From a preferred destination to a most-avoided holiday spot – the downslide in the Indo-Australian tourism sector has come rather fast in the wake of the alleged racist attacks on Indians there. Indian tourists are cancelling plans to travel Down Under after watching the plight of Indian students there.
“We’ve just stopped selling Australia as a destination to our clients. We are instead asking them to go to Singapore etc,” says chairman of STIC travels, Subhash Goyal.
In March 2009 alone, as many as 30, 500 Indians had travelled to Austarlia. But that has changed now.
“We used to send at least 200 tourists to Australia in one month. It’s now come down to 40 or so. People are very worried about their safety and security. If it doesn’t stop, it will affect long term plans,” says another travel agent Inderpreet Singh Sodhi.
And while and even Tourism Minister Kumar Selja has cancelled her trip to the Oz land, the Indian Tourism Ministry is trying hard to play down the panic.
“We are saying go to Australia. These are isolated incidents. After all how did we project ourselves after 26/11? Things are fine,” says Tourism Secretary, Sujit Banerjee.
After all, Australians have been among the top five foreign tourists coming in to India.
I’m a pretty big movie buff, and a hardcore trekkie (nerd alert!) to boot. Last night, at the Sydney Opera House, J.J. Abrams and the cast of the new Star Trek movie had their world debut. The red carpet was rolled out, reporters were everywhere, but sadly, I was unable to attend.
Today, Hugh Jackman and the cast of the new X Men Origins movie are premering the movie at the famous Cockatoo Island, in the middle of the harbour – one of set locations for the movie.
So why Sydney? Is it because each film features a prominent Australian actor (Star Trek has Eric Bana, while Xmen has Hugh Jackman)? Is it because of the favourable exchange rate between the American and Australian dollar? Or is it because Sydney is truly a destination city, and people (actors and directors included) want to find an excuse to travel here?
Whatever it may be, Sydney seems to have been getting a lot of press lately. It’s a good thing too, the Australian economy needs all the help it can get, and showcasing two big movie world premieres in some of the most scenic parts of Sydney is likely to do some good. As for the movies, I’m excited to see both, but Star Trek – that’s the one I’ll be in line for on opening night. Yes, I’m a trekkie. And proud of it.
My long haitus on the site has been the result of a 2 week holiday back to the States. Back to visit family, to visit my 2 week old neice, and to further plan for my upcoming wedding in September. It was a good trip; no a great trip, but it was a whirlwind of a trip nonetheless. Two weeks of nonstop activities has me longing for a holiday from my holiday. It’s good to be home though. It’s very good to be home. While I miss my friends and family, and always will, I’ve realised that Australia fits me. It’s a really good fit actually. Fifteen minutes into my drive from the Los Angeles airport, I remembered why I was always frustrated on Southern California highways. Fifteen minutes into a shopping experience at a local mall in San Diego, I remembered why an economy of scale has its positives and negatives. Fifteen minutes after I left, I remembered that I’m 7,000 miles away from my closest friends and family.
Living overseas has always been an adventure, but after returning home for the first time since leaving 18 months ago, I’ve been able to refresh my thoughts and truly understand and remember why I was so excited and jazzed about moving to another country. More specifically, Australia.
The majority of my trip was spent in San Diego, however between my partner and I, we had trips to Los Angeles (Disneyland), San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Each of these locales, although all quite different from each other, had traits that very similiar; traits that I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed had I not been out of the country for the past 18 months.
Especially in Las Vegas, where excess is the norm, everything (and I mean everything/everyone) was in excess. Drinking, gambling, food ($9 Prime Ribs) were abundant. You couldn’t help but be surrounding by an uneccesarily large amount of everything, everywhere you went.
While life would be different in any country, and each have their positives and negatives, this past trip has shown me that my decision to live in Australia was a good one. It’s one that has more positives than negatives associated with it, and although it has put me 7000 miles away from a great number of people that are important to me, I know that the ones that are truly great friends and great family members we’ll see on a pretty regular basis. To be honest, between Skype, Vonage VOIP, and email, I talk to my parents on almost a daily basis, and my closest friends almost every other day. The world is getting smaller. Maybe that’s a good thing? Fifteen years ago, Australia would have felt a lot further away, more isolated.
Either way, I love it here.
Clean up after yourself. In fact, why not clean up after everyone else also? It’s a sad fact that people have no respect for the environment in which they live, but alas, some people just don’t care.
