(Tribune Media Services) -- Debra Hitti"s tour operator promises it will refund her deposit if she cancels with more than 45 days" notice. But when she does, the company balks, insisting it never made any such assurances. Who"s right, and how could a situation like this have been avoided?

(Tribune Media Services) -- Debra Hitti"s tour operator promises it will refund her deposit if she cancels with more than 45 days" notice. But when she does, the company balks, insisting it never made any such assurances. Who"s right, and how could a situation like this have been avoided?

Q: I"m writing in the hope that you can help us secure the return of our deposits from a tour operator.

My mother and I booked a wine tour in Spain through a company called The Unique Traveller that we found online. We each made a deposit of $881, which amounted to 30 percent of the cost of the trip. We weren"t presented with any terms and conditions, nor were the terms available on the tour operator"s Web site.

We asked to see a copy of the company"s terms, which stated that if we canceled fewer than 45 days before the tour, we would forfeit our deposits. I spoke with the owner of the company, and he agreed to modify the terms, allowing us to get a full refund of our deposits if we canceled after 45 days.

Several months later, I was laid off from the law firm I worked at. Then my mother lost her job. We can no longer afford the trip. But The Unique Traveller -- despite agreeing to a refund -- has refused to send us our money back. Can you help us?

-- Debra Hitti

A: If The Unique Traveller agreed to revise its terms, then you"re entitled to a full refund of your deposit.

I"m just not sure if it made that promise. I reviewed the correspondence between you, your mother, and Ramon Ramirez, the tour operator, and found that although he implied you would get your money back, his language was sufficiently vague to avoid a refund. How clever.

A tour -- particularly an overseas tour -- is something you should buy through a competent travel adviser. A good agent will know which tour operators are legit, and will also be familiar with their cancellation policies. I"d be wary of any online tour operator that isn"t up front about its terms and conditions.

Even if your agent gives a tour operator a thumbs up, you still need to do a little homework. Membership in the United States Tour Operators Association is a positive sign. To become an active member, a tour operator is required to show references and carry at least $1 million in professional liability insurance.

The 30 percent deposit is a little high, but not out of order. I"ve seen deposit requirements as steep as 50 percent. Not disclosing any of its terms and conditions on its site, however, is troubling. I searched the tour operator"s Web site, and couldn"t find anything, either.

If The Unique Traveller didn"t disclose its terms before or after you booked, and only mentioned its rules after you had already forked over one-third of the cost of your vacation, then that should have sent up a few red flags. A call to your credit card company might have led you to conclude that this tour was worth canceling, whether you planned to go or not. (Credit card companies take a dim view of these "gotcha" policies, and tend to help their customers recover their money when there"s a dispute.)

Once you had to call off your trip, you were stuck with three options. First, dispute the charges on your credit card. Second, negotiate with the tour operator and hope for a satisfactory resolution. Or third, go to court to recover your deposit. You opted for number two, and you did right by keeping everything in writing. But I think language barriers kept your case from being fixed.

I contacted The Unique Traveller on your behalf. Ramirez insisted he never promised you a refund on your deposit, and initially agreed only to allow your deposit to be used for a future tour. Eventually, he refunded you $701 each, leaving you with a smaller loss.

(Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. You can read more travel tips on his blog, elliott.org or e-mail him at celliott@ngs.org).

COPYRIGHT 2010 CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT, DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

London, England -- International airlines are once again landing in Iraq, the conflict-wracked home to some of the ancient wonders of the world.

London, England (CNN) -- International airlines are once again landing in Iraq, the conflict-wracked home to some of the ancient wonders of the world.

Ongoing conflict has overshadowed Iraq"s place as the "Cradle of Civilization," housing extraordinary sites like Babylon, just outside Baghdad.

But, an improving, if fragile, security situation means that, after years of isolation intrepid travelers can now fly directly to Iraq from Austria, Germany, Greece, Norway, Sweden and the UK as well as numerous cities in the Middle East.

Specialist tour operators are now stepping into the tourism void, catering to the smattering of tourists with an approach more Indiana Jones than package tour.

In June, French company "Terre Entiere" will lead its first tours of the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq, with plans to take tours every three weeks from September.

While these could be the first signs of an emerging industry, tourism in Iraq is very much in its infancy. Iraq"s Ministry of Tourism told CNN that last year just 73 tourists visited Iraq"s archaeological sites.

As long as Iraq remains dangerous, and lacking any kind of tourist infrastructure, it is unlikely to appeal to the package-holiday masses. But for some, that"s the attraction.

Sean Tipton, of the Association of British Travel Agents, told CNN: "You do find with some countries that were recently war zones, certain segment of travelers see it as attractive. Some people see it as off the beaten track. They view it as an experience."

Known as the "Cradle of Civilization", Iraq is a trove of treasures from the ancient world. The country currently boasts three UNESCO World Heritage sites, with another nine locations on the "tentative" list.

UNESCO"s Veronique Dauge told CNN: "Iraq is a gorgeous country. It is probably one of the most pristine and extraordinary places in terms of history and remains. And it has huge potential in terms of tourism."

