Tourism

Yang Xuemei grew up tending yak with her family in this outpost on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. These days, she herds tourists through the alpine pastures and other scenic climes of Pudacuo National Park -- 1,243 square miles of soaring mountains and glacial lakes inhabited by red pandas and nearly 100 other endangered species. Her job as a tour guide broadens her horizons beyond the toothy mountains that define her life. "It's hard to go out into the world from here," said Yang, 23.

Psst -- don't tell anyone, but there's still another part of Pakistan, an oasis of striking beauty all but free of the turmoil, Taliban militancy, suicide bombers and security fears that have gripped much of the rest of the country. Clocks here in Skardu in northern Pakistan, an hour's flight from Islamabad, may display the same time as their counterparts in the capital, or in Lahore and Karachi.

As the Jesusita fire raged around Santa Barbara this week, Mitchell Sjerven decided to temporarily close his Seagrass restaurant near the normally bustling State Street. The move to shutter the elegant "coastal cuisine" spot, where a "surf-and-turf" entree costs $48, could cost thousands of dollars.

The Currans of Granada Hills have been taking family vacations on the Las Vegas Strip for years. They weren't about to pass it up just because Jeff Curran's business selling upscale cookware is down sharply. But this summer it would be a smart Vegas vacation. A year ago they plunked down $100 each for tickets to the Blue Man Group show at the Venetian. This year, the family of four -- Jeff, 59, his wife, Michele, 55, and their adult son and daughter -- took in the Mac King Comedy Magic Show at Harrah's with tickets discounted to $10 apiece.

It was only a matter of time before the strip clubs and cabbies went to war. Las Vegas' fortunes, which have fallen along with the nation's, can be measured in shorter lines at the airport, sparse crowds at the roulette tables and lighter traffic on Interstate 15. But the recession has also strained the "green handshake" culture, where businesses trade cash and favors for recommendations from doormen, concierges, limo drivers and cabbies.

At the upscale Joyful House restaurant in Las Vegas' Chinatown, it used to be common for tourists or convention-goers from Japan, Hong Kong and China to drop $300 apiece on a seafood feast. But there is a lot less joy in the dining room today. The big spenders have disappeared. Business during the usually robust Chinese New Year was off 35% from 2008, said manager Stanley Ma. The restaurant has reduced employees' hours and whittled bills for tour groups.

Buried under two months of winter in Buffalo, N.Y., Kim Kramer could take no more. "I came home and said, 'I've got to get out of here,' " said Kramer, a 44-year-old teacher. Two weeks later, she was awash in sunshine here on Mexico's Caribbean coast, sipping a midday Hurricane and looking pleasantly thawed. Before Kramer got on the plane to Cancun, though, she made sure to check: Was it dangerous to go there?

Despite bargain air fares, cheaper hotels and theme park discounts, Americans and foreign visitors have cut U.S. travel spending to the lowest level since the terror attacks of 2001, new government and industry statistics show. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported this week that travel and tourism spending dropped in 2008, and plummeted at an annualized rate of 22% in the last three months of the year.

Underground Atlanta was hyped as this city's signature tourist attraction when it opened 20 years ago. The trendy restaurants and shops of this "festival marketplace" lined six blocks of historic buildings in a unique mini-neighborhood that appeared to thrive underneath the downtown streets. The "underground" streets had actually been covered, in the 1920s, by a series of viaducts that allowed traffic to pass over the bustling trains that were crucial to the young city's growth.

It would have been one of the biggest tour-group catches of the year for California: Some 500 employees of a Beijing outsourcing company going on an 11-day excursion to Los Angeles and San Francisco, with a side trip to the Mexican coastal town of Ensenada. But the outbreak of swine flu quickly put an end to those summer plans. Workers at China International Intellectech Corp.