Nineteen self-confessed 'desk jockeys' from the Accor hotel group are about to embark on a 10-day cycle from the Barossa Valley to Melbourne with the aim of raising US$110,000 for CanTeen. The 1000+km trip will be made in ten days, with the team departing the Novotel Barossa Valley on Friday 2 December and arriving into Novotel St Kilda on Monday 12 December.

This is the third "cycle for charity" undertaken by Accor general managers who previously biked from Melbourne to Sydney to raise funds for the burns unit of the Children's Hospital at Westmead and from Wellington to Auckland to raise money for Cure Kids in New Zealand. Their previous fundraising efforts raised more than US$184,000 and this year their efforts will go towards bringing joy to the lives of teenagers living with cancer. Every rider has donated US$1,100 of their own money to enter as well as approached major sponsors and organised different fundraising events. So far, they have raised more than US$50,000 and will continue to raise money along the way. Donations can also be made via CanTeen's website at www.canteen.org.au.

CanTeen was created 21 years ago and provides camps, recreation days, seminars and workshops for cancer sufferers aged 12-24 and their families. For more information on the route go to www.canteen.org.au. Media information: Gaynor Reid ph +61 (02) 9280 9835 or email gaynor.reid@accor.com.

October 2005 foreign direct arrivals to Bali sunk to 81,109 – a decline of 36.83% against the near-record-breaking October recorded one year before in 2004 (128,399). With total arrivals almost an exact match for another bomb-affected October in 2002 when foreign arrivals were 81,100 – a convincing argument can still be made that the fall out from the latest tourist attack was much less severe than the downturn experienced just three years before. Bearing in mind that the 2002 bombing occurred on the 12th of October with declining arrival really only affecting the last half of the month, by comparison the most recent terror attack took place on the 1st of October meaning this year's decline was spread over a period twice as long in duration as its predecessor three years before to the month. In other words, the decline in arrivals in 2002 was arguably nearly twice as steep as the most recent October experience. All eyes will be on November 2005's arrivals figures which will give a much firmer indication as to whether the current slump in business has actually bottomed out and on the mend, or, instead, is heading into deeper negative territory. In 2002 the November following the 12 October attack represented one of the worst months in recent memory in terms of foreign tourist arrivals with only 31,497 visitors – down 57% from the same month one year before in 2001. The performance benchmark for November 2005 will be whether or not arrivals are anything better than a decline of -36.83%. If Bali scores better than that it will indicate tourism arrivals are on the mend; a score of anything worse than -36.83% will make it reasonable to conclude the island's tourism industry continue to sink and is still stuck in a pre-recovery stage.

When it comes to the planning and execution of aviation facilities, Singapore seems to be one or two steps ahead of Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur in the race to become Southeast Asia's main air hub. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), which develops and manages Changi Airport, is spending US$35 million to get terminals 1 and 2 ready for A380 operations. The future Terminal 3, to open in 2008, will have another eight A380-compatible gates bringing the total at the airport to 19, probably the largest number of gates committed to A380s by an airport. Thailand's 155-billion-baht Suvarnabhumi airport was designed to handle 45 million passengers a year. Future plans call for Suvarnabhumi to be expanded to handle up to 100 million passengers a year with the potential for two more runways. Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is completing a new satellite terminal that will increase its passenger traffic from 21 million today to 35 million in three years, when it will be ready to receive the A380. In any case, the earliest date for Thai Airways to take delivery of its first A380 is in the fiscal 2009 and 2010, he said. As passenger traffic is expected to increase by 5% every year over the next 20 years, the European plane-maker Airbus predicts 3,400 flights a day will be operated by aircraft the size of A380s.