Not tempted yet? Here are four historical sites that might entice the most intrepid of travelers to visit Iraq.

1. Babylon

This ancient city on the banks of the Euphrates River is more than four thousand years old and was once the home of Nebuchadnezzar, who built the Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

"Babylon is definitely impressive," Dauge told CNN. "It"s known throughout the world.

"Even the casual tourist has some collective memory of a place like Babylon, when you talk about people like Nebuchadnezzar."

Located 88 kilometers (55 miles) south of Baghdad, Babylon was extensively reconstructed by Saddam Hussein, meaning little of the original city is visible.

But travelers who make the journey can also stay in one of Saddam"s old palaces that is now a hotel .

2. Hatra

About 112 kilometers (70 miles) south-west of Mosul in northern Iraq, the ruined city of Hatra is a picture postcard of sand-colored pillars and arches that recall ancient Greece and Rome.

The capital of the first Arab Kingdom, it became a major religious center of the Parthian Empire and withstood attacks from the Romans in the second century A.D.

3. Ashur

Also known as Assur, this is a truly ancient city, dating back to the third millennium BC, making it more than four thousand years old. It"s located about 97 kilometers (60 miles) south of Mosul and was the first capital of the Assyrian Empire and a center of international trade.

There"s not much left of Ashur -- hardly surprising given its age -- but the mud-brick foundations of temples and palaces offer a tantalizing glimpse of the dawning of the Assyrian Empire.

The ruins lie in a beautiful landscape by the side of the Tigris River.

4. Samarra Archaeological City

Samarra was capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, which once ruled an empire stretching from Tunisia to Central Asia.

Situated 129 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad, the site spans 40 kilometers (25 miles) in all. Highlights include the largest palaces in the Islamic world and the ninth-century Great Mosque, with its famous spiral Malwiya minaret.

The site has suffered since the 2003 invasion, while an explosion damaged the winding ramps of the Malwiya minaret in 2005, Dauge said.

But remember the risks ...

Especially as the region between Mosul and Samarra is still one of the more dangerous parts of the country.

That serves to remind us why so few tourists travel to Iraq: The ancient land may have a wealth of archaeological attractions, but there"s no denying it"s a dangerous place.

The U.S. Department of State warns that "numerous insurgent groups remain active throughout Iraq" and "recommends against all but essential travel within the country."

And some of Iraq"s biggest attractions are in dangerous regions. Babylon, Samara and Ashur are all located in areas where the British Foreign Office advises against travel.

Tipton told CNN: "If you travel to parts of the country where the Foreign Office advises against travel, quite apart from putting yourself at risk, your insurance would not cover you if you were to have some kind of incident."

Until security improves, Iraq will remain a fringe destination. But where the trailblazers dare to travel, the camera-toting hordes often follow.

But Dauge said Iraq"s development as a tourist destination could help rebuild the country"s economy.

"It has to be very carefully controlled," she said. "It can create disasters, but it can also be very good in terms of economic development and improving the living conditions of the communities."

(Tribune Media Services) -- Renting a reliable vacation home isn"t easy.

(Tribune Media Services) -- Renting a reliable vacation home isn"t easy.

And not just because there are a seemingly endless number of rental resources to turn to -- everything from local sites that list a few condos to big listing services like HomeAway.com or VRBO.com.

For me, it"s the politics.

This summer, for example, I told my mother that I planned to rent a condo on the beach. Within two days, my sister and brother had invited themselves over, boosting our numbers from five to more than 30.

A rental home can save you a lot of money when you"re on vacation, but this one would almost certainly cost me a lot more.

There are an estimated 1 million vacation rentals in the United States, roughly half of which are available to the general public, according to numbers from The National Association of Realtors and FlipKey.com.

A recent PhoCusWright study estimated vacation rentals were a $24.3 billion-a-year market, while a Ypartnership survey suggested interest in renting a home was on the rise, with 14 percent of leisure travelers saying they stayed in one in 2009, up from 11 percent a year earlier.

Renting a home for 30 isn"t like booking a hotel room, or even a vacation cottage for a family of five.

"The consistent challenge we hear from travelers is predictability," says TJ Mahony, the chief executive of FlipKey.com, a vacation rental site. "People tend to know what they are going to get from a hotel, but can have anxiety over the quality of a vacation rental."

I asked experts to identify the biggest challenges when renting a home. Here"s what they told me:

1. Knowing what you want. Prioritize your rental. That"s the advice of Teresa Bell Kindred, a blogger and frequent home renter. "You are going to pay more for certain things. Decide what is really important to you," she says. Her family loves the ocean, so they don"t mind paying more to be right on the beach. But if you don"t mind being a few blocks away from the water, you can save money. Be sure you stay within your budget. "If you spend all your money on rental property and can"t afford groceries you may get hungry before you get back home," she warns.

