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Japan Times
21-05-2025
- Japan Times
Japan's tourist arrivals soared 28.5% in April to hit record 3.9 million
The number of foreign visitors to Japan soared 28.5% in April on a year-on-year basis to a record 3.91 million, official figures showed Wednesday. "Spring cherry blossom season boosted demand for visits to Japan in many markets, as in the previous month, and overseas travel demand increased in some Asian countries, in Europe, the United States and Australia to coincide with the Easter holidays," the Japan National Tourism Organization said. It said the total surpassed the previous record of 3.78 million in January 2025 and is the highest number in a single month on record. For the first four months of the year, foreign visitor arrivals totaled 14.4 million, a 24.5% increase. A weak yen has for months been leading to a boom in visitors, with national tourism data released in January showing a record of about 36.8 million arrivals last year. The government has set an ambitious target of almost doubling tourist numbers to 60 million annually by 2030. Authorities say they want to spread sightseers more evenly around the country, and avoid a bottleneck of visitors eager to snap spring cherry blossoms or vivid autumn colors. But as in other global tourist magnets such as Venice in Italy, there has been growing pushback from residents in popular destinations such as Kyoto. The tradition-steeped city, just a couple of hours from Tokyo on the bullet train, is famed for its kimono-clad geisha performers and increasingly crowded Buddhist temples. On Mount Fuji, the nation's highest mountain and a once-peaceful pilgrimage site, authorities have started charging climbers in an effort to reduce overcrowding. Last year, a barrier was briefly erected outside a convenience store to stop people from standing on the road in front of it to take photographs with the snow-capped volcano in the background. Business travelers in cities including Tokyo have complained that they have been priced out of hotels because of high demand from tourists. Travelers gobbling sushi and onigiri have also been cited as a factor contributing to a rice shortage in the country, which has pushed prices of the staple to record levels, creating a political headache for the government. The Meteorological Agency on March 30 declared the country's most common and popular "somei yoshino" variety of cherry tree in full bloom in Tokyo. Although this year's blooming dates are around the average, the agency says climate change and the urban heat-island effect are causing sakura to flower approximately 1.2 days earlier every 10 years. Katsuhiro Miyamoto, professor emeritus at Kansai University, estimated the economic impact of cherry blossom season in Japan, from travel to sakura viewing parties, at ¥1.1 trillion ($7.3 billion) this year, up from ¥616 billion in 2023.
Travel Daily News
16-05-2025
- Business
- Travel Daily News
Brussels Airport recorded over 2.1 million passengers in April
Brussels Airport saw an 8.5% passenger increase in April 2025, with cargo volume up 11%, despite a union strike impact. Brussels Airport welcomed more than 2.1 million passengers in April, a 8.5% increase compared to April 2024. The Easter holiday in Dutch-speaking schools, combined with the May holidays in French-speaking schools and the Netherlands contributed to this growth, despite the national trade union strike on April 29. Total cargo volume rose 11%, reaching nearly 70,000 tonnes. Passenger numbers: +8.5% compared to 2024 In April 2025, 2,122,695 passengers travelled via Brussels Airport, an increase of 8.5% compared to the same month last year. This increase is mainly due to the Easter holidays in Dutch-speaking schools and the start of the May holidays in the Netherlands and French-speaking schools at the end of the month. This is a positive result despite the national union action on April 29, which had a significant impact on the travel plans of many passengers. Transfer passengers accounted for around 12% of all departing passengers, mainly on routes to and from Africa and North America. In April, the 10 most visited countries were, in order: Spain, Italy, Türkiye, Germany, Morocco, Portugal, France, the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Flight movements: +5% compared to April 2024 In April, the number of flight movements rose by 5% compared to the same period last year. The number of passenger flights increased by 5%, while cargo flights grew by 7%. The average number of passengers per flight was 150, which is an increase of 3.5% compared to the same period last year.
