Travel Log: Where to travel in 2013?

MANILA, Philippines—What are your top destinations, or where do you intend to head for, next year? Several tourism stakeholders have started to draw up their top destinations lists this early.

Cox & Kings Travel, a British travel agency founded in 1758, has picked the top 10 emerging destinations in 2013 based on their “unexpected offerings” or the “surprises” that they “bring to the table.”

Myanmar, which recently opened up to the world, tops Cox & Kings’ list for its “incredible cultural history and low level of Westernization.” The formerly military-ruled country is followed by India, for the Maha Kumbh Mela Festival taking place in early 2013, which is one of the largest holy gatherings in the world.

The rest of the top emerging destinations include:

— Southern India and Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan, for new perspectives on the sub-continent;

— the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which Cox & Kings says boast incredible medieval architecture;

— Colombia, which Cox & Kings describes as a “diamond in the rough,” and “ home to some great South American adventure, culture and food”; and

— Botswana, for its Okavango Delta, Africa’s “last wilderness.”

Lonely Planet‘s newly released annual Best in Travel 2013 has also drawn up a top 10 locations list, with Sri Lanka picked as No.1, for being one of the best-value destinations after bouncing back following a 26-year civil war that ended in 2009.

The other nine are:

— Montenegro, mainly for its rugged interior with many hiking and biking trails;

— South Korea, which will host in 2013 three international sports events;

— Ecuador, whose railway, devastated in the 1990s by flooding, is set to be operational again in 2013;

— Slovakia, with its high-altitude activities including skiing in spruced-up resorts;

— Solomon Islands, which offers homestays and eco-resorts;

— Iceland, with lunar-like setting;

— Turkey, in which Lonely Planet asks visitors to take advantage of its new low-fare airlines to see points beyond Istanbul and coastal resorts;

— Dominican Republic, to which airlines have added more flights and with several new resorts opening in 2013, according to Lonely Planet; and

— Madagascar, where democratic reforms are making the island republic “more welcoming.”

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Tallies from STR Global for September 2012 showed that Asia-Pacific hotels’ room occupancy fell 1.1 percent to 67.5 percent. By destination, Jakarta reported the largest occupancy increase, rising 13.9 percent to 80 percent, followed by Hanoi, Vietnam, with a 13.3 percent increase to 64.3 percent.

Taipei posted the largest decrease, falling 10.1 percent in occupancy to 63.7 percent in September.

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Philippine churches are not spared by many Filipinos’ penchant to throw their litter wherever they are on the spot. Quiapo church, the home of the venerated Black Nazarene, is like a picnic ground on Fridays, when devotees flock to it in great numbers. Some churches, like the Shrine of the Five Wounds in Las Piñas City has resorted to exhorting the faithful after every Mass not to leave any litter behind, including candy wrappers and tissue paper, to maintain the sacredness of the shrine.

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