2. Timing your purchase. If you"re in town for a special event, like a sports tournament or festival, it"s never too soon to book a vacation rental. "Vacation rentals are more scarce than hotels and great vacation properties are even scarcer," says Chris Brusznicki, the chief executive of GamedayHousing.com, a site that specializes in rentals for sports events. But if there"s no reason to be in town, you can run down the clock. One terrific new site that allows you to bid on "last-minute" vacation rentals is a site called PackLate.

3. Finding out what you"re renting. It probably goes without saying that you need to do your due diligence on a rental. "Do your homework," says Sylvia Guarino, who owns a rental home on Sanibel Island, Florida (one of my favorite places) and a member of Second Porch, a Facebook application that connects vacation rental owners and vacation guests.

"Vacation rental guests sometimes get too focused on getting a deal, and not focused enough on getting the information that they need, or authenticating the property. "How do you authenticate a property? Look at every piece of information available to you, including the owner"s site, the vacation rental site, online reviews and what you find on social networking sites, like Facebook. Be sure the property is in good shape, is as represented and isn"t in foreclosure.

4. Finding out who you"re renting from. "Research the owner, not just the home," says Kelly Hayes-Raitt, who owns a rental property in Santa Monica, California. She includes a link to her Web site and biography in every correspondence with potential guests, "not just so they realize they are supporting my work with refugees, but so they learn they are dealing with someone who has been active in her community for 30 years and not likely to cheat them," she says. Not every owner is as forthcoming as Hayes-Raitt, but if someone is reclusive, it might be a warning sign.

5. Determining if the rental is part of an association or destination. That can make a big difference, according to Jon Ervin, a spokesman for the Cottage Rental Agency in Seaside, Florida. "Imagine you rent from Mr. and Mrs. Jones -- nice enough people, but what if your air conditioning quits or some other concern arises?" he asks. "You most likely are going to have to work through the issue for your entire stay." Not if your rental is part of an association. There"s someone on call to help in situations like that. My family rented a home at the WaterColor Inn & Resort in nearby Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, during the Christmas holidays, and we found that to be good advice.

6. Becoming a power user. For example, VRBO.com allows you to filter search results by area, bedrooms and the number of people it can sleep. That helped Kellie Pelletier find a vacation rental in Charleston, South Carolina, for her family. VRBO also shows which homes are available on your preferred dates. "So I didn"t waste my time researching and contacting houses that were already booked for my week," she says. Pelletier knows a thing or two about being a power user. She used to work for Kayak.com, the booking site. "House rental sites are years, if not decades, behind other travel sites," she complains. "Please, won"t somebody launch the Kayak of rental house sites?"

7. Avoiding group-think. Extended families like mine should be broken up into smaller housing units, such as adjoining condos, as opposed to fitting them into one house. It gives everyone more privacy and is easier on the finances, because you don"t have to argue over the bill at the end. "Sometimes a big house works for some families," says Carol White, who runs a Web site about road trips. "But not others."

8. Reviewing the contract very carefully. You"re not checking into a hotel; this is more like renting an apartment. Watch for contract language, such as cleaning options. Frank Discala, who owns a rental property in Nantucket Town, Massachusetts, gives his tenants two options: either clean up after themselves, "Or they can leave the place without cleaning up and lose their $500 deposit," he says. "Ouch! No one has ever taken that option." (Discala knows about contracts; he"s a lawyer.)

9. Staying flexible. Remember, you"re renting an apartment or house -- not a room in a hotel. "Some things may go wrong," warns Pauline Kenny, a vacation rental expert who runs a site called Slow Europe. "The plumbing may stop working, the kitchen stove runs out of gas. Some things may not be perfect -- you bump your head repeatedly on that low doorway, the couch is orange, the parking space is almost impossible to get into." That"s life in a vacation rental. "Suck it up and live with it," she says.

Needless to say, renting a vacation home has its challenges. "The process for finding a vacation rental home is more involved and sometimes even difficult," says Christine Karpinski, a director for HomeAway.com. "You have to not only search for the home, but you also have to email to inquire whether or not it is available and for a full quote. Sometimes the process can take a couple hours and sometimes it can take a week of back-and-forth with the homeowners. But the reward at the end is wonderful."

I hope she"s right. I"ll let you know what happens this summer.

(Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. You can read more travel tips on his blog, elliott.org or e-mail him at celliott@ngs.org).

© 2010 CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

-- Millions of visitors flock to Arizona each year to relax in beautiful places like the Grand Canyon, Lake Havasu and the resort town of Sedona, but a political storm is threatening to impact the state"s tourism.

(CNN) -- Millions of visitors flock to Arizona each year to relax in beautiful places like the Grand Canyon, Lake Havasu and the resort town of Sedona, but a political storm is threatening to impact the state"s tourism.

Anger in the wake of a new state law -- which requires Arizona police to determine whether people are in the United States legally if there is a reason to suspect they aren"t -- has prompted some to call for a boycott of its hospitality industry.

"Our members are concerned," said Debbie Johnson, president and CEO of the Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association, which represents hundreds of hotels, bed and breakfasts and resorts in the state.

"They"re hearing from a lot of folks who visit and they"re obviously concerned with where this is playing out."