Today is Clean up Australia Day. In 1989 an ‘average Australian bloke’ had a simple idea to make a difference in his own backyard – Sydney Harbour. This simple idea has turned into an annual tradition in which ‘average Australians’ clean up their beautiful country. But why must it be just one day out of the year, in which we clean up around us? Wouldn’t it just be easier to keep it clean all year round? Probably, but unfortunately most people don’t think that way.
So what can you do?
Today, all across Australia, thousands of people are volunteering their time to clean up the land around them, but it doesn’t stop there. You can become involved in organisations that continue to do this year round and help keep this country beautiful. “Living Green” is a lifestyle that is becoming more and more common within Australia, as many Aussies realise that our carbon footprint continues to grow and continues to impact the world around us. Many have become actively involved in organisations, while others simply become more conscious of things like the amount of water we use, the amount of electricity we use, or what is thrown away or recycled. Even the smallest, environmental decision will help Australia become more environmentally friendly.
After all, it started with an ‘average Australian bloke’, Ian Kiernan. Once setting up the “Clean up Australia” campaign, he approached the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP), with an idea to take his Clean Up concept global. Clean Up the World is an international campaign that encourages communities to clean up, fix up and conserve their environment through the Clean Up the World Membership program.
Who says one man can’t make a difference? So get out and do your part. Australia appreciates it.
With the U.S. Presidential Election just days away, the entire world seems fixated on who will lead America into the tough times ahead. Will it be McCain or Obama? More Americans seem to belooking at this election more seriously than any in recent history, and rightly so. America, and the world, find themselves in economic, and political situations not seen for decades, and only the most dilligent and intellengent of leaders should be in power to guide us through these tough times.
Most American’s have their decisions made, and are prepared to support the candidate they find themselves most in tune with. While that’s all well and good, and they are ultimately the ones who will decide the fate of the country, one might wonder how the rest of the world feels about the upcoming election, even though they cannot vote.
I’ve come across a site that allows anyone, anywhere in the world, to cast their vote for the next American president. Each vote is tracked (through their IP address) to see which country you are voting from. As for the results, is it really that suprising?
What if the world could vote?
Australians have always been considered some of the more relaxed and friendly people that you’ll ever meet as you travel throughout the world.
But is this changing?
As the world gets smaller through the advent of modern technology, this wonderful country isn’t as removed as it once was from the rest of the world. All of a sudden, Australia isn’t a big island in the middle of the ocean anymore. Australia is now a major player on the world market, and a “no worries” attitude doesn’t necessarily cut it when dealing with the international business market. The world is becoming a much more competitive place, and as it grows smaller, the fight to keep your head above water can become a bit more difficult. The “no worries” attitude doesn’t always fly. How long will we be able to hold on to this laid back attitude?
I’m not going to sit here and predict if the Australian outlook on life will change over the coming years, as it would be futile. It’s not if, but when. Australia has had an influx of immigrants from overseas over the last decade. Almost 1 in 4 residents of Sydney are foreign born, and when you have that kind of exterior influence on a country, customs and attitudes will change. While these can change rather quickly, stereotypes don’t. Fortunately, Australia has a great stereotype on the international scene, and these stereotypes aren’t shunned by the average Aussie. Backyard BBQ’s while throwing back a few stubbies and appreciating your close mates is part of what makes you an Aussie. While I’m relatively new to this lifestyle, only being in Australia for about 14 months now, these stereotypes are easy to adopt.
While Australia becomes a more of a world player, it’ll never be a economic benchmark. But Australians seem to be OK with that.
I would too, especially if that meant holding on to a “No Worries!” attitude.
SFGate.com profiled a few women who have immigrated from India to America recently, and found out how life in a country has been for them, at home, while their husbands are off working.
Reema Shahani, 26, who holds a master’s degree in human rights, fills her day looking for recipes online.
Varkha Chellani, 37, a former credit analyst, keeps herself busy taking care of two children.
And former computer programmer Gomathy Kannan, 25, is taking dancing classes and writing a blog.
Shahani, Chellani and Kannan are among the thousands of women who came to the United States on the coattails of their husbands’ H-1B visas, granted to highly skilled professionals to fill jobs at the software companies and technology labs of Silicon Valley. But under the conditions of their H-4 dependent visas, spouses are not allowed to work here. Often highly educated and skilled, they find themselves in the uncomfortable position of social and financial dependency on their husbands, while struggling to adjust to life in a new country.
The State Department issued more than 135,000 H-1B visas in 2006, together with about 74,000 H-4 visas for their spouses. A lot of the H-1B visas go to workers in Silicon Valley: The area’s companies employ about 35,000 H-1B holders, estimates the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association. And the majority are workers from Asia, according to the Department of Homeland Security – nearly 45 percent of all H-1B petitions approved in fiscal year 2005 were for workers born in India.
