It’s not been a great day for the travel industry. Shares in travel firms and airlines have taken a tumble with the  spread of swine flu. At present the FCO isn’t advising against travelling to Mexico. This is in contrast to the EU Health Commissioner and the US Federal Government who have both warned against travel to Mexico. This makes life tricky for travel companies who have to tell customers booked for Mexico that they must travel or lose almost all of their money.

Everyone will be looking to the FCO advice, but if they advise against travel to Mexico, then they will be under pressure to extend this advice to other heavily infected countries. In Europe, Spain has a large number of flights to Mexico and has more confirmed cases of swine flu than the rest of Europe combined. The repercussions for the travel industry could be quite devastating.

*UPDATE* The FCO has now warned against travel to Mexico, no doubt prompted by the WHO raising its alert level to 4. This was perhaps inevitable, and clarifies the situation, allowing travellers to claim back any money paid on their insurance. Nevertheless, it’s yet more bad news for the travel business.

The FT visits Manzanar in the Californian desert which was an internment camp for 10,000 Japanese Americans in World War 2.  In 1988 President Reagan gave each of the 60,000 (there were 9 other camps) remaining camp survivors $20,000 and a letter saying sorry. Now it seems there is little left of the camps and few tourists make the trek deep into the desert. Also in The FT, another Nile Cruise and the top ski guides in Europe.

In The Independent Wayne Hemmingway takes his wife and four children on a trip across India taking in Delhi, Calcutta and plenty between the two. Susan Griffith goes to Australia’s Northern Territory (the wonderfully named Kakadu National Park) and there’s a rather uninspired skiing piece on Klosters.

The main piece in the NY Times is on Cape Town, concentrating on the surrounding areas rather than the town itself. There is a feature on the upmarket Cap Maison in St. Lucia and a look at Francis Bacon’s Madrid, where he died at the age of 82. There’s a look at Vail Mountain Club, one of a number of ski clubs in the US that are modelling themselves on golf clubs. The joining fee is $275,000!

In the Telegraph there’s trekking in Bhutan, off-piste skiing in Val d’Isere and another piece about Twitter in travel.

Mark Hodson goes to Ko Pha- Ngan in The Times and likes it. There’s also the Greek island of Kea and Robert Elms visits Mexico City and then heads to the coast.

It’s beach holidays in the Guardian with Ireland, St. Tropez and the blue train in South Africa.