The fallout started last week when the bill was signed into law.

Hundreds protest immigration law in Arizona

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Arizona, began asking organizations to stop scheduling conventions and conferences in the state until it reversed its decision. Conventions are a large source of visitors and revenue and targeting them is the most effective way to make the point, Grijalva said in a statement.

Three conferences have been canceled so far, Johnson said. They include a gathering of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which was scheduled for this fall.

Johnson "respectfully disagreed" with Grijalva"s stance, she said.

"I think to punish the tourism industry and the hundreds of thousands of families that depend on it for their livelihoods is unfair when we weren"t involved in the development of this legislation," Johnson said.

McCain defends Arizona"s immigration law

Angry voices

In California, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrerra called for an end of all business with the state of Arizona, CNN affiliate KTVU reported.

"It is similar to an effort 20 years ago when Arizona refused to acknowledge the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday," Herrerra said, according to the station. (Arizona did not vote in favor of recognizing the holiday until 1992.)

Buzz is also growing online, where opponents of the new law have set up several Facebook pages urging people to stay away from the state.

Meanwhile, a "Boycott Arizona!" petition on ThePetitionSite.com has received hundreds of comments of support from people identifying themselves as residents of states as far away as Michigan, New Jersey and Illinois.

"I am an avid birder who spends thousands annually in the Chiricahua Mountains. I will go to Texas now as an alternative," wrote a poster who identified himself as Edwin Glenn of Vermont.

Other states are watching the controversy and offering up their facilities for visitors who want to bypass Arizona.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Arizona"s new law would have a chilling effect on international business travel, investment and tourism in the region.

"As a city, New York may well benefit from another state undermining its own international competitiveness -- we"re happy to have those businesses and tourists come here," Bloomberg said on Friday.

Big business

Tourism is a lucrative industry in Arizona. The state hosted more than 37 million domestic and international visitors in 2008, according to the Arizona Office of Tourism.

The tourists spent $18.5 billion and generated $1.4 billion in local and state tax revenues in 2008, the last full year for which statistics were available.

It"s no wonder that Arizona tourism officials are taking steps to head off a possible boycott.

The Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association has set up its own Facebook page titled "Don"t Boycott AZ Tourism," which urges visitors not to scapegoat the tourist industry and its workers.

"We just want to remind people that there"s a human face to this issue and it"s the workers at these resorts, hotels and restaurants throughout Arizona," Johnson said.

"We understand the emotions, we feel them too. But let"s not hurt all these innocent employees who had nothing to do with it."

-- Before last week"s earthquake, Haiti was just beginning to capitalize on the weather, location and tropical scenery that have turned many of its Caribbean neighbors into vacation paradises.

(CNN) -- Before last week"s earthquake, Haiti was just beginning to capitalize on the weather, location and tropical scenery that have turned many of its Caribbean neighbors into vacation paradises.

New hotels, new attention from international investors and buzz among travelers who have visited in recent years seemed to signal a renewed interest in Haiti as a destination.

"[Haiti] really is just lovely, and it"s a tragedy that they haven"t been able to leverage that natural beauty into a tourism industry because it definitely deserves it," said Pauline Frommer, creator of Pauline Frommer"s guidebooks, who visited the country during a cruise last fall.

Haiti"s neighbors in the Caribbean include vacation hot spots like Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Puerto Rico. But no glossy brochures tout Haiti"s beaches.

Instead, news footage of Haitian boat refugees and clashes in the streets of Port-au-Prince, the capital, are the images burned into the public"s mind.

"When people think of a beach vacation, they don"t want to go somewhere where there might be a civil war brewing," Frommer said.

A tale of two nations

It was a different story not that long ago.

Just two hours away by plane from Miami, Florida, Haiti had one of the strongest tourist industries in the Caribbean in the 1950s and "60s, according to Americas, the magazine of the Organization of American States.

But things went downhill as the political situation deteriorated.

"Their regimes have lasted very briefly, there have been coups, military governments have come in, there"s been repression. This isn"t an inviting environment for tourism," said Allen Wells, a history professor at Bowdoin College.

Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic -- Haiti"s more stable neighbor on the island of Hispaniola -- began planning and investing in its tourism industry in the 1970s, Wells said, with a big payoff in recent years.

Almost 4 million people visited the Dominican Republic in 2008, the most recent date for which annual information is available, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organization.

The group did not have figures available for Haiti, but Reuters reported that about 900,000 visitors a year now visit the country, though most arrive on cruise ships for a brief excursion without spending money in resorts and restaurants the way they would at an established vacation destination.

Tourism accounted for almost a quarter of the Dominican Republic"s gross domestic product -- billions of dollars -- according to the country"s Ministry of Tourism.

Tapping into that kind of money would be a tremendous benefit to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, but it would take strong planning and commitment, Wells said.

Signs of progress

Recent years had brought glimmers of hope for Haiti"s fledgling tourism industry.

Choice Hotels recently announced it would open two hotels in Jacmel, a picturesque town in southern Haiti. The hotel chain has had no updates on how the earthquake will impact those plans, said David Peikin, senior director of corporate communications for Choice Hotels International.