In Silicon Valley, many of the Indian women’s stories are similar. Most were born into higher castes in India, graduated with college degrees in computer science or business, worked in fast-paced companies, had a support network of friends and family. Moving to the United States seemed like a great opportunity, but all too often there was little discussion about the terms of their immigration status. Now, while their husbands are climbing the career ladder, they stay at home alone, isolated.
“There is a high level of depression in that community because those women are not integrating into society by working, and it prolongs the homesickness,” said immigration lawyer Shivali Shah, who did a survey of 100 H-4 holders. “They usually arrive during their prime working years, and it is very demoralizing for them.”
Killing time
Reema Shahani swapped the turmoil of city life in Delhi for a quiet suburban apartment in Santa Clara.
While her husband has a thriving career in a giant high-tech company, Shahani spends her days browsing the Internet and watching the Food Network. When she arrived in 2006, she did not have a driver’s license and her world was reduced to the size of a two-bedroom apartment.
“It is really sad. You sit alone the whole day and don’t do anything,” Shahani said. “I would always tell my husband, ‘Why should I be here? It’s a complete waste of my time.’ ”
After the first year, frustrated with the monotony of her new life, Shahani began volunteering at the Indian Community Center in Milpitas, where she met other women in the same situation.
Many women prefer the immigration forums and chat rooms on the Internet, where they can pour their hearts out anonymously. Malathy Jey, founder of Indusladies.com, a networking site for Indian women based in Austin, Texas, estimates that her site receives about 2 million page views a month.
Jey, 32, who worked as an IT specialist for Ford Motor Co. in Chennai, India, before moving to Austin on an H-4 visa with her husband, said she came up with the idea for the Web site during long days spent at home looking for things to do.
Indusladies.com offers relationship advice and recipes, as well as the opportunity for women to share their frustrations with the immigration process.
“I got married to an H-1B visa holder, which put me in H-4 visa status – yes, that dreaded H-4,” wrote one of the users. “Being H-4, I can’t work or earn a single dollar and all I can do is stay at home and stare at the four walls.”
While couples can apply for permanent residency, or a green card, which would allow the dependent spouse to work, the process can take years, and Indian and Chinese immigrants face annual quotas set by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
“I’ve gone through my ups and downs and was even regretting being here,” said Varkha Chellani, who has been waiting for seven years for a green card, while her friends achieve career success in India.
Potential benefit
Chellani, who brings her 2-year-old daughter Vidhi to weekly play dates at the community center, is interested in early childhood education and has been volunteering at the center developing classroom curriculum for the kids. She would like to go back to school, she said, but paying tuition while living on one income and supporting two kids is a challenge.
Volunteering is another common strategy for the women, who are afraid future employers are going to question gaps in their resumes, and many local nonprofit groups are taking notice, said John Power, executive director of the matching service Thevolunteercenter.net, which works with agencies in San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
“They are individuals who have had a professional background and are looking for some proper ways to continue their careers,” Power said. “It’s very desirable to find people with such skills, and the potential benefit is huge.”
Some women, including Kannan, who sometimes had to stay in the office in Chennai until 3 a.m., see their H-4 status as an opportunity to take a break and do the things they never had time for, such as painting or dancing. Kannan, however, also volunteers as a computer specialist at the Indian Community Center once a week.
“It really helps me to do something useful,” Kannan said. Her husband agrees.
“He feels that I should be working with the technology. Otherwise I will be lagging behind.”
Skilled visa holders
135,000
approximate number of H-1B visas issued by the State Department in 2006
74,000
approximate number H-4 visas for spouses issued the same year
35,000
approximate number of H-1B workers in Silicon Valley area companies
Stephane Torriglia flew in from Spain about a month ago to check out a row house for sale on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and declared it the “perfect” buy for someone like him, a foreign businessman with euros to invest.
“The idea is we’ll convert our euros into dollars,” Torriglia said. “We can rent the place out. Maybe in five years or six, the dollar will be strong again and the real estate will gain value. It’s an opportunity.”
With the U.S. dollar at its weakest level in decades, international buyers are chasing housing bargains in America, eager to take advantage of their purchasing power and the declining prices in some of the best-known U.S. cities.
Against that backdrop, the Washington area is luring more than the usual crowd of diplomats. Now that the dollar is cheap, the region’s appeal has broadened, enticing international business types and sophisticated investors who find comfort in the area’s global reputation as a recession-proof market.
