization working to get food into Gaza, where aid deliveries are severely limited by Israeli border restrictions, logistical challenges and ongoing fighting. But it has played a major role in the humanitarian response, including sending two shipments of hundreds of tons of food to Gaza by sea.

The second such shipment — stocked with shelf-stable items like rice, canned vegetables and proteins, as well as dates in honor of Ramadan — left Cyprus on Saturday . The Cypriot foreign ministry said Tuesday that some 100 tons of aid had been unloaded in Gaza before WCK announced it was pausing its operations in the enclave, and the remaining 240 tons would be returned to Cyprus, according to the Associated Press .

Just days ago, WCK vowed it would keep pushing to get food into Gaza "until there is substantial aid getting in via land." Now those plans are up in the air — it says it will be "making decisions about the future of our work soon."

In the meantime, here's what else to know about the organization:

WCK brings food to the front lines of disasters

People line up for food prepared by a World Central Kitchen worker in Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine in December 2022. Evgeniy Maloletka/AP hide caption

People line up for food prepared by a World Central Kitchen worker in Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine in December 2022.

Andrés is a Spanish-American chef known for his numerous U.S. restaurants, PBS travel series and humanitarian work of over a decade.

He traveled to Haiti after it was struck by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in 2010, cooking for displaced people in camps — an ad hoc relief mission that helped set World Central Kitchen in motion.

WCK has responded to a long list of natural and man-made disasters ever since, working with local partners on the ground.

It served more than 20,000 meals in the Houston area after Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and another 3.7 million across Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria , for which Andrés was named the James Beard humanitarian of the year in 2018 (seven years after winning its "outstanding chef" award).

He told NPR that same year that he expected to see more chefs getting involved in disaster response, since "restaurant people" are particularly well suited to managing chaos.

NPR's Book of the Day

In 'the world central kitchen cookbook,' josé andrés collects recipes with impact.

"What we are very good at is understanding the problem and adapting," he said. "And so a problem becomes an opportunity ... We're practical. We're efficient. And we can do it quicker, faster and better than anybody."

The organization has grown substantially over the years and expanded its efforts to focus not only on disaster response but resilience training and longer-term community needs, including opening a culinary school in Port-au-Prince several years after the earthquake that started it.

It has fed survivors of major wildfires in California and Hawaii , federal workers in D.C. during the 2019 government shutdown and stranded cruise ship passengers during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic , throughout which it provided food for front line workers and other vulnerable groups in the U.S. as well as Spain, Indonesia and the Dominican Republic.

It delivered hot meals and fresh produce to a Buffalo, N.Y., neighborhood after 10 people were killed in a mass shooting at a supermarket , and distributed food after the Uvalde school shooting in Texas.

More recently, WCK provided more than 20 million meals to people impacted by the dual earthquakes in Turkey and Syria last April. And it has responded to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine by providing millions of meals to people there , first in hard-hit population centers and neighboring countries, and increasingly in more remote and vulnerable areas.

This is not the first time WCK has lost workers in a conflict zone

Workers hug on Tuesday after recovering the bodies of World Central Kitchen staff who were killed by Israeli air strikes in Rafah, Gaza. Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images hide caption

Workers hug on Tuesday after recovering the bodies of World Central Kitchen staff who were killed by Israeli air strikes in Rafah, Gaza.

World Central Kitchen has lost workers before.

Several team members have been killed in Ukraine in recent years, according to the organization.

It said in June that a 60-year-old volunteer named Igor was killed when Russian shelling hit his apartment building in Kharkiv, and that two other volunteers, Sardor and Viktoria, had been killed in a strike in Chuhuiv the previous July. (The group only identified them by their first names.)

Andrés told NPR's Morning Edition in December that WCK had lost a total of six people in Ukraine.

"As a cook, as a chef, when I founded this organization, I never expected that this will happen," he said. "And I almost wanted to pull World Central Kitchen immediately out of Ukraine. But the locals told me: 'José, You cannot leave. We need you. We need your organization.'"

Middle East

Gaza food crisis is nothing like anything chef josé andrés had seen before.

While conflict zones are inherently dangerous, the organization has also faced criticism over its safety record in the past.

In December, Bloomberg published a story alleging — among other accusations — that Andrés looked the other way on matters of staff safety, including demanding that staff send a food truck into parts of Turkey that local officials had declared "no-gos" due to landslides.

Andrés told NPR that disaster and war zones come with risks, and the organization doesn't "push anybody to go."

"Obviously, it's people that maybe they don't feel safe doing this job, but then they shouldn't be in these kind of humanitarian situations," he added. "But from there to say that José Andrés puts people in danger — I'd never be able to tell anybody to do what I'm not willing to do on my own."

The organization has won awards and faced upheaval

World Central Kitchen brought food to the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, one of many natural disasters to which it's responded. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

World Central Kitchen brought food to the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, one of many natural disasters to which it's responded.

WCK has earned plenty of accolades for its work over the years, but has also recently weathered a string of scandals.

Andrés was awarded the 2015 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama and has twice been named one of TIME's most influential people, among them. A handful of Democratic lawmakers nominated WCK and Andrés himself for the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year.

The nonprofit — which operates on non-governmental contributions — has grown exponentially since its founding. It brought in more than $500 million in contributions and grants in 2022, which the New York Times reports was a fourfold increase from the year before.

While WCK gets perfect scores on watchdog sites like Charity Navigator and Charity Watch, there have been some concerns and criticisms raised recently about where exactly that money is going — including from within the organization itself.

A charity kitchen in Ukraine linked to chef José Andrés was destroyed by a missile

WCK announced last June that as it was spending some $2 million a day in Ukraine, it "learned of suspected instances of fraud" and commissioned a law firm to investigate. It ultimately confirmed instances of fraud that amounted to several million dollars, which the organization called "unacceptable, but still represents a tiny percentage of the $432 million we spent feeding people impacted by war."

It acknowledged it could have invested more in its internal operations to discover "bad actors," and said it was making changes among personnel and partners in both Ukraine and Turkey as a result — as well as implementing additional safeguards to combat fraud, like an anonymous tip line.

The organization has also grown in size, now counting thousands of volunteers and 94 employees, according to 2022 filings .

Humanitarian leaders are condemning the strike

United Nations staff members gather Tuesday around a World Central Kitchen car that was hit by an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah in Gaza. AFP via Getty Images hide caption

United Nations staff members gather Tuesday around a World Central Kitchen car that was hit by an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah in Gaza.

WCK said the seven workers killed in the Israeli strike included a Palestinian and citizens of Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom and Canada — with one a dual citizen of the U.S.

U.S. and foreign leaders as well as international organizations are offering their condolences and condemnations, and calling for an independent investigation into the Israeli military strike.

Philippe Lazzarini , the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — which has lost at least 176 employees in Gaza — said the organization provides "much needed food assistance to a starving population."

Boiling weeds, eating animal feed: People in Gaza stave off hunger any way they can

He said humanitarian workers are #NotATarget, a hashtag that other human rights groups and public officials are using in their posts about the attack.

Andrés wrote on X that he is heartbroken and grieving for the loved ones of those killed, whom he described as "people ... angels."