President Clinton, who was named a United Nations special envoy to Haiti last spring, visited the country in October to promote local tourism and told investors it was the right time to make Haiti "an alluring tourist destination."

Last year, Haiti also struck a deal with Venezuela to build a second international airport in Cap-Haitien, Haiti"s second-largest city, Reuters reported.

Lonely Planet has even called Haiti one of the most exciting countries in the world in which to travel.

"The visitors who are willing to go and see what"s really happening on the ground in Haiti... have been surprised by what they find," said Robert Reid, U.S. travel editor for Lonely Planet.

"It doesn"t get very good press," he said. "[But] there is more to it under the surface than is often reported outside."

Cruise stop

Most tourists who have been to Haiti have likely been to the peninsula of Labadee -- about 100 miles from Port-au-Prince -- deposited there for a day of activities by a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.

The company has spent $50 million developing the area, making it Haiti"s biggest foreign direct investor, said Adam Goldstein, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, in an interview with NPR.

But critics say Labadee has little to do with local culture. Some people may not even be aware they are in Haiti when they visit what the cruise line touts as "Royal Caribbean"s private paradise."

Frommer, who spent a day on Labadee during her cruise, said Royal Caribbean staffers were "very, very, very careful" not to refer to it as Haiti, though the company"s Web site includes the country name in its list of ports of call.

(Royal Caribbean has continued to bring vacationers to Labadee since the earthquake. Blog: Would you be comfortable on a cruise to Haiti? )

Frommer marveled at the intense natural beauty of the place, including lush jungles and beautiful white sand beaches, but she was also quick to notice the heavy security.

"I happened to take the zip line ride, which takes you outside of the compound, and you realize that the entire area of this private part of Haiti is surrounded by barbed wire. It"s like a fortress," Frommer said.

There were no excursions offered beyond the secured area, she said.

"Random crime"

The precautions may not be surprising given the longstanding tension in the region.

Before the earthquake, the U.S. State Department"s travel warning for Haiti urged U.S. citizens to exercise a high degree of caution when visiting the country.

"While the overall security situation has improved, political tensions remain, and the potential for politically-motivated violence persists," the department"s pre-earthquake warning said.

"The absence of an effective police force in many areas of Haiti means that, when protests take place, there is potential for looting, the erection of intermittent roadblocks by armed protestors or by the police, and the possibility of random crime, including kidnapping, carjacking, home invasion, armed robbery and assault."

What"s next?

In the wake of the massive earthquake, there are fears any progress made recently by the country"s tourism industry could be erased.

"I hate to say that it will be a setback, but I can"t imagine it not being," Frommer said.

But there also was hope that since the quake was localized in Port-au-Prince, other parts of the country could stay on the path of progress.

"All the development projects... the tourism, the airport that needs to be built in the northern part of Haiti -- everything else should stay on schedule," Clinton wrote in Time magazine last week.

Reid was optimistic that people flocking to Haiti from all over the world to help after the disaster would be moved by its plight and recognize its beauty.

"People want to go as responsible travelers and go into a place where their money might be able to make a difference," Reid said.

-- The leading edge of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was still several miles off the beaches of the Florida Panhandle on Thursday morning, but the slick was already hitting the area"s wallets.

(CNN) -- The leading edge of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was still several miles off the beaches of the Florida Panhandle on Thursday morning, but the slick was already hitting the area"s wallets.

"The phones just basically stopped ringing in the past couple of weeks for new bookings this summer," said Laura Lee, a spokeswoman for the Pensacola Bay Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Florida"s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spotted oil sheen about six miles off Navarre Beach, east of Pensacola, on Thursday morning, according to the state Division of Emergency Management. Any oil that hits shore is likely to have been weathered into balls or mats of tar, or mixed with seawater in a pudding-like "mousse," the agency reported.

As of late Thursday morning, no oil or tar balls had washed up, said Buck Lee, executive director of the Santa Rosa Island Authority in Pensacola Beach. Lee, who is not related to Laura Lee, said the area had just had a "super" Memorial Day weekend -- but now, "We"re just waiting anxiously to see what happens," he added.

Laura Lee said a wave of hotel cancellations hit the island in late April, after the sinking of the offshore drill rig Deepwater Horizon uncapped an undersea oil well off Louisiana. Those tapered off soon afterward, she said -- "But this week, there"s been another wave of cancellations," Laura Lee said.

Hotels have responded to the threat by easing cancellation policies. "Some had guarantees that they would get their money back if there was oil," she said.

Families weigh Gulf Coast vacations

In addition, charter fishing -- another big business in the area -- has been hurt. Some skippers have gone to work for oil company BP, which has hired boats to help lay protective booms and skim oil off the surface of the Gulf.

Tourism pumped about $1.2 billion into the Escambia County economy in 2009, employing roughly 20,000 people and bringing about 3.5 million overnight visitors a year, according to tourism officials. Early July brings two of its biggest annual events -- the Independence Day holiday and the following weekend"s Pensacola Beach air show, which features the locally based Navy aerobatic team, the Blue Angels. Faced with those concerns, the locals are trying to harness the power of technology and social media to offset the threat.

