World Of Tourism

Situated in the heart of Central India, Khajuraho is a temple town different from any other temple city of India. It is not about religion, worshiping and deities, instead temples in this fascinating village are famous for the eroticism etched on its walls in the form of sculptures. There are so many theories and controversies over eroticism depicted on the outer walls of temples in Khajuraho.

According to a legend, the creators of Khajuraho had descented from the moon. The story of the origin of this great dynasty is interesting. A beautiful young daughter of a Brahmin priest was seduced by the moon god while she was bathing in the Rati one evening. Her name was Hemavati. The son born of this union between a mortal and a god was a son was named Chandravarman. Harassed by society, the unwed mother sought refuge in the dense forest of Central India where she was both mother and guru to her young son. This boy of Hemavati and moon grew up to found the great Chandela dynasty. When he was established as a ruler, he had this dream one night in which his mother implored him to build temples that would reveal human passions, and in doing so bring about a realization of the emptiness of human desire. Chandravarman began the construction of the first of the temples, successive rulers added to the fast growing complex.

Few scholars believe that the Chandelas were believers in the powers of Tantrism; the cult which believes that the gratification of earthly desires is a step closer to the attainment of the infinite. Yet another theory justifies the erotica of Khajuraho, claiming it had a specific purpose. According to this theory, in those days boys lived in hermitages, following the Hindu law of being 'brahmacharis' until they attained manhood. Therefore, the only way they could prepare themselves for the worldly role of 'householder' was through the study of these sculptures and the earthly passions they depicted.

However, few Hindu scholars emphasise that the erotic sculptures are present only on the outer walls of the temples and not inside, which according to them means that one should leave all his/her worldly desires outside before entering the place of worship.

History

Built between AD950 and 1050 by the Chandela dynasty, temples of Khajuraho is the evidences of the architectural geniuses during the times of Chandela dynasty. The 85 temples were built in North Indian 'Nagara' style of architecture, though only 20 of them have survived the rough weather conditions over long years of time. The two richer distinctive groups of temples are the Western and Eastern group of temples. With hardly any written records and rare references to its origin, the history of Khajuraho has become trapped in the mythical folklore of the region. According to the Myths Khajuraho was known as 'Khajur-vahika' or 'Khajjurpura' in the ancient times because of its golden date palms (known as 'khajur') that lined the gates of this city

A change is as good as a rest' and over the coming months hundreds of thousands will take to the roads, to the skies and even to the rail tracks in pursuit of their change.

While very few people go on holiday anticipating that they won't enjoy it, there are things that make it more or less enjoyable.

Surprisingly, even the tourism industry now scientifically studies the aspects of holidays that make them enjoyable.

However, I could only identify one study that measured the impact on psychological well-being. The study, published in the Journal Of Travel Medicine in 2005, was conducted by Austrian researchers and identified characteristics that predicted the psychological health outcomes of the annual holiday.

One hundred and ninety one, mainly white-collar workers, were administered a questionnaire one week after completion of their annual vacation, evaluating five broad areas, including: physical characteristics of the holiday (eg, duration, distance travelled to reach destination, time zone, temperature, etc), structuring of the day (eg, number of meals provided, planning of the day, etc), health and social activity (eg, amount of sleep, physical activity, making new acquaintances, etc), stress during the vacation (eg, rows, health problems, etc) and, finally, the physical and mental strain of work and basic characteristics, such as age.

Subjects were asked to rate their subjective feelings of recuperation and exhaustion in comparison to before the holiday. Some of the results were unexpected and counter-intuitive. A proportion of the outcome (27pc) could be predicted by measuring the variables.

The higher the mental strain of work, the greater the feeling of recuperation. In addition, a warm temperature at vacation site, the amount of time vacationers had for themselves and for their needs, engaging in physical activity, good quality of sleep and making new acquaintances all had a positive effect.

Interpersonal conflict was negatively associated with recuperation, but only to a very small extent (two per cent), while health problems during the vacation, number of hours slept and number of meals provided had no impact.

Turning to the predictors of improvement in levels of exhaustion, only 15pc of the variance could be explained. Time-zone differences, temperature and health problems during the holiday predicted improvement but, surprisingly, the duration of the holiday and the travel time to the destination did not impact on this.

The finding that the duration of the holiday did not effect exhaustion levels might seem surprising, since it is assumed that the longer the vacation, the greater the time to sleep and unwind.

However, other leisure research has shown that the greatest improvement occurs in the first three days of holiday and peaks by seven.

On the other hand, the extent to which leisure time predicts recuperation is proof of our intuition that freedom from obligations is central to a holidays restorative value.

Surprisingly, self-determination of daily activities or some scheduling of daily activities was not related to recuperation as other studies found, but the mood-enhancing effects of physical activity and also of social interaction were clearly demonstrated in this study.
source:http://www.independent.ie/health/tips-to-ensure-a-happy-healthy-summer-holiday-1402382.html

The Budget Travel has signed an exclusive, three year deal with BlueSky to use its itour reservation system. The search for the technology partner began last October, just after Budget Travel was bought by The Primera Travel Group.

BlueSky’s Oracle based technology is completely replacing the previous system from Anite.

“What was in place when Primera acquired Budget needed to be upgraded.” says Daði Ingólfsson, IT director for Primera. “We have great plans for Budget and we needed to bring in a brand new, robust and user friendly system to take the business forward. BlueSky was simply the best available,” he added.

The 1.5 million Euro deal was signed at the Travel Technology Show.

“A number of solutions were considered both in the UK and Europe to find the right technology partner,” says Nick Fowler, Sales Director of BlueSky Travel Systems. “We are delighted to be working with Budget Travel and Primera. We are implementing the itour product along with a number of other innovative enhancements. It’s an exciting challenge for BlueSky.”

BlueSky’s technology platform has a reputation for providing flexible functionality. “This has been the key to our success,” says Fowler. “The way itour is designed allows it to be adapted and enhanced as the market develops. itour can move with the times and react to changing trends in the travel business like dynamic packaging and dynamic pricing.”

Budget Travel, which is based in Dublin, was founded in 1975 and has a 34% market share in Ireland. The company operates 31 offices in Ireland as well as 15 franchises. More than 350.000 passengers travel with the company every year and annual turnover is expected to be close to 160 million Euro this year.

The Primera Travel Group in Scandinavia operates travel agencies and tour operating companies in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Ireland and Estonia. Last year the group took more than one million passengers to destinations all over the world. It‘s turnover is in excess of 650 million euros.

Primera Travel Group, a privately owned Icelandic travel company acquired Budget Travel, Ireland’s leading tour operator from TUI AG. TUI AG is one of Europe’s largest travel and tourism groups, recently merged with First Choice plc.

source:http://www.traveldailynews.com/pages/show_page/24407