"The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing," he said. "It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon. No more innocent lives lost. Peace starts with our shared humanity. It needs to start now."

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West London agent folds owing an estimated £11m

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A west London tour operator and travel agency, Dream World Travel, has called in insolvency practitioners owing consumers an estimated £11 million.

The company’s failure was confirmed by the CAA on Wednesday.

Dream World Travel held an Atol and was licensed to carry 4,450 passengers this summer.

The company was an appointed representative of Fly Now Pay Later Ltd, allowing customers to pay the balance of bookings in monthly instalments.

It sold chiefly long-haul travel, including to the US, South America, Southeast Asia and Australia.

Dream World Travel has been trading since 2006 and sold under its own name and as Al-umrah.com, Businessclassflights.co.uk, Bookholidaysonline.com and Bookonlineflights.com.

It described itself as “one of the UK’s leading independent travel agencies”. The company was not an Abta member.

Dream World Travel’s most-recent accounts to the end of June 2021 showed a loss of just over £20,000 for the 12 months, on turnover of almost £5.8 million.

It reported owing creditors almost £1.9 million at this time, plus an additional £232,000 in bank loans, but reported £2.3 million in current assets.

The accounts were signed off by auditors Sterling Associates after Dream World Travel’s previous auditor Pittalis Gilchrist resigned in March 2022 for unspecified reasons.

Dream World Travel reported turnover in excess of £36 million for the 12 months to June 2020 despite the start of the Covid pandemic in March that year, but it made a profit after tax of just £8,225 on the period.

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Will your travel insurance cover you in case of vendor bankruptcy?

With airport meltdowns , record numbers of canceled flights and baggage problems multiplying , travelers are facing unprecedented levels of disruptions this summer. Because of this, travel insurance is increasingly becoming an essential part of trip planning for people keen on protecting their vacation investments.

These are not the only reasons why you should consider travel insurance, though. There's a new concern you'll want to be mindful of as you browse travel insurance plans and review the fine print of policies: bankruptcy.

After two travel companies, Scandinavian Airlines and Crystal Cruises , recently announced they were bankrupt, some customers not only found themselves with canceled trip plans, but also with no way to get refunded due to the companies entering bankruptcy protection.

If you find yourself in a similar situation where an airline, cruise company or other travel operator ceases operations, what can you expect when it comes to recouping your investment if you have travel insurance? Will you get your money back, or are there certain bankruptcy scenarios where you may lose your investment?

TPG looked at different situations and coverage options to help you decide which plan is best for you.

For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter .

Why you may need bankruptcy travel insurance

Like any company, a travel group like an airline, a tour company or a cruise line can go bankrupt. When a company enters bankruptcy protection, customers who have paid for trips are often left with no choice but to join a long line of creditors waiting for reimbursement. Because the amount they're owed is significantly less than other affected parties like banks, they will likely be low on the reimbursement list, meaning it could take a considerable amount of time for them to get their money back.

Even travelers who have credit card travel insurance or a standard travel insurance policy may be out of luck when it comes to having their costs covered, as many credit card companies introduced language in recent years that specifically excludes coverage in the event of vendor bankruptcy or the cessation of operations. For example, the current exclusions for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card include a note that the card does not cover you in the case of "Financial insolvency of the Cardholder's travel agency, tour operator, or travel supplier."

Other cards, like The Platinum Card® from American Express , do not have specific exclusions due to vendor bankruptcy but do note that their travel insurance policies will not cover a flight disruption in the event of an industrial action (like a labor strike) that "has commenced or has been announced prior to booking a Covered Trip."

So what will happen if you run into a bankruptcy issue this summer? You'll face a lot of uncertainty, if you don't have a policy that covers bankruptcy.

Anna Chiu, who planned to fly on SAS from California to Germany with her family of six this week, told TPG how nerve-wracking it's been trying to get her money back from the newly bankrupt airline.

"It's been very stressful," Chiu says. "They just canceled our flight two days before departure. Supposedly we are able to get a refund and a reimbursement for the difference in the new flight with a different airline, but we will see what that shakes out to be."

Finding new flights with enough seats grouped together to accommodate a family with small children (as in Chiu's situation) is extremely difficult at a time when everything related to travel is overbooked and expensive, to say the least. For those who are unable to secure replacement flights, the situation has the potential to force them to cancel their entire vacation, resulting in additional losses for prepaid activities and lodging.

This is where travel insurance policies that cover bankruptcy can prove incredibly useful. While you may still lose some money due to listed exclusions to that policy's bankruptcy coverage, you'll at least recoup some of your investment.

"Typically, the plan will cover financial default of the cruise line, airline or tour company with which you will be traveling; travel agencies are usually not included," InsureMyTrip, a travel insurance marketplace, says on its website.

Related: The best credit cards that offer trip cancellation and interruption insurance

How to know if your travel insurance policy covers bankruptcy

Given the unsettled nature of everything related to travel right now, it's certainly plausible that additional travel vendors will face bankruptcy or financial meltdowns. To be prepared for those situations, you should consider travel insurance policies that specifically cover bankruptcies.

For example, Allianz Global Assistance states that its policies "can help in some cases of businesses ceasing operations due to financial conditions, which may or may not include bankruptcy if it meets certain conditions," according to its website.

Of course, exceptions and conditions may apply, even to policies with this kind of coverage. In the case of Allianz Global Assistance, these eligibility qualifiers are noted on the Allianz website:

• Your policy must have been purchased within 14 days of the date of the first trip payment or deposit.
• The cessation of operations must occur more than seven days after your policy's coverage effective date.
• Your policy was not purchased directly through the tour operator, airline or cruise line ceasing operations, or an affiliate of that entity.
• The tour operator, airline or cruise line was included in the company's list of covered suppliers on your policy's coverage-effective date.

Seven Corners, another travel insurance provider, also offers coverage if there's "financial insolvency or default" with a vendor via its RoundTrip Travel Protection policy. However, the company notes that benefits will be paid "only if no alternate transportation is available," according to the Seven Corners website. "If alternate transportation is available, benefits will be limited to the change fee charged to allow you to transfer to another airline in order to get to your intended destination."

For other companies' travel insurance policies, you may find that you're "covered by the Financial Default benefit if your airline, or other travel supplier, completely suspends operations for financial circumstances," according to Squaremouth, an online insurance marketplace. "The Financial Default benefit is included within some travel insurance policies to reimburse your prepaid and non-refundable trip expenses if your travel supplier suspends services due to financial circumstances, whether or not bankruptcy is filed," the company says on its website.

The key to knowing whether the plan you're considering covers bankruptcies is to read the fine print so you know exactly what the coverage areas, terms and conditions are for that particular policy.

Related: 3 timely tips for finding and using travel insurance this summer

Bottom line

Several big-name travel industry vendors have declared bankruptcy in the past year, including SAS and Crystal Cruises . With the ongoing volatility in the travel industry, the odds are higher than usual that more companies may need to cease operations due to financial or operational problems. If such shutdowns happen, customers will face significant travel disruptions, at the very least.

