Departure Gate

Your passport to the latest destinations and airline promotions

The dates says it's only early winter, but the weather says it's time for the skiing season to start at two North Carolina slopes.

Sugar Mountain and Cataloochee opened last weekend for skiers and snowboarders - two of the earliest in Avery County.

Cataloochee Ski Area in nearby Haywood County was the first to open for the year, with an 8:30 am start last Saturday.

Legendary Italian slope reopens

After a lapse of 24 years, a new cable lift will give skiers in the Dolomite Mountains the opportunity to once again ski down the 8-kilometer Val della Mite slope to Peio Fonti. Each cable car carries up to 100 passengers from Tarlenta to the heart of the Ortles Cevedale mountain range at 3,000 meters in less than six minutes.

Myrtle Beach on the US Atlantic coast will get a new attraction next year - a 60-meter-high ferris wheel expected to be in place on the beach by May, according to the South Carolina Tourism Office. Each of the 42 cabins can carry up to six passengers and will offer panoramic views of the strand and newly-renovated beach promenade.

Picasso show in Denmark

The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark will be home to a large Picasso exhibition from Feb 11 to May 29 next year. Visitors to the museum in Humlebaek will be able to view around 100 works of the Spanish master presented under the motto "Picasso - Peace and Freedom".

The exhibition will show the artist's social and political commitments in the period from 1944 until his death in 1973.

Photography project for Florida

Prospective visitors to Florida can soon check on the Internet to see if the beaches they intend to visit have been polluted by the Gulf of Mexico oil spills. The Visit Florida tourist office have organized a "Great Visit Florida Beach Walk", inviting residents and visitors to walk along their favorite beaches and take photographs.

Images will be collected on the tourism website to show visitors that the state's beaches are clean despite April's Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Airline news and deals

Google to sponsor airline Wi-Fi for holidays: Google said last week it will offer passengers on AirTran, Delta and Virgin America free Wi-Fi access this holiday season.

The wireless Internet through Google's Chrome browser will be available Nov 20 to Jan 2. All three airlines have fleetwide Wi-Fi that generally costs between $6 and $13.

Last year, Google sponsored free Wi-Fi on Virgin America flights and at more than 50 airports.

Qatar Airways opens new route between Doha and Phuket: Qatar Airways now operates daily flights from Doha to Phuket with a stopover in Kuala Lumpur. The flights run once a day except Mondays from the city in the Persian Gulf to the Thai holiday island resort.

The company also announced that as of Nov 1, it has increased its number of flights to Bangkok from two to three a day.

40 percent discount on fares from Zhengzhou to Shanghai: Travelers planning to fly from Zhengzhou to Shanghai this winter will enjoy more than 40 percent off the original ticket price if advance reservations are made.

Tickets booked one week ahead can be bought for as low as 252 yuan, even less than the price of a bullet train ride which usually cost between 239 to 299 yuan.

New route launched between Harbin and Ordos: Hainan Airlines has started a new route between Harbin and Ordos.

The airline will operate three flights each week on the route, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

China Daily - Associated Press-Deutsche Presse-Agentur

(China Daily 11/14/2010 page16)