Tactical fighter, parachute team to perform at air show
Tactical fighter, parachute team to perform at air show
DAYTON
A tactical fighter and a parachute team will join previously announced attractions at an Ohio air show next year.
Dayton Air Show officials said the U.S. Army Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter and the U.S. Army Golden Knights will perform demonstrations at the event set for June 23-24 at Dayton International Airport.
The F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter. The F-22 at the Dayton show will be flown by Major Paul “Loco” Lopez II.
The Golden Knights will perform skydiving formations and landings requiring extreme precision. The 16-member team will travel to Dayton in a Fokker C-31A Troopship, which will serve as the jump aircraft.
Air show officials earlier announced that the U.S. Navy Blue Angels fighter jet team will headline the show.
State park receives $5 million to build new visitor center
LOGAN, Ohio
The state Controlling Board has approved spending more than $5 million to pay for a new visitor center at Ohio’s most popular state park.
The facility at Hocking Hills State Park in southern Ohio’s Hocking County will be constructed by Ohio State Parks and Watercraft. The Columbus Dispatch reported that the current center will be razed.
The Department of Natural Resources has told the Controlling Board that the new center should be finished by next November.
The building will have flush toilets, a gift shop, resources for hiker and visitor safety and information about the area’s history and geology.
Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Carey Santiana said there’s no exact time line for when construction will begin, but the work is expected to get underway in the next few weeks.
Visitors to US down
Has the Trump slump that the travel industry warned about finally hit?
The number of international visitors arriving in the United States declined nearly 4 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 2016, according to data released recently from the U.S. Department of Commerce National Travel and Tourism Office in Washington.
Many sectors of the travel industry have been warning that President Donald Trump’s anti-foreigner rhetoric and immigration policies would lead to a drop in tourism here.
Fewer visitors came from nearly every region of the world, with declines in arrivals from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
The only region that sent more visitors was Canada, up 5 percent.
Industry study
Cruise lines, their passengers and crew spent a record $21.69 billion in the U.S. in 2016, up 15 percent since 2011 and representing a new peak in U.S. cruise industry expenditures, according to a new study from Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the world’s largest cruise industry trade association.
CLIA’s 2016 Economic Impact Analysis shows that total contributions of the global cruise industry to the U.S. economy reached a record $47.76 billion in 2016, up 3.6 percent from 2014. This includes generating 389,432 U.S. jobs paying more than $20.5 billion in wages and salaries.
Combined dispatches