Purchasing travel insurance policies with specific clauses covering vendor bankruptcies is a good way to protect yourself against the risk of losing money, but not all plans are created equal. Before deciding on a policy, be sure to read the fine print and connect directly with a travel insurance company agent to answer specific questions you may have.

While it may require a little more effort on your part to ensure you're protected, the added peace of mind you'll have will go a long way in helping you enjoy your vacation — or minimizing headaches, should an unexpected situation like a company going bankrupt arise.

Popular recipes from around the world in 2020

Recently updated on August 14th, 2023 at 11:24 am

For most of us, travelling since last year has been a lot less about jading jet-lags, pool-side prosecco or must-do museums and a lot more about travelling with our taste buds. We were keen to find out the many ways you’ve been exploring the world whilst we’ve been grounded, so we commissioned a survey, intended to look at over 50,000 key words people were searching for on Google. We thought the results were more than a little interesting, so we thought we’d share some of the highlights as a little inspiration.

After a full year of lockdown, it’s no surprise that we’ve explored the world – quite literally – via word of mouth, following our palate rather than our hunger for new travel adventures. The result? We’ve seen new food trends and experiences emerge, that will likely shape how we explore the world in the future. In short, lockdown has made us hungry for food travel, and we can’t wait to see where your bellies will lead you on your next holiday!

With so many of us embracing the stay-at-home message, even the most novice of cooks attempted baking, proofing or cultivating their own yeast starters. Ever wondered why your local supermarket’s flour and yeast stocks were always depleted? Now you know: pizza. With a 26% increase in pizza searches worldwide, many of us attempted (and perhaps just a few succeeded) to make one of Italy’s most popular food dishes. When it came down to food trends however, the world looked to Latin America for inspiration. The proof? Searches for Mexican enchiladas and Latin American street food, like churros, were both up by 42%.

When we weren’t kneading dough or looking for food travel inspiration, we also gave our best shot at recreating our favourite take-away dishes. One of the most popular cuisines in the world is Chinese food, and last year proved that not even a pandemic could stop our global desire for dim sum, chop suey or chow mein.

Yet while we all love a good Chinese takeaway, in 2020 we also looked to new exciting food experiences and explored previously overlooked foods of the world, too. Our interest in new flavours inspired one of the biggest food trends of the year: Eastern European food. And with searches for Belarusian local restaurants up by 1,600% and interest in Romanian food tours up by 85%, we’re predicting that food travel to Eastern European countries will boom. Keen to try the delights of Eastern European food for yourself? On our Highlights of Eastern Europe food tour, you can look forward to sampling the best of Vienna, Budapest, Prague and more.

Lockdown might have changed our habits, but it definitely hasn’t changed our love for food experiences, or our desire to explore the world through our taste buds. These were the most popular dishes from some of our favourite foodie nations:

• Sweet and sour chicken move over, it’s all about the dim sum! These small but delectable dumplings topped the list of most popular Chinese dishes followed by the ever-popular chop suey and chow mein.
• Whether you’ve made your Italian mamma proud by cooking your own lasagne or discovered a new talent for making homemade pizza, over lockdown we couldn’t get enough of mastering the Italian culinary experience from home.
• Did someone say taco Tuesday? We might not have been able to take up this tradition at a restaurant (or better yet, on the Yucatan’s sandy beaches), but we definitely loved recreating the Mexican at home food experience.
• Those little rolled up bundles of gastronomic delight commonly known as sushi rolls have been all-time favourites for a while now. But any foodie will tell you there’s way more to Japanese national cuisine than sushi, so we’ve rightfully been getting stuck into ramen and takoyaki, too.
• If you can’t get enough of a good biryani, you’re not alone – biryani is one of the most popular dishes in the world. But there was also a global appetite for butter chicken and naan, too.

And as for new food trends that made their way onto the trendy food list? Well, while travelling to paradisiac Pacific places was off-limits, that didn’t stop us from searching about exotic cuisines like Tuvalu and French Polynesian food.

Whilst we all know and love pizza, how familiar are you with Andorran cuisine? This small landlocked microstate perched amidst the high peaks of the Pyrenees was the talk of the town world this year. With 80% more searches about Andorra’s national cuisine than the previous year, we predict there will be a global appetite for exploring the 16th smallest country in the world once food travel resumes!

In 2020 we roamed the world from our kitchen tables, but what were we searching for? Well, warmth and spice evidently, based on the fact that food tours to the Caribbean island of Jamaica grew by 1,451%. But it wasn’t just warmth we were after, as the next most searched destination was chilly Nepal, with many of you keen to explore its national cuisine.

Found yourself craving warming flavours and exotic spices, and ready to explore beyond the kitchen table? Why not follow the trend by embarking on a Morocco food tour? Sample the country’s national flavours like mint tea, tajine and couscous while exploring on our Best of Morocco tour. As well as diving into Morocco’s colourful history and way of life, you’ll be immersed in the nation’s famous foodie scene through rich cultural experiences like our exclusive ‘Be My Guest’ dinner experience, hosted in a traditional Riad in Fes.

Fast-forward to 2021 and despite the travel restrictions, our appetite for global food travelis just as ravenous as ever. In fact, demand for food tours globally increased by 24% in the first 3 months of 2021 alone. So where do we have our sights set on? Trendy food destinations include Vietnam, where searches for Hue food tours have boomed by an incredible 253%. In a country famed for crispy spring rolls, steaming bowls of pho and fresh salt and pepper squid, it’s not so hard to see the foodie appeal. Discover it for yourself on our Vietnam and Cambodia Uncovered vacation.

Regional food tours have also proved popular so far this year, with 86% more searches for US food tours, making it one of the most trendy food destinations. Travel to New Orleans has been particularly trendy, with searches for the ‘big easy’s’ food tours up by 123%.

Do you believe that food and travel go hand in hand? Our Be My Guest dining experiences are exclusive to Trafalgar and designed to connect you with locals in the places you visit. These experiences will see you breaking bread and sharing stories with fascinating individuals from all across the world as families welcome you into their home to share recipes passed down from generation to generation. Whether sampling rich bodied Chianti in a Tuscan vineyard, tasting Japanese delicacies in a traditional ryokan or enjoying the farm to table dining experience at an organic farm in Hawaii, Be My Guest is the ultimate celebration of food travel.

Curious to discover last years top quarantine food trends? Our number one trending food was the newly launched Mexican mango tajin popsicle with a 7,923% increase in searches. But Mexican food was also trending on social media with dishes like birrieria and quesabirria tacos featuring in all our favourite foodie’s blogs.

If Mexico’s national cuisine was on everyone’s lips in 2020, fast-forward to 2021 and it’s all about Bangladeshi food with searches for bhorta increasing by 511% making it one of our favourite trendy foods of the year. More finger-licking trends we’ll sure hear more about in 2021 are Basque burnt cheesecake (174%) and juicy birria from Mexico (173%).

Love food and travel? Our food tours will have your taste buds dancing as you experience the world’s best cuisines the local way. From exploring Florence’s markets before making pasta, then feasting on Italian favourites in a Tuscan villa or an authentic Māori Hangi in New Zealand , to cooking traditional Peruvian food with an award-winning local chef, a food holiday with Trafalgar will ensure you unlock the world’s most delicious destinations.