Telegraph
08-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
I let my children watch screens in restaurants – don't lecture me if you don't have kids
It's a bad look when a teenager is glued to a screen during a meal out with their parents. A pre-schooler watching Peppa Pig in a high chair at Pizza Express is hardly great parenting optics, either. I know this, and yet my children – 12, six and three – often end up watching a tablet or my phone when we go out to a restaurant. It's a quick and easy way of making them sit still and be quiet in a public setting – yet I don't get any brownie points from the other diners. Someone at a nearby table will inevitably tut or roll their eyes – screens in restaurants are a parenting red flag. For instance, at a pub in Somerset during the Easter holidays, a couple in their 60s became so offended by my youngest watching an episode of PAW Patrol on my phone that they walked over to our table and berated me for 'rotting his brain'. 'You should be making conversation with him,' the woman said, before adding, helpfully: 'We bring books and games when we go out with our grandchildren.' Good luck with that, I thought. We'd been on a long, cold, wet walk and the children were tired and hungry. Also, I was quite enjoying chatting to my husband and Gemma, my 12-year-old, so I didn't mind the others being temporarily occupied. When we go out for meals it tends to be as a family – babysitters are so expensive these days. Can't we have a few moments when we're not entertaining the younger ones? I feel the same when I take them out for lunch with a friend, particularly one who doesn't have children. If the kids are watching something, we can catch up in peace. I really don't see the harm. You could argue that it's good manners not to let your young children dominate the meal. I know, I know. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that children under two should have no screen time, while those aged two to four should have no more than an hour a day. To be clear, my children never have screens at mealtimes at home, and I'm not one of those mums who lets my toddler gawp at my phone in their buggy while stuffing their face with raisins. I also know that there's a time and a place for screens in restaurants; not every meal warrants them and you definitely need to give your child headphones if they're watching something or gaming. Nothing annoys my husband more than a child on a nearby table watching something at top volume – probably because he can't help tuning in. We caved in to screens as the last resort. First, you try to encourage the child to sit quietly, chat, look at the menu. Then you might try colouring – many restaurants and pubs provide crayons and paper, or you'll have brought your own kit. But as every parent knows, colouring only lasts for so long, and food can take an age to arrive – and then be too hot for little ones to eat. When faced with the choice of a child kicking off or one happily entertained by Octonauts, I know which I'd choose. Yes, it can be difficult to get the phone away from them once you've given in, but I find once they start eating, they're usually happy to focus on their food. And if they make a fuss, let's just say I pick my battles. My parents don't bat an eyelid that I hand out the digital nanny in restaurants. They get it. Children are full-on and it's not as if the other diners would tolerate them tearing around the tables. But I know that several of my parents' friends shudder at the thought of screens during a meal out. They're smug to be the last generation to parent without screens; the ones who successfully navigated restaurants and long-haul flights without the luxury of Peppa Pig. 'We just had to get on with it,' they shrug sanctimoniously. 'Children read books, played outside or had an actual conversation.' Sure, but during the late-1980s when I was growing up, I don't remember eating out in restaurants that much. It wasn't a thing like it is now, just as no one took their children on holidays to Dubai or the Maldives. On the handful of occasions when we did go to Happy Eater (remember that?) or the local pub, it felt like a novelty. My sisters and I would be sent to the playground outside, where there would invariably be a treehouse filled with fag butts and beer cans and some derelict swings. I reckon my children are safer watching something on an iPad at the table than I ever was unsupervised in the playground at the local pub, which was beside a busy main road and on the edge of a car park. Or sitting alone in the car, which was the other place my sisters and I were allowed to go when we were bored during a meal out. See? Eighties parenting was equally questionable. When I see frazzled parents desperately trying to entertain their children during Saturday lunch in The Ivy, their Aperol spritzes getting knocked over and food and broken crayons scattering the floor, I think: give them a screen or go home. Don't believe anyone who tells you that if you start letting your children watch screens in restaurants you'll set a habit for life. In my experience, as a child gets older – seven, eight, nine – they've been in school long enough to know how to sit quietly and listen to a boring adult conversation. I'm teaching my 12-year-old, Gemma, that she must use her phone like a grown-up, which means that being on it during a family meal out in a restaurant is rude. But if she's been making an effort to chat, I don't mind her picking up her phone for a while. Particularly if I'm busy talking to the adults. I honestly don't see why screens in restaurants have to be a parenting litmus test. All of you judging me, I challenge you to take a pre-schooler out for lunch without an iPad. It's exhausting. You will spend the meal cleaning up and skivvying around after them. They'll want to get down but where will they go? Enjoy walking round and round the restaurant with them. It's a waste of time and money – you may as well stay at home. We all love going out to a restaurant, though. When I ask my children what they want to do at the weekend, they'll always say 'go out for lunch'. I truly believe this is because my husband and I relax and let our hair down when we go out, which means everyone has a good time. If it takes an iPad to help the mood, so be it.
