A New Zealand court on Friday ordered the tour booking agents and managers of an island where a volcanic eruption killed 22 people to pay survivors more than NZ$10 million ($6.1 million) and fined them around NZ$2.6 million. Tour operators White Island Tours, Volcanic Air Safaris, Kahu New Zealand and Aerius, along with the corporate owner of the island, Whakaari Management Ltd, were found to have not sufficiently ensured the safety of visitors to the island, court filings showed. There were 47 people on White Island, also known by the Maori name of Whakaari, when the volcano erupted on Dec. 9, 2019.
The Foreign Office has come under fire after more than 35 MPs and travel operators signed a petition arguing that its travel advice is “outdated” and “overly harsh”.
Ten years since the arrest of Ilham Tohti, the symbolic face of the repression against the Uyghur cultural identity, a report slams 18 European tour operators for offering travel packages in Xinjiang. Their “destinations are linked to genocide and crimes against humanity.”