Several area real estate agents said inquiries from abroad have at least doubled since a year ago, mostly from wealthy Europeans and people in such growing economies as India and Russia, where the currencies are gaining against the dollar. Some are making all-cash offers. Even Web sites are seeing a surge in page views from overseas. The international traffic for D.C. area listings was recently up 60 percent year over year on Zillow.com, a popular real estate Web site.
“The impact of the weak dollar on foreign demand is one of these market forces that has snuck up on us,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Miller Samuel, an appraisal company in New York. “It’s been gradually gaining momentum, and the demand has accelerated as the fall in the dollar has accelerated.”
The math works out nicely for Torriglia, 50, and his wife, Isabel. The euro is now worth about $1.55 – a record high. On top of that, Torriglia has bargaining power in a down market.
Torriglia has been working with Dana Scanlon, of Keller Williams Metro Realty, an agent he found on the Internet. Scanlon said Torriglia was one of three foreign potential buyers who contacted her in a single week in January. A year ago, the only foreign clients she had were relocating for their jobs, not investors like Torriglia, she said.
“The increase in that kind of buyer has been exponential. I’ve gone from zero to 10 nibbles since the beginning of the year,” said Scanlon.
Hasan Nazzal, who lives in the United Arab Emirates, has been shopping since December for land in Virginia where he could build a house and possibly keep horses. Leesburg appeals to him, he said, because it’s close to one of his brothers, who has lived in the area for nine years.
“I see this as being for my son’s future” or maybe a place for the family to gather, he said.
Nazzal, an engineer who owns an interior-design firm, said he can spend $1 million on the land.
In a 2007 study by the National Association of Realtors, about 25 percent of the real estate agents surveyed said they had more business from international clients than they did five years earlier. The weak dollar was cited as one of the reasons for the uptick.
More than a quarter of the foreign buyers bought their homes with cash, and those who did take out loans put down more money than domestic buyers, the study found.
Have a look at this:
“Australians are still heavily dependent on cars to get around but a few more of us are getting public transport to work. Almost every household recycles or reuses some waste, but every Australian produces 1.6 tonnes of rubbish each year, most of which goes straight to a tip. De-facto relationships are up sharply, but marriage is still by far the norm.Welcome to the confusing kaleidoscope of an ageing, worried, generally healthy, slightly overweight nation portrayed in Year Book Australia 2008. Governor-General Michael Jeffery launched the annual snapshot of Australia in Canberra this morning. The 780-page tome, produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is an occasionally quirky look at the country and how it sees itself.
For instance, seven in 10 adults believe their own neighbourhoods are over-run with crime and public nuisances, with car hoons copping the most stick. Forty per cent of Australians complained of dangerous and noisy driving in their areas, while 33 per cent feared burglaries and 25 per cent worried about vandalism. Yet just 3 per cent of households had a break-in during the 12 months surveyed and 1 per cent of households reported a car theft. That said, if your car was pinched, it was pretty unlikely to have been retrieved. Only 11 per cent of stolen cars were recovered within a month.
The snapshot shows the median age of Australia’s 20.7 million population is 36.6 years, up 5.5 years over the past 20 years and likely to get older and older. While there seem to be some signs of a mini baby boom in some suburbs recently, the fertility rate of 1.81 births per woman (up from 1.73 births per woman in 2001) is still way below that required to replace the number of people dying or departing these shores. In the real baby boom years after World War II, rates peaked at 3.5 babies per woman in 1961. Marriages seem to be lasting marginally longer, with the average time between the altar and the divorce court being 12.6 years, up from 11.9 years a decade ago. And while there are many more de-facto couples now than at the beginning of the decade, rising by 25 per cent to almost 1.2 million people, this still represented only 15 per cent of all people who lived as “socially married”.”
It’s an interesting report, this”annual snapshot” is. It almost portrays the country as trying so very hard to keep its head above water, but can’t. More people leaving this country than births? I suppose they don’t factor in the amount of people who WANT to immigrate here. The social attitude is a far cry from the picture this report paints. Perhaps it’s just that this reporter decided that it was better to concentrate on the bad statistics seeing as, and as much as I hate to agree, bad news and negativity is what makes news. There’s never breaking news about the good events that go on in our lives these days.
Australia is a strong country, and is getting stronger everyday. It’s a country that is starting to realise that it can stand on it’s own two feet and become a world player without having to lean on America. Noise, the lack of births, defacto relationships; these all point to a growing country. The country is expanding, women are staying longer in the work force, and the focus isn’t entirely on marriage anymore, but rather a career.
Is this necessarily bad news?