"We"re encouraging our visitors who are currently here to post their vacation pictures on Facebook, and a lot of them have done that just so that visitors can see with their own eyes the oil hasn"t hit," Laura Lee said.

And Buck Lee said the island authority hopes to put cameras on the beach and video streaming on the internet within about two weeks, "so they can see for themselves whether there"s oil on the beach or not."

"And there may be," he said. "But we"ve got to get them the facts."

Mojave, California -- Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson on Monday unveiled the winged rocket his company developed to give paying customers a brief taste of space.

Mojave, California (CNN) -- Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson on Monday unveiled the winged rocket his company developed to give paying customers a brief taste of space.

The 300 people who have given Branson"s Virgin Galactic $20,000 deposits toward the $200,000 space-ride tickets were invited see SpaceShipTwo in its Mojave, California, hangar. CNN was given an early peek.

The first flight in 2011 -- after 18 months of testing -- will launch from a spaceport under construction in New Mexico, Branson said.

Another aircraft will carry the 60-foot-long SpaceShipTwo to 60,000 feet above the Earth, where "they will drop away and they will then go to 2,000 miles per hour in 10 seconds, where they get propelled into space," Branson said.

Its hybrid rocket motor -- still under development -- will reach a suborbital altitude high enough to reach the edges of space and weightlessness, according to Branson.

"Once in space, [passengers] will unbuckle their seats," he said. "There are enormous windows, which no spacecraft has had before, for them to look back at the Earth. They can float around and become astronauts."

The cabin, which seats six paying passengers, is 90 inches -- nearly 8 feet -- in diameter, which provides "lots of room for zero-G fun," Branson"s Web site said.

The first voyage will carry Branson, his wife, mother and children, the entrepreneur said. "Actually, that"s my mum on the side -- a younger version of my mum on the side of the spaceship," he said.

After just a few minutes of space tourism, SpaceShipTwo will glide back to Earth, landing where it began the trip in New Mexico, he said.

About 80,000 people have placed their names on the waiting list for seats on SpaceShipTwo and its successors.

"What we want to be able to do is bring space travel down to a price range where hundreds of thousands of people would be able to experience space, and they never dreamed that [they] could," Branson said.

He said he hopes the technology will lead to a new form of Earth travel, jetting people across oceans and continents faster through suborbital routes.

"We would love at some stage, obviously subject to government approval, to take the engineers and start looking at shrinking the world," Branson said.

The spacecraft was based on the technology and carbon-composite construction developed for SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X Prize in 2004 for the first privately funded human flight to the edge of space.

The reusable spacecraft is a joint effort by aviation designer Burt Rutan"s Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic, a space tourism venture that is a subsidiary of Branson"s Virgin Group.

-- Two members of the voluntourism or volunteer holiday industry go head-to-head over the oft-debated benefits and pitfalls of a holiday choice that continues to grow in popularity.

(CNN) -- Two members of the voluntourism or volunteer holiday industry go head-to-head over the oft-debated benefits and pitfalls of a holiday choice that continues to grow in popularity.

Christopher Hill is the founder and managing director of Hands Up Holidays, a UK-based eco-luxury voluntourism travel company that organizes tailor-made vacations that typically have a 25 to 30 percent volunteering component. Here, he argues why the growing voluntourism industry is so good for the world.

A huge proportion of people who experience volunteering while on vacation are inspired to volunteer long-term, passionate advocates or donors for their own community.

This is a huge benefit of the booming voluntourism industry, one that is so often overlooked.

A voluntourism experience offers a bit of volunteering within a normal holiday, and that"s why there is a cost involved -- because people are paying for a holiday, but there is also a donation to a project involved too.

The industry is growing because more and more people are seeking meaning, fulfillment and a sense of purpose in life. If this is not met in their careers and daily lives, volunteering whilst traveling is a powerful way to meet this desire.

It is important to remember voluntourism and aid work are two distinct markets, appealing to two completely different groups.

Aid programs perform an essential role, but people involved with it are long-term participants, volunteers or otherwise. Voluntourism is for people who are going on vacation who do not have the time to be involved with traditional aid programs.

Benefits of voluntourism to the host communities depend on the skills of the volunteer. For example, doctors provide a specific need within a community while volunteers can help build libraries, schools or houses that the community could not otherwise afford.

There also need to be benefits to the individual to ensure they have a well-rounded travel experience. A responsible voluntourism provider needs to identify the best available accommodation, which has strong environmental and social responsibility credentials and guides who are trained in responsible travel principles.

Voluntourists should look for an organization that consults with the local community, and assurance that the needs of the project has been sourced by the community rather than imposed on it externally.

Their skills should be matched to a project and be put in touch with previous clients who have volunteered there before. Voluntourism can and does make a huge difference.

For example, five years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is a growing destination for people who want to help out in a variety of areas: environmental conservation, wildlife preservation, and assisting people affected by this calamity.