Discover all of our dedicated food tours , now available for 2022 and beyond. Where would you most like to go? Leave your thoughts in the comments below…

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After ‘Civil War’ and mainstream success, can indie darling A24 keep its cool?

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Earlier this month, indie studio A24 released a provocative promotional image for its latest film, “Civil War” — depicting a map of a dystopian America divided into surprising alliances between the states.

With no explanation for the fictional breakdown of the republic, the image showed California and Texas united as the so-called Western Forces, whereas much of the southeast had apparently formed the Florida Alliance, leaving the rest of the country split between the New People’s Army in the northwest and the Loyalist States elsewhere.

If the idea was to ignite discourse, it succeeded — an example of the savvy marketing strategies employed by New York-based A24, known for its history of successfully selling challenging material to theatrical and television audiences.

“Civil War,” the latest effort from “Annihilation” and “Ex Machina” director Alex Garland, opened with an estimated $25.7 million in ticket sales from the U.S. and Canada, which exceeded industry expectations. It’s the biggest domestic opening weekend for an A24 movie since the company’s founding in 2012.

The A24 mystique is rare among film companies. With movies including “Hereditary,” “Lady Bird,” “Uncut Gems” and best-picture Oscar winners “Moonlight” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the firm has developed brand recognition and a loyal following. For some moviegoers, seeing A24’s banner appear before the opening credits is a significant selling point.

As evidenced by “Civil War,” the company’s ambitions are only growing. The movie carries a reported production budget of $50 million, and the official trailer, with its harrowing shots of flying helicopters and urban warfare, could easily have been mistaken for a Gerard Butler action thriller. Fittingly, it played on Imax screens, an unusual feat for an indie film.

(Audiences, it’s worth noting, were split on “Civil War,” giving it a B-minus CinemaScore, so its domestic grosses may top out at around $70 million, according to rival distributors.)

Helping to fuel A24’s efforts to become a bigger Hollywood player is a $225-million funding round from a consortium of investors in 2022, led by Stripes, a firm founded by New York investor Ken Fox. The deal, which came at a frothy time for investment in independent production companies, valued A24 at an eye-popping $2.5 billion.

The question facing any hip entertainment company as it transitions into a more mainstream phase is the same one that successful indie rock bands have grappled with for decades: Can they maintain the essence that made them cool in the first place while also achieving greater commercial clout?

In a Bloomberg Businessweek article published in February, the company’s TV head talked about the idea of A24 having its own take on reality TV shows like “The Hills” or “Laguna Beach.”

Well, so far, so good.

A24’s efforts in television seem to have stayed true to its edgy reputation, securing a major hit with HBO’s “Euphoria,” followed by Emmy-winner “Beef” and “The Curse,” which ended with one of the strangest finales in recent memory. (“The Idol” flopped with critics and viewers, becoming a hate-watch for some.)

In film, the taste quotient remains high, with awards season contenders including “Past Lives” and “The Zone of Interest” mixed in with the artsy horror flicks such as “Talk to Me” and Ti West’s ongoing Mia Goth-starring “X” trilogy (“MaXXXine” is set for release in July).

An important question mark looming over A24’s rise is the state of the market for theatrical movies more broadly. Even at CinemaCon, the annual trade show (doubling as propaganda event) for the theater chains and studios, there were acknowledgments of the challenges in the industry as it tries to recover (still) from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Movies are expected to generate $8 billion to $8.5 billion in sales in the U.S. and Canada this year, which is way down from pre-virus years. In 2023, movies grossed $9 billion domestically. Ouch.

As my colleague Christi Carras reported all week from the Las Vegas convention at Caesars Palace, there has been constant chatter about theater operators teetering on the edge of insolvency. The 2024 slate is thin, thanks to last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes. But that’s not the only cause for concern. Studios are cutting budgets, which means fewer movies.

A24 didn’t present at CinemaCon. Neither did its closest rival, Neon, though that company did screen an upcoming comedy, “Babes.” Sony Pictures’ film boss Tom Rothman did not take the Colosseum stage this year, depriving the festivities of much pro-theater chest-beating.

(Sony-owned anime shop Crunchyroll did present; “Sound of Freedom” firm Angel Studios held a breakfast talk about its slate.) Next year is expected to be stronger as studios release more movies, but by how much, no one really knows.

Adult-skewing indie movies are an especially challenging business after the pandemic. The bar has risen in terms of what audiences will consider worthy of trekking to their local multiplexes to see, especially if they have to pay a babysitter.

But A24 has found a lane, particularly with the types of moviegoers who enjoy sniping about film in group chats and on social media platforms, including cinephile refuge Letterboxd. But that’s not all. Part of A24’s success is due to an ability to understand its own fan base, which cares about “Dune: Part Two” as much as it flocks to Sundance midnight-screening catnip. No need to take sides there.

You’re reading the Wide Shot

Ryan Faughnder delivers the latest news, analysis and insights on everything from streaming wars to production — and what it all means for the future.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Stuff we wrote

Paramount, Shari Redstone face investor angst over possible Skydance deal. Shares of Paramount Global took a beating after news that several directors are leaving the company’s board. Some investors have taken public swipes at the board for negotiating exclusively with Skydance.

How O.J. Simpson’s murder trial changed the TV news business. The actor and former football star’s trial, where he was acquitted, was filled with stunning moments. It rocked the media landscape and became the first true-crime mega hit.

Google says it will reduce some user access to California news sites. The internet search giant said it will remove links to California news sites for some users because of concerns about a state bill that may require Google to pay publishers.

Why brands are working with digital avatars. Hatsune Miku has already sold out venues for her concerts and she’ll go to her biggest stage yet at Coachella. She looks like a teenage girl, but she’s not human.

Hollywood’s stunt-driving industry is dominated by men. These women are fighting for change. Olivia Summers and Dee Bryant are building a team of all-women stunt drivers to make the stunt-driving industry more inclusive.

Obits for two big names in television news. Robert MacNeil , the stately journalist who brought news to PBS, is dead at 93. MacNeil was the founding anchor of “PBS NewsHour.” Also, Richard Leibner, pioneering agent of TV news stars, died at 85 . Leibner negotiated for many of the biggest (and richest) names in network news, including Diane Sawyer and Mike Wallace.

Number of the week

Hannah Gutierrez, the armorer on the set of the Alec Baldwin movie “Rust,” was sentenced Monday to 18 months in New Mexico prison — the maximum penalty — after her involuntary manslaughter conviction for her role in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin’s criminal trial is set to begin in July in Santa Fe. Read Meg James’ story for more details on Gutierrez’s hearing.

Film shoots

Latest film shoot data for Los Angeles, courtesy of FilmLA.

Best of the web (and other bookmarks)

— How a case against Fox News tore apart a media-fighting law firm . (New York Times)

— If you thought Disney adults were wild ... Adult fans of Lego, known as AFOLs, are now big business for the world’s largest toy maker . (Wall Street Journal)

— Netflix’s “3 Body Problem” showcases one of China’s most successful works of culture. Instead of demonstrating pride, local social media is condemning it . (NYT)

— Coachella ticket sales were slower than in recent years. ( Read all about it here. ) Other festivals have been struggling too. Fun-flation! It was fun while it lasted.