For the record, I live in Australia now, but the experiences I’ve had here, as well as the experiences I had in Spain, have given me a unique view on life in America, and I must say, there’s a lot that is taken for granted.
It’s Monday even, around 9pm, and you’ve got a craving for the new Snow Patrol CD. So where are you going to find it? Really just about anywhere. The American retail market is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, either here in Australia, over in Europe, or other international destinations I’ve had the pleasure to travel to. North America, as a whole, is considered to be extremely convienent, almost too much so. Here in Australia, the shops close around 5pm or so, each day except for “late night shopping” nights on Thursdays. Is this convienent? Sure it’s not, but at what point must we throw convenience aside for the things in life that truly matter. I worked in the retail sector in America for years, and on numerous instances, it’d keep me from having dinner with the family, hanging out with my friends, and even occasionally missing important holiday events. Why? For the convenience of the shoppers.
Unfortunately, it looks as if the rest of the world may start to follow this trend. The retail sector, in countries around the world, is growing at an unbelievable rate. Will other countries follow the lead of the American retail sector and keep their doors open at all hours of the day? Perhaps. Is it worth it? Maybe, but it really doesn’t matter. The retail sector as a whole is the 2nd largest employer in the country. Whether or not we should have the accessibility to products we don’t even need, the retail market plays a big part in keeping the economy afloat. Many of the employed individuals in the retail sector are younger, and often pump their hard earned money right back into the market. I don’t think the 9a-9p hours are going anywhere anytime soon, and it might just get worse from here. A economic slowdown won’t help, in fact it may just make retailers go to extremes and milk the market for all it’s worth.
So treasure those family dinners, and appreciate the time spent with your friends, because despite how few and far between those are now, they may soon disappear completely.
I came across the most intriguing article (Ok, it was a boring work day, I admit it) awhile back about an area of the NSW coast that’s actually being put aside as a “surfing reserve”, somewhere that developers won’t be able to overwork or build up like they’re doing everywhere else. So what else does it allow for? Not much really, it seems as if it’s more of a title than anything else, but it’s a start in the right direction. Surfing is a sport that carries such a low impact on the environment. No need for a big grassy field, no sidewalks or roads, no long chairlift cut up a mountain…it’s a sport that takes advantage of what mother nature has given us. Oh, and did I mention it’s good to get out and exercise?
“Both the lands and waters of Lennox are recognised worldwide as a breeding ground for surfing legends and folklore,” Mr Kelly said.
“We want to make sure those waters are protected for surfers for the future.”
He said surfing spots such as Lennox were as valuable to Australians as Uluru, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) or the Opera House.
This action isn’t completely about surfing, it’s about preserving the natural, pristine beaches that Australia is lucky enough to have, and it’s good that we’re starting now. In Southern California, surfers are fighting to protect some of the most historic surfing spots around, keeping highway bypasses and huge developments from ruining the beautiful vistas and spoiling the natural habitats that are quickly being bulldozed over. Is it too late there? Perhaps not, as a recent vote to save Trestles, a popular and historic spot passed. I’ve had the privelidge to visit this amazing beach, and a highway bypass would have just decimated the area. I’m glad to see the outpouring of emotion over this small area of land.
So why a reserve? I think it’s Australia’s way of preempting the overdevelopment of the beautiful beaches we take for granted here. Sure, this particular beach is off the beaten path, and overdevelopment may be decades away, but it’s never to early to start thinking about the future. After all, who wants a highway bypass running through their favourite beach?
Tired of the rain? Me too, but it’s doing us, and the economy some good. Have a look.
“More than half of NSW is now out of drought, the latest government figures show. NSW Premier Morris Iemma said 46.1 per cent of the state was drought-affected, down from 52.6 per cent in December. Mr Iemma said it was the third successive month that the drought figures had fallen.“Hopefully this will translate into cheaper food at the supermarket cash register, especially for staples like fruit, vegetables and meat,” he said today.
“Hardworking families have been doing it tough because of the drought and the signs are positive that 2008 will be the year the worst drought in living memory finally breaks.
“The state has had a drenching in the past week and hopefully that will continue.”
Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said 32.9 per cent of NSW was now rated satisfactory, while 21 per cent was marginal. He said while rain had filled dams, helped pasture growth for livestock and impacted summer crops, there was still a long way to go.
“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said.
“Recovery will still be tough.”"
Sounds promising. I suppose it’s good that a lot of rain is falling in a very short period of time. It allows the ground to stay saturated, resulting in more runoff into the catchment areas. I can live with it, for awhile.
The dog won’t stop playing the puddles. I’m tired of cleaning up after him.
