The pretty islands of Samoa have a had a rough time lately. As if switching from right side to left side driving wasn't enough, the poor Samoans endured a tsunami in late September which killed close to 200 people, some of them tourists, and that meant a bunch of canceled bookings by future travelers. This is all not great news for a country with tourism as 25% of GDP.

But now we've got the good news: Samoa is back on track. Less than two months after the tsunami, the Samoa Tourism Authority says that tourism is recovering. Some of the 33 resorts that were forced to close are on course to start opening early next year, and although tourist numbers are currently down 20% compared to the same time a year ago, the outlook for the future is better. On top of that, the "It's Still Beautiful" marketing campaign has kicked off to convince tourists that Samoa should still be on their wishlist. It's still on ours, but we've got a long, long list.

Related Stories:
· Recovery Begins In Samoa [The Age]
· Samoa Switches Sides Of The Road For Drivers [Jaunted]

[Photo: YXO] ]]> amandak 2009-11-24T15:20:39-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/9/63616/07227

As of Monday morning local time, the country of Samoa made quite the change to the way the country moves around. Instead of driving on the right side of the road, they decided to switch things up and drive on the left side. Not since the 1970s has a country shook things up like this, and we’re just glad we didn’t have a visit planned there this week.

To help things go as smoothly as possible, the country is taking a couple days off, as government officials felt that a two-day holiday would ease people into the traffic train wreck. There’s also a three-day ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages, because you know knocking a few back would not help things out at all. So far so good it seems, but that might only be because everyone is still on vacation. ]]> kjb 2009-09-09T09:15:46-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/3/2/221655/1525

Survivor, as we all know, is the reality show that just refuses to die. Even though we far prefer Amazing Race, Survivor just keeps on coming back. And there's no stopping it in 2009. If reports are to believe, plans are underway for the show's new season in Samoa.

Stuff.co.nz claims that veteran Samoan journalist, Apulu Lance Polu, revealed in a recent editorial, that Prime Minister Misa Telefoni called media owners to meet "a Caucasian man who claimed to have been a journalist representing an overseas company filming a popular TV reality show on CBS that claimed 100 million TV viewers worldwide."

The man told the gathered journalists that CBS’ advance team would arrive in April and they expected the local media to stay mum about what was happening until CBS made an official announcement about what was presumably "Survivor 19".]]> cmb 2009-03-03T09:11:23-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/