Well, it sounds like the festival was a good time, nonetheless, if you believe my colleague Vanessa Franko (and I do).

Finally ...

This newsletter and my taxes were completed to the sounds of the latest Vampire Weekend album .

The Wide Shot is going to Sundance!

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Ryan Faughnder is a senior editor with the Los Angeles Times’ Company Town team, which covers the business of entertainment. He also hosts the entertainment industry newsletter The Wide Shot. A San Diego native, he earned a master’s degree in journalism from USC and a bachelor’s in English from UC Santa Barbara. Before joining The Times in 2013, he wrote for the Los Angeles Business Journal and Bloomberg News.

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Retail insolvencies rise as cost-of-living pressures slash consumer spending

More retailers are shutting up shop for good as the cost-of-living crisis cripples household spending, with insolvencies in the retail sector more than doubling in the past two years.

Data from ASIC shows 502 retail businesses have entered administration so far this financial year, compared to 193 businesses during the same period in 2022, with low-cost jewellery and accessories chain Colette the latest casualty after its parent company Marquee went into voluntary administration last week.

It follows a string of high-profile businesses collapsing, including vacuum cleaner retailer Godfreys, and fashion and swimwear chain Tigerlily entering administration for the second time in March.

Tight household budgets are also impacting smaller retailers, including second-hand and consignment stores which have noticed customers are becoming more conservative with their cash.

"It's a bit of a scary time to be in retail right now," said Kirsta Hawkins, the founder and CEO of Melbourne-based consignment store Mutual Muse.

"Two years ago after we got out of lockdown, everyone was like, 'Spend, spend, spend.'

"People just don't have a lot of disposable income these days. There's a lot of expenses, so I think people are just tightening up where they can, and clothing is one of those things."

As a consignment store, Ms Hawkins's shop depends on sellers providing her business with stock.

Although she has seen an increase in the number of people interested in selling clothing, footwear and accessories, she says sales have not kept pace — even with lower prices.

"Sales are going OK, but they have definitely plateaued in the last year," she said.

"Before, we were kind of always growing, and that had been pretty steady through the last nine years.

"Then 2023 hit and you're just like, 'Oh crap.'"

Low confidence, low cost

The pessimism retailers are noticing from customers isn't just anecdotal; data from the Westpac Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index for March shows Australians are still feeling deeply dismayed at near-historic lows.

Matthew Hassan, a senior economist at Westpac, said the "bleak" sentiment among consumers was unlikely to ease anytime soon.

"The pessimism that has dominated the consumer mood for nearly two years now is still showing few signs of lifting," he said.

"Outside of the deep recession of the early 1990s, this is easily the second-most protracted period of deep consumer pessimism since we began surveying in the mid-1970s."

Fuelling that pessimism is the higher cost of living, with households spending more on food, electricity, mortgage repayments and rent and holding off on non-essential purchases where possible.

For discount retailers such as The Reject Shop, it has resulted in an uptick in customers coming through their doors who are looking to save on everyday items.

"It's really hard out there, and it's hard for Australian families particularly … I think they're really looking for ways to save money every day," Amy Eshuys, the retailer's chief operating officer, said.

"They're coming to us for shampoos, for body washes, for soaps … if you go to our cleaning department [people are buying] dishwashing tablets, paper towel, everything that you'd need just for day-to-day use."

Even with its lower-cost items, The Reject Shop has reported lower quarterly net profit figures. However, but Ms Eshuys said that was the universal experience for retailers in the current economic climate.

"I think [it's] just general inflation across all cost lines is impacting all retail," she said.

"Cost is up for everyone, so it's up for us, and margins are squeezed."

Support needed to keep doors open

The National Retail Association, which represents smaller retailers and medium-sized chains, is acutely aware of the pressures facing its 6,000 members.

A recent survey of its members found the majority were struggling to pay their overhead costs, forcing them to weigh up shutting their doors for good.

"Retail trade is suffering. We did a sentiment survey last week which illustrated 77 per cent of those businesses are struggling with operational costs, [and] 44 per cent of businesses are doing less profit than last year," the association's CEO, Rob Godwin, said.

"Retailers are seeing that lack of consumer confidence every day. They're seeing reduced foot traffic, they're seeing reduced traffic to their websites, and they're seeing a reduced spend per customer.

"So you combine that with the increase in cost of operation, with also the general reduction in spending, and it's tough."

Mr Godwin said while the recent rise in retail insolvencies was concerning, it was "not surprising", and he predicted more businesses would shut their doors by the end of June.

But there could be positive news on the horizon, with data from NAB's latest business survey indicating the worst might be over for retailers.

"Business conditions in retail have been low for some time … but there's been a bit of an improvement in forward orders and confidence for March," senior economist Brody Viney said.

"We do think the period of slower consumer spending will continue a bit longer. Our expectation is it'll improve more in later 2024."

Until then, Mr Godwin wants the federal government to intervene and provide assistance to retailers in next month's budget.

"We've actually called upon the government in the May budget to bring in measures around energy, around insurance, and around those operational costs, specifically wages, to try and help retailers out, specifically small and medium-sized retailers that are doing it tough," he said.

"Retailers need help, and they need help now."

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40 facts about elektrostal.

Written by Lanette Mayes

Modified & Updated: 02 Mar 2024

Reviewed by Jessica Corbett

Elektrostal is a vibrant city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia. With a rich history, stunning architecture, and a thriving community, Elektrostal is a city that has much to offer. Whether you are a history buff, nature enthusiast, or simply curious about different cultures, Elektrostal is sure to captivate you.

This article will provide you with 40 fascinating facts about Elektrostal, giving you a better understanding of why this city is worth exploring. From its origins as an industrial hub to its modern-day charm, we will delve into the various aspects that make Elektrostal a unique and must-visit destination.

So, join us as we uncover the hidden treasures of Elektrostal and discover what makes this city a true gem in the heart of Russia.

Key Takeaways:

• Elektrostal, known as the “Motor City of Russia,” is a vibrant and growing city with a rich industrial history, offering diverse cultural experiences and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.
• With its convenient location near Moscow, Elektrostal provides a picturesque landscape, vibrant nightlife, and a range of recreational activities, making it an ideal destination for residents and visitors alike.

Known as the “Motor City of Russia.”

Elektrostal, a city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, earned the nickname “Motor City” due to its significant involvement in the automotive industry.

Home to the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Elektrostal is renowned for its metallurgical plant, which has been producing high-quality steel and alloys since its establishment in 1916.

Boasts a rich industrial heritage.

Elektrostal has a long history of industrial development, contributing to the growth and progress of the region.

Founded in 1916.

The city of Elektrostal was founded in 1916 as a result of the construction of the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Located approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow.

Elektrostal is situated in close proximity to the Russian capital, making it easily accessible for both residents and visitors.

Known for its vibrant cultural scene.

Elektrostal is home to several cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, and art galleries that showcase the city’s rich artistic heritage.