There is still much to be done to help renovate houses damaged by that storm or help with skills training of long-term unemployed. This is an excellent example of all the good things voluntourism can do.

Mark Jacobs is the managing director of Azafady, a small London-based charity working in the south-east of the African island of Madagascar on sustainable development, community and conservation projects with volunteering placements. Here, Jacobs talks about what"s wrong with the ever-growing voluntourism industry.

If you"re volunteering with our organization, you"ll be required to fund raise a direct charitable donation, not pay a fee to a profit-making company. The communities we work with have requested all of the projects we work on.

The projects are ongoing, so that even if you are on our two-week placements -- which are our shortest -- you will leave knowing that you have made a real contribution and the benefits of your work will continue long into the future.

But it"s almost impossible for the discerning volunteer to figure out which volunteering organizations are doing good work and which are not.

They can cost a fortune, but local communities see little of the benefits -- and all volunteers are left with is a dose of cynicism. It"s a minefield out there.

The small organizations genuinely doing good on the ground are overlooked because they can"t afford to engage in mass marketing.

Most volunteers who work with us find us, rather than the other way around. And it"s not easy for them to find us -- there"s so much "noise" out there in the form of big travel companies charging exorbitant amounts for volunteering holidays set up with only profit and entertainment in mind.

The profits involved have meant massive expansion in the industry. The basis of my cynicism is that many organizations produce little good and can even lead to skilled, well-motivated people turning away from international charity work altogether.

We have just three staff in the UK, keeping most paid positions for local staff in Madagascar. We are proud that 90 percent of our income is spent on our charitable aims.

In the past five years, with volunteers" support, Azafady has managed to build 11 schools, plant 200,000 trees, and increase access to clean drinking water by 50 percent in our main area of activity.

We don"t spend large amounts of money on marketing or PR, but this means that we struggle to compete with big organizations that spend a fortune on glossy advertising. We often don"t fill the capacity we have to take volunteers on our projects.

A lot of big travel companies now create volunteering opportunities, but it just doesn"t fit with what"s really needed overseas.

There are key questions that individuals need to ask these organizations before they choose a volunteering project: Are the projects needed? Are you a charity or a profit-making company? Can I see a copy of your accounts to see where the money actually goes?

There needs to be a regulatory body that assesses the validity of different organizations and keeps the industry honest.

But the large travel organizations that dominate the industry are powerful and going to be dead against the idea of a regulatory body because it will make them look as ridiculous as they are behind the gloss.

But that"s what is needed -- easy access to information so individuals know their time and money will be put to good use.

London, England -- Sherlock Holmes the movie has already made more than $300 million at the box office worldwide and British tourism officials are hoping it means money for them too.

London, England (CNN) -- Sherlock Holmes the movie has already made more than $300 million at the box office worldwide and British tourism officials are hoping it means money for them too.

Britain"s tourism board has been promoting films for the past 15 years, so they know just how lucrative a movie like "Sherlock Homes" can be.

"To give you an example of a typical blockbuster film, it is normally seen by about 120 million people in the first three weeks of opening," Visit Britain official Laurence Bresh told CNN.

"Even if a small percentage of those come to visit Britain as a result of this particular film, that"s going to have a huge boost in some of those tourism attractions featured in our promotion."

As much of "Sherlock Holmes" is set in London this means big business for museum officials and gift shop operators.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker Street is the address where the fictional detective lived, according to the stories by Conan Doyle.

Nearby, a nine-foot statue of Holmes greets visitors at the Baker Street Underground station.

Inside the museum, visitors can check out Holmes" study, sit in his armchair by the fireside, examine his calabash pipe and observe his chemistry equipment.

"I think Hollywood has put its magic touch on the legend, and they"ve put, as it were, a magnifying glass over the character and of course things you could say are slightly exaggerated, but that"s the wont of Hollywood and that"s what makes these blockbusters successful," John Riley, Assistant Curator of the Sherlock Holmes Museum said.

"So any new perspective, any new angle always just helps to perpetuate the legend of Sherlock Holmes. And that indirectly will obviously benefit the museum."

About 70,000 visitors a year stop by the Victorian lodging house, though officials are expecting a spike of interest fueled by the new movie.

While thousands of tourists flock to visit the museum, many of its visitors are unaware that Sherlock Holmes was actually not real person.

"A few people do think he is a real character, particularly with the tour of his house on "Baker Street" adding fuel to the fire so to speak," Mark Di-Toro from Visit Britain said.

"That is just testament to Doyle"s brilliant writing with his true to nature locations in the books meaning tourist can really relate and visit all the fantastic locations."

A. Pawlowski and Phil Han contributed to this report.

(Tribune Media Services) -- Debra Hitti"s tour operator promises it will refund her deposit if she cancels with more than 45 days" notice. But when she does, the company balks, insisting it never made any such assurances. Who"s right, and how could a situation like this have been avoided?

