Tourism recovers in Kashgar

Kashgar

Kashgar is a popular tourist destination in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The July 5th incident in Urumqi seriously affected Kashgar's summer tourism market.

However, tourism in Kashgar is now gradually returning to normal. This is due to a return to social stability, as well as a series of favorable policies. In response to the drop in the number of domestic tourists, the city has cut the price of all attractions and hotels by 50 percent. Most of the tourists in Kashgar these days are actually from overseas, with hundreds of visitors from around the world enjoying the sights of the city every day.

Fare sale slows down Southwest Airlines computers

southwest airlines sale

You've got until midnight tonight to book that fall trip and enjoy the cheap fares being offered by Southwest Airlines (and the other airlines who matched).

However, there is some indication that Southwest's computer reservations system has already turned into a pumpkin at times. On its Web site, Southwest has acknowledged that the reservation system has been having its problems:

"Due to the overwhelming success of our fare sale, southwest.com is operating at peak capacity and experiencing sporadic delays. We apologize for any inconvenience you may have."

On Nuts about Southwest, Southwest's blog, the first comment from a customer came at 12:19 p.m. Wednesday: "It would help if your website was actually allowing people to book flights!! Offer sale-airfare and then have your website go down, poor customer service..."

A Southwest employee posted a comment just before 1 p.m. saying "We apologize for your inconvenience. Our entire Technology Team was working on the project, and the booking portion of southwest.com is active again."

But others weighed in with their own complaints after that through mid-afternoon.

"Well, 4:30 Eastern Time and the site is still down," a customer groused. "A sale is not a sale unless you can participate! By the way, when will it be up?"

"Folks again our apologies," a Southwest official said at 4:26 p.m. CDT. "The web site has been going up and down. At 3:45pm Central, we had word that it was back up."