A popular destination for nature lovers.

Surrounded by picturesque landscapes and forests, Elektrostal offers ample opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and birdwatching.

Hosts the annual Elektrostal City Day celebrations.

Every year, Elektrostal organizes festive events and activities to celebrate its founding, bringing together residents and visitors in a spirit of unity and joy.

Has a population of approximately 160,000 people.

Elektrostal is home to a diverse and vibrant community of around 160,000 residents, contributing to its dynamic atmosphere.

Boasts excellent education facilities.

The city is known for its well-established educational institutions, providing quality education to students of all ages.

A center for scientific research and innovation.

Elektrostal serves as an important hub for scientific research, particularly in the fields of metallurgy, materials science, and engineering.

Surrounded by picturesque lakes.

The city is blessed with numerous beautiful lakes, offering scenic views and recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike.

Well-connected transportation system.

Elektrostal benefits from an efficient transportation network, including highways, railways, and public transportation options, ensuring convenient travel within and beyond the city.

Famous for its traditional Russian cuisine.

Food enthusiasts can indulge in authentic Russian dishes at numerous restaurants and cafes scattered throughout Elektrostal.

Home to notable architectural landmarks.

Elektrostal boasts impressive architecture, including the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Elektrostal Palace of Culture.

Offers a wide range of recreational facilities.

Residents and visitors can enjoy various recreational activities, such as sports complexes, swimming pools, and fitness centers, enhancing the overall quality of life.

Provides a high standard of healthcare.

Elektrostal is equipped with modern medical facilities, ensuring residents have access to quality healthcare services.

Home to the Elektrostal History Museum.

The Elektrostal History Museum showcases the city’s fascinating past through exhibitions and displays.

A hub for sports enthusiasts.

Elektrostal is passionate about sports, with numerous stadiums, arenas, and sports clubs offering opportunities for athletes and spectators.

Celebrates diverse cultural festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal hosts a variety of cultural festivals, celebrating different ethnicities, traditions, and art forms.

Electric power played a significant role in its early development.

Elektrostal owes its name and initial growth to the establishment of electric power stations and the utilization of electricity in the industrial sector.

Boasts a thriving economy.

The city’s strong industrial base, coupled with its strategic location near Moscow, has contributed to Elektrostal’s prosperous economic status.

Houses the Elektrostal Drama Theater.

The Elektrostal Drama Theater is a cultural centerpiece, attracting theater enthusiasts from far and wide.

Popular destination for winter sports.

Elektrostal’s proximity to ski resorts and winter sport facilities makes it a favorite destination for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities.

Promotes environmental sustainability.

Elektrostal prioritizes environmental protection and sustainability, implementing initiatives to reduce pollution and preserve natural resources.

Home to renowned educational institutions.

Elektrostal is known for its prestigious schools and universities, offering a wide range of academic programs to students.

Committed to cultural preservation.

The city values its cultural heritage and takes active steps to preserve and promote traditional customs, crafts, and arts.

Hosts an annual International Film Festival.

The Elektrostal International Film Festival attracts filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of films.

Encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Elektrostal supports aspiring entrepreneurs and fosters a culture of innovation, providing opportunities for startups and business development.

Offers a range of housing options.

Elektrostal provides diverse housing options, including apartments, houses, and residential complexes, catering to different lifestyles and budgets.

Home to notable sports teams.

Elektrostal is proud of its sports legacy, with several successful sports teams competing at regional and national levels.

Boasts a vibrant nightlife scene.

Residents and visitors can enjoy a lively nightlife in Elektrostal, with numerous bars, clubs, and entertainment venues.

Promotes cultural exchange and international relations.

Elektrostal actively engages in international partnerships, cultural exchanges, and diplomatic collaborations to foster global connections.

Surrounded by beautiful nature reserves.

Nearby nature reserves, such as the Barybino Forest and Luchinskoye Lake, offer opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the region’s biodiversity.

Commemorates historical events.

The city pays tribute to significant historical events through memorials, monuments, and exhibitions, ensuring the preservation of collective memory.

Promotes sports and youth development.

Elektrostal invests in sports infrastructure and programs to encourage youth participation, health, and physical fitness.

Hosts annual cultural and artistic festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal celebrates its cultural diversity through festivals dedicated to music, dance, art, and theater.

Provides a picturesque landscape for photography enthusiasts.

The city’s scenic beauty, architectural landmarks, and natural surroundings make it a paradise for photographers.

Connects to Moscow via a direct train line.

The convenient train connection between Elektrostal and Moscow makes commuting between the two cities effortless.

A city with a bright future.

Elektrostal continues to grow and develop, aiming to become a model city in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, and quality of life for its residents.

In conclusion, Elektrostal is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant present. From its origins as a center of steel production to its modern-day status as a hub for education and industry, Elektrostal has plenty to offer both residents and visitors. With its beautiful parks, cultural attractions, and proximity to Moscow, there is no shortage of things to see and do in this dynamic city. Whether you’re interested in exploring its historical landmarks, enjoying outdoor activities, or immersing yourself in the local culture, Elektrostal has something for everyone. So, next time you find yourself in the Moscow region, don’t miss the opportunity to discover the hidden gems of Elektrostal.

Q: What is the population of Elektrostal?

A: As of the latest data, the population of Elektrostal is approximately XXXX.

Q: How far is Elektrostal from Moscow?

A: Elektrostal is located approximately XX kilometers away from Moscow.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to several notable landmarks, including XXXX and XXXX.

Q: What industries are prominent in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal is known for its steel production industry and is also a center for engineering and manufacturing.

Q: Are there any universities or educational institutions in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to XXXX University and several other educational institutions.

Q: What are some popular outdoor activities in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal offers several outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, and picnicking in its beautiful parks.

Q: Is Elektrostal well-connected in terms of transportation?

A: Yes, Elektrostal has good transportation links, including trains and buses, making it easily accessible from nearby cities.

Q: Are there any annual events or festivals in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal hosts various events and festivals throughout the year, including XXXX and XXXX.

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Our commitment to delivering trustworthy and engaging content is at the heart of what we do. Each fact on our site is contributed by real users like you, bringing a wealth of diverse insights and information. To ensure the highest standards of accuracy and reliability, our dedicated editors meticulously review each submission. This process guarantees that the facts we share are not only fascinating but also credible. Trust in our commitment to quality and authenticity as you explore and learn with us.

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The Most Beautiful Stations on the Moscow Metro

You might have heard that there are some beautiful metro stations in Moscow. Soviet decorations, chandeliers, mosaic painting and statues are common in many of the stations. The good news is that the Moscow Metro does not cost a lot of money and many of the most beautiful stations on the Moscow metro are on the same line, so you can almost get on and off at each station to visit these. Over the New Year holidays, I had a free afternoon and decided to visit some of these stations. Check out what I found below…..

The main stations that you will want to visit are on the Number 5 line, also known as the Circle Line. An advantage of this line is that you can get to it very easily and quickly no matter where you are in Moscow. The announcements on the metro are in Russian as well as English so you don’t need to worry if your Russian language skills are not good.