(Tribune Media Services) -- Debra Hitti"s tour operator promises it will refund her deposit if she cancels with more than 45 days" notice. But when she does, the company balks, insisting it never made any such assurances. Who"s right, and how could a situation like this have been avoided?

Q: I"m writing in the hope that you can help us secure the return of our deposits from a tour operator.

My mother and I booked a wine tour in Spain through a company called The Unique Traveller that we found online. We each made a deposit of $881, which amounted to 30 percent of the cost of the trip. We weren"t presented with any terms and conditions, nor were the terms available on the tour operator"s Web site.

We asked to see a copy of the company"s terms, which stated that if we canceled fewer than 45 days before the tour, we would forfeit our deposits. I spoke with the owner of the company, and he agreed to modify the terms, allowing us to get a full refund of our deposits if we canceled after 45 days.

Several months later, I was laid off from the law firm I worked at. Then my mother lost her job. We can no longer afford the trip. But The Unique Traveller -- despite agreeing to a refund -- has refused to send us our money back. Can you help us?

-- Debra Hitti

A: If The Unique Traveller agreed to revise its terms, then you"re entitled to a full refund of your deposit.

I"m just not sure if it made that promise. I reviewed the correspondence between you, your mother, and Ramon Ramirez, the tour operator, and found that although he implied you would get your money back, his language was sufficiently vague to avoid a refund. How clever.

A tour -- particularly an overseas tour -- is something you should buy through a competent travel adviser. A good agent will know which tour operators are legit, and will also be familiar with their cancellation policies. I"d be wary of any online tour operator that isn"t up front about its terms and conditions.

Even if your agent gives a tour operator a thumbs up, you still need to do a little homework. Membership in the United States Tour Operators Association is a positive sign. To become an active member, a tour operator is required to show references and carry at least $1 million in professional liability insurance.

The 30 percent deposit is a little high, but not out of order. I"ve seen deposit requirements as steep as 50 percent. Not disclosing any of its terms and conditions on its site, however, is troubling. I searched the tour operator"s Web site, and couldn"t find anything, either.

If The Unique Traveller didn"t disclose its terms before or after you booked, and only mentioned its rules after you had already forked over one-third of the cost of your vacation, then that should have sent up a few red flags. A call to your credit card company might have led you to conclude that this tour was worth canceling, whether you planned to go or not. (Credit card companies take a dim view of these "gotcha" policies, and tend to help their customers recover their money when there"s a dispute.)

Once you had to call off your trip, you were stuck with three options. First, dispute the charges on your credit card. Second, negotiate with the tour operator and hope for a satisfactory resolution. Or third, go to court to recover your deposit. You opted for number two, and you did right by keeping everything in writing. But I think language barriers kept your case from being fixed.

I contacted The Unique Traveller on your behalf. Ramirez insisted he never promised you a refund on your deposit, and initially agreed only to allow your deposit to be used for a future tour. Eventually, he refunded you $701 each, leaving you with a smaller loss.

(Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. You can read more travel tips on his blog, elliott.org or e-mail him at celliott@ngs.org).

COPYRIGHT 2010 CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT, DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

New Delhi, India ) -- India"s British past stands imposing in some of its most splendid buildings. But the country is erecting a tribute to its French connection to attract tourists.

New Delhi, India (CNN)) -- India"s British past stands imposing in some of its most splendid buildings. But the country is erecting a tribute to its French connection to attract tourists.

A former French colony tucked along India"s southeastern coast is building its own Eiffel Tower, a small version of the massive Paris monument.

The former colony of Pondicherry, also called Puducherry, has already completed half of the four-phased construction of the Yanam Tower, named after one of the four coastal enclaves of the federally-controlled territory.

Construction is expected to be completed by the end of November, Pondicherry"s revenue minister Malladi Krishna Rao said.

The three-legged, 333-foot monument will be a concrete structure for the first 90 feet, and the rest will be metal, he said.

Being built on sprawling 20 acres, the Yanam Tower will have a restaurant overlooking the sea.

More than half the cost of the $10 million project is being shouldered by a large private Indian company. The rest is being pooled by the federal and local administrations, according to Rao.

"There"s a lot of French culture in Puducherry. We also have French pensioners," he said.

Tree-lined boulevards, quaint colonnaded buildings, tall statues and a tiny Tamil French community define Pondicherry. Unlike the rest of India"s uneasy accounts of its British history, Pondicherry displays its French past nostalgically.

"It"s a trip down France as one crosses symmetrically-designed streets in Puducherry," says the official Web site of its tourism department. It also praises French governors for their administration and has listed the statue of one of them -- Marquis Joseph Francois Dupleix -- as a heritage site for tourists.

India gained independence from the British in 1947. But the French stayed longer, at least until 1954 when their possessions in Pondicherry were de facto transferred to the new government in New Delhi after 280 years of rule. Officially, though, Pondicherry didn"t become part of India until 1963 when the French parliament ratified its treaty with India.

More than 55,000 foreign tourists visited Pondicherry in 2007, according to the latest statistics from the tourism department. Authorities hope their own mini Eiffel Tower will attract more.

"It will give boost to tourism," said Rao.