Irish Daily Mirror
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
Conor McGregor's fiancee Dee Devlin offers glimpse inside lavish lifestyle
Dee Devlin showed off her lavish lifestyle on a family holiday with her UFC star fiancé Conor McGregor. The Dublin woman shared videos and pictures on her Instagram of a holiday that involved private jets, supercars, and five-star hotels in Dubai. Devlin accompanied McGregor and their five children to the Middle East for a getaway over the Easter Holidays. And the family looked to be living in the lap of luxury, with Devlin posting a video of her boarding a private jet carrying her name. The family stayed at the Atlantis hotel in Dubai. Devlin, 37, has been in a relationship with McGregor since 2008. It comes as The Grand Lodge of the Freemasons of Ireland has launched an investigation after an artist signed to Conor McGregor's record label used their historic Dublin hall to film a video where a sex act is committed on a character called 'Your Royal Highness.' The Freemasons' Hall in Molesworth Street features in the video for 'Spit in It' by Eskimo Supreme as a stand in for a room in Westminster in London. In the video actors playing Irish paramilitaries shout explicit demands at a woman described as 'Your Royal Highness.' They are then forced at gunpoint to commit a sex act on the woman. Actors dressed up as dissident Republicans appear to be imprisoned behind wire in the hall. They shout 'Let us out you British b**tards' before yelling a further expletive. They add: 'We are political prisoners and we demand political status.' Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email.
Daily Mail
27-04-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Historic £49,632-a-year boarding school axes teachers' jobs in wake of Labour's private school VAT raid
One of the UK's most historic boarding schools is cutting teachers' jobs as pupil numbers fall in the wake of the Government's VAT raid on schools. Loretto School – the alma mater of former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling and broadcaster Andrew Marr – said the decision had been made because rising costs caused by VAT on fees were deterring parents from enrolling their children. Staff at the school – the oldest school in Scotland which will celebrate its 200th birthday in 2027 - were told last week when they returned from the Easter Holidays that their jobs were at risk because of 'significant financial challenges' which were 'outside the school's control'. The school near Edinburgh – which also has day pupils - has seen pupil numbers fall since Labour imposed its education tax on school fees in January, a school source told the Mail on Sunday. It raised fees by 17% in January to up to £49,632 a year, absorbing 3% of the 20% VAT levy, with fees for the next academic year yet to be announced. In a letter to parents seen by this newspaper, Head Pete Richardson and Chair of the Board of Governors Peter McCutcheon told parents a staff review was underway 'based on projected pupil enrolment which has been directly impacted by the VAT imposition'. They told parents that they had been 'navigating the complexities of running a school in the current financial climate' and challenges including 'increases in VAT, national insurance and the minimum wage' had led to the decision to launch a staffing review. Up to 8 teaching jobs are now expected to be lost after a redundancy process. One parent said parents had been particularly affected by the imposition of VAT on fees in Scotland because they already faced higher tax rates than the rest of the UK. Calling it 'a tragedy for the whole community including the wider community', she said: 'We are all shocked that staff now face losing their jobs and it shows the impact and the ripple effect of this awful tax not just on our children, on us and on schools but on staff and on wider communities who rely on schools as important employers. 'In what other country during such uncertain times, would any government strike at the private sector like this. It is incredibly frightening. Many of the staff live in this community and local suppliers and businesses rely on the school which is a big part of the local economy.' Head Pete Richardson, who is in his first year leading the school, confirmed that he had the 'difficult task' of speaking to academic staff about job losses, and said the school was 'deeply committed' to ensuring they were treated with 'the utmost kindness, care and consideration'. Hitting out at the tax, he said: 'The Labour Government's decision to implement VAT on school fees has had a marked impact upon the independent sector's ability to both retain and attract pupils. 'This is especially true when applied to the international market, a key element of our boarding numbers.' He added: 'As Scotland's oldest boarding school, Loretto is also the custodian of several Listed buildings and these require investment in terms of upkeep, including the recent roof replacement of one of our oldest buildings, but schools like Loretto are so much more than bricks and mortar - it is its people, especially its staff, which make a School like Loretto great.' Labour's VAT raid has now seen 22 independent schools around the UK close or announce closure since January with thousands of pupils forced to leave their schools and seek state school places, causing particular issues in over subscribed regions such as Edinburgh, the South East of England and Bristol. A decision on a landmark High Court challenge against the Chancellor Rachel Reeves by parents of children with special educational need and the Independent Schools Council opposed to the VAT levy is expected within days.