If, like me, you arrive in Moscow via train from Kyiv , then you will arrive at a metro station which many Muscovites believe to be the most beautiful of them all…..

Kievskaya metro station was opened in 1954 and features white marble walls which curve upwards and have with large mosaics surrounded by a gold trim in a very classical style. The mosaics depict life in Ukraine and was designed by a Ukrainian who wanted to display Ukraine’s influence and contribution to Soviet Russia.

Kievskaya, one of the most beautiful stations on the Moscow metro

Soviet era artwork between the arches

Mosaic with golden trim

People carrying flags is a common theme

Going into battle

Belorusskaya

If you look at a map of the metro , you will want to go in a clockwise direction on the circle line. So you will want to get on the train going in the Barrikadnaya direction and not Park Kultury. Stay on this line until you reach the 2nd station, Belorusskaya. This station was built in 1952 and like Kievskaya also features white marble pylons and a plaster ceiling.

The ceiling features 12 mosaics in an octagonal shape depicting Belarusian life, while the tiling on the floor is said to resemble a Belarusian quilt. One of the passageway exits of the station has a statue called ‘Belarusian Partisans’ of three men wearing long coats, holding guns and carrying a flag.”

Belorusskaya metro platform

Soviet artwork on the roof

The hammer and sickle features prominently in the metro artwork

Three men carrying guns, holding the flag…

Mayakovskaya

To get to the next station, we need to change onto the green line (line 2) and go just one stop to the station of Mayakovskaya. This station has an art deco theme and, for some, resembles an elaborate ballroom. The columns are faced with stainless steel and pink rhodonite while the marble walls and ceiling have 34 mosaics with the theme “24-hour Soviet Sky. Apparently, Stalin resided here during the 2nd World War as the station was used as a command post for Moscow’s anti-aircraft regiment.

Mayakovskaya metro

24-Hour Soviet Sky mosaic

Bomber planes

It looks like planes flying over Red Square

Novoslobodskaya

It’s time to get back on the metro and return to Belorusskaya. At Belorusskaya, change to the circle line again and continue clockwise to the next station, Novoslobodskaya. With its 32 stained glass panels, this station reminds me of a church. The panels were designed by Latvian artists and are surrounded by a brass border.

Novoslobodskaya metro

The platform of Novoslobodskaya metro

Stained glass artwork

The golden trim around artwork is also very common

Prospekt Mira

Back on the metro and again just one stop until our next station, Prospekt Mira. This station was originally called Botanichesky Sad after the nearby Botanical Gardens of the Moscow State University. The pylons are covered in white marble and decorated with floral bas-relief friezes. The ceiling is decorated with casts and several cylindrical chandeliers.

Prospekt Mira metro station

Notice the floral decoration

Komsomolskaya

On the metro once more and once more we are going just one stop to the next station – Komsomolskaya. This station is famous for its its yellow ceiling. The chandeliers in this station are huge. The photos below do not do this station justice.  For me, this station resembles a presidential palace.  You hace to see it for yourself to truly appreciate it.

Because of it’s location, this is one of the busiest stations in the Moscow metro as it serves three of the main train stations in the city – Leningradsky, Yaroslavsky, and Kazansky so be prepared for a lot of people.

Komsomolskaya metro

The yellow ceiling seems to go on forever

Yellow ceiling and artwork

One of the ceiling mosaics

Elektrozavodskaya

When you are ready to leave Komsomolskaya metro station behind, then get back on the circle line and go one stop to Kurskaya and change to the blue line (line 3) and go to two stops to the Elektrozavodskaya station. This station gets it’s name from a nearby electric light bulb factory and has a somewhat industrial but also futuristic style, with 6 rows of circular lamps (there are 318 lamps in total). I think this is one of the most beautiful stations on the Moscow metro for how unique it is. The station was opened in 1944 after a delay because of the 2nd World War and features 12 marble bas-reliefs of the struggle on the home front during the war.

The Komsomolskaya metro station

The struggles of war at home

Fixing machinery

Hard at work

Making weapons

Building a tank

Even the station sign is elaborate

Ploschad Revolyutsii

Back on the metro line 3 (but in the other direction), getting off at the 3rd stop – Ploschad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square). This is located underneath the square in Moscow of the same name and is a short walk from Red Square in the city centre. It is the perfect place to end a visit around Moscow’s metro. The station features red and yellow marble arches with a total of 76 sculptures in between each arch. The sculptures are supposed to represent the people of the Soviet Union and include soldiers, farmers, industrial workers, children etc… I noticed a lot of people touching the golden chicken in the photo below as well as the show of the woman. I am assuming that this is for good luck.

Industrial worker

Touch the chicken for good luck

Sculpture of the people of the Soviet Union

Woman reading a book – touch the shoe for good luck

In education

Parent and child

These are some of what I think are the most beautiful stations on the Moscow metro. Which ones are your favourite? Would you add any to this list?

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19 comments.

Kievskaya definitely caught me off guard. Didn’t know Moscow metro stations were THIS extravagant! Mayakovskaya is gorgeous too with the marble walls and mosaics. I might just need to book a flight over to admire all of these!

Do it! Kievskaya was my first introduction to the Moscow metro as I got an overnight train from Kyiv.

You know, in the States, all we ever hear is bad stuff about Russia. It’s nice to see other (and lovely!) dimensions of such a controversial place.

It’s the same in the UK which is why I prefer going to see somewhere and making up my own mind. It’s all ‘politics and bullshit’ as I say

I went to Moscow about 13years for Christmas and went to train stations, so I can see these amazing mosaics and chandeliers. I agree with you that are beautiful Stations for sure and I could of wandered around for days. I think Kievskaya is definitely my favourite out of them all and I even have some similar pictures as you.

I imagine Moscow would have been a little different 13 years ago but these stations have probably always looked beautiful

Food and Footprints

You chose some great stations for this write up! Beautiful details in these stations and would love to visit them sometime. Particularly like the Komsomolskaya station with that yellow ceiling!

Thank you very much. Komsomolskaya seems to be a lot of peoples favourite stations too

Sumit Surai

Wow! Without the text I would have thought them to be some museum or gallery.

I know exactly what you mean!

Rosie Fluskey

Wow, it is just stunning! How does anyone get to work with so much to look at. I’m surprised at the very bourgeois-looking Komsomolskaya station. I would have thought it was all too Tzarist looking, but then I haven’t been to Russia yet lol. This has just made me want to go more!

Wow, that’s a lot of artwork. I wonder how old some of these pieces are?

Generally most of the stations are from 1940-1960 approximately. The later stations are more functional than style.

My mother-in-law was in Moscow fifty years ago and still raves about the metro stations. So far, I could not imagine much. But now! The pictures are great and I think it’s almost a pity that this splendor is underground. But for every user of the Metro can enjoy a free trip to the world of art. Susanne

True. It is like having a free trip to an art museum/gallery. I hope that you can one day visit Moscow and see for yourself.

Oh wow, I would never have known that these were metro stations. The ceilings remind me of how you need to look up sometimes, even in the commuter rush!

It is true about life in general, we just go from A to B looking directly in front of us instead of around us

Wow, I would have never guessed that these were stations. The decor is so pretty and not one I’m used to seeing at metro stations. Love the ceiling at The Komsomolskaya metro station.

They certainly don’t look like metro stations. The ceiling there is one of my favourites too!

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China’s Economy, Propelled by Its Factories, Grew More Than Expected

China’s big bet on manufacturing helped to counteract its housing slowdown in the first three months of the year, but other countries are worried about a flood of Chinese goods.

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By Keith Bradsher and Alexandra Stevenson

Reporting from Beijing

The Chinese economy grew more than expected in the first three months of the year, new data shows, as China built more factories and exported huge amounts of goods to counter a severe real estate crisis and sluggish spending at home.

To stimulate growth, China, the world’s second-largest economy, turned to a familiar tactic : investing heavily in its manufacturing sector, including a binge of new factories that have helped to propel sales around the world of solar panels, electric cars and other products.

But China’s bet on exports has worried many foreign countries and companies. They fear that a flood of Chinese shipments to distant markets may undermine their manufacturing industries and lead to layoffs.

On Tuesday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said the economy grew 1.6 percent in the first quarter over the previous three months. When projected out for the entire year, the first-quarter data indicates that China’s economy was growing at an annual rate of about 6.6 percent.

“The national economy made a good start,” said Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the statistics bureau, while cautioning that “the foundation for stable and sound economic growth is not solid yet.”

Retail sales increased at a modest pace of 4.7 percent compared with the first three months of last year, and were particularly weak in March.

China needs robust consumer spending to bring down persistently high youth unemployment and to help companies and households cope with very high levels of debt.

Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York warned last month that China is experiencing a “sugar high” of factory construction fueled by heavy bank lending.

For the year, China has set a growth target of about 5 percent , a goal that many economists had viewed as ambitious, although some have recently upgraded their forecasts. Last year, China’s economy grew 5.2 percent .

Output was 5.3 percent higher in the first three months of this year than during the same period last year, the statistics bureau announced on Tuesday, exceeding economists’ forecasts.

A breakneck pace of factory investments, up 9.9 percent from a year ago, was central to China’s growth. Strong exports early this year also helped.

The value of exports rose 7 percent in dollar terms in January and February from a year earlier, and 10 percent when measured in China’s currency, the renminbi. But the actual contribution from exports to the country’s economy was considerably greater, as falling prices obscured the full extent of China’s export gains.

Guo Tingting, a vice minister of commerce, said at a news conference last month that the physical volume of exports had climbed 20 percent in January and February over last year. Exports faltered somewhat in March, however.

With street festivals and other activities, the government has encouraged families to spend more even as many in China have stepped up their savings to offset a recent nosedive in the value of their apartments.

Domestic tourism spending and box office ticket sales both rose during Lunar New Year in February, easily exceeding levels before the Covid-19 pandemic. Smartphone sales have also climbed — although not for Apple — as Chinese buyers increasingly choose local brands.

Broadly falling prices, a phenomenon that can become entrenched in deflation, continue to be a problem, particularly for exports and at the wholesale level. Chinese companies have been vying to cut export prices and win a bigger share of global markets, even when this means incurring heavy losses.

During top-level meetings earlier this month with Chinese officials, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen warned that flooding markets with exports would disrupt supply chains and threaten industries and jobs. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany expressed similar concerns while on a visit to China, though he also cautioned against protectionism in Europe.

China is, meanwhile, experiencing a deep slump in housing construction and apartment prices. The construction of homes — and the production of steel, glass and other materials for them — was the biggest driver of growth in China for many years.

But sales of new apartments have fallen fairly steadily since the start of 2022. Few construction projects are now being started, as dozens of insolvent or nearly insolvent developers struggle to finish dwellings they have promised to buyers. Investment in real estate projects plunged 9.5 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier.

Chinese officials attribute weaknesses in the Chinese economy partly to high overseas interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation in the United States. Those rates have made it more attractive for Chinese families and companies to move money out of China, where interest rates are low, to foreign countries where rates are higher.

“The negative impact of the high interest rate environment on the economy is continuing,” said Liu Haoling, the president of the China Investment Corporation, which is China’s sovereign wealth fund. He spoke in late March at the China Development Forum, a meeting in Beijing of policymakers and executives.

China’s manufacturing juggernaut, underpinned by years of policy directives and financial support from Beijing to local governments and companies, has made the country’s goods among the world’s cheapest. The U.S. government disclosed last week that average prices for imports from China were down 2.6 percent in March from a year earlier.

China has required companies to invest more in research and development, in the hope that a wave of innovation will spur economic development.

The country is also requiring factories to pursue greater automation. “By 2025, we will have realized a new type of industrialization,” Jin Zhuanglong, the minister of industry and information technology, said at the China Development Forum.

Many Chinese households have borrowed heavily to invest in apartments and are responding to falling home prices by cutting back their spending. That makes China more dependent on exports to sell its fast-rising industrial output.

“Chinese companies, across a wide range of sectors, now produce far more than domestic consumption can absorb,” the Rhodium Group, a consulting firm, said in a report in late March.

People’s wariness about spending is something Li Zhenya sees daily. He manages Izakaya Jiuben, a Japanese restaurant in the Beijing neighborhood of Wangjing, once home to some of China’s biggest tech companies.

A few years ago, workers lined up outside the restaurant, pouring out of nearby offices to spend their hard-earned money in short breaks between long shifts. These days, many of the restaurant’s seats are empty at lunch and dinner.

“People’s desire to consume is not that high now,” Mr. Li at Jiuben said. The restaurant, he said, pulls in about $2,156 a day in revenue, about half its sales just a few years ago.

“I’m losing money running the restaurant,” he said.

Jiuben is on the fourth floor of Pano City Mall, where restaurants advertising Korean, Japanese and Chinese food operate next to empty storefronts. Some places look abandoned: The lights are off but a pile of takeaway boxes sits by the till, lamps still hanging or chairs and tables intact.

Centered around three curved, pebble-like buildings designed by Zaha Hadid, the neighborhood of Wangjing was once a hub of activity for the capital’s busiest workers. Restaurants and shops benefited from the presence of companies like Alibaba, JD.com and Meituan.

“The lights used to be on when nighttime fell, but now at least half of the lights are off,” Mr. Li said.

A government crackdown starting in 2020 pushed companies to cull jobs. Others left Wangjing. Covid-19 restrictions that froze the neighborhood for weeks at a time made it hard for small businesses in Wangjing to recover.

“The epidemic led to a cautiousness in consumption,” said Kou Yueyuan, the owner of Smoon Bakery, down the street from Pano City. “Customers are obviously quite price-sensitive,” Ms. Kou said.

Ms. Kou started her business more than eight years ago, selling baked goods like bitter melon bagels and ube mochi twists. Now she places less emphasis on developing new baked goods with different flavors. Instead, she focuses on keeping costs low so that the bakery can offer cheaper prices.

Li You contributed research.

Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic. More about Keith Bradsher

Alexandra Stevenson is the Shanghai bureau chief for The Times, reporting on China’s economy and society. More about Alexandra Stevenson

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