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tv   The Travel Show  BBC News  May 11, 2021 3:30am-4:00am BST

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this is bbc news, the headlines: the health ministry in gaza says twenty people, including nine children have been killed in israeli air strikes the strikes were retaliation after a barrage of rockets was fired from the territory towards jerusalem. israel says it killed three militants. us regulators say they will allow children as young as 12 to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. children aged between 12 and 15 will be offered the pfizer—biontech jab. it had previously been limited to those aged 16 and over. the us television network, nbc, says it will not broadcast the golden globes ceremony next year, joining a growing wave of criticism about the organisers' lack of diversity and ethical stance. the hollywood foreign press association has come under pressure after it emerged that
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there were no black members. now on bbc news, on the travel show ade adepitan takes a look into the future and finds out how tech could play a big part in changing the way we'll all travel. coming up on this week's travel show, we'll be finding out how tech could change the way we all travel in the future. glastonbury gears up for another online festival. and saving an underwater super plant in spain. and mike goes for a gentle afternoon bike ride in nairobi. this is a little bit crazy! hello and welcome to
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the travel show, with me, ade adepitan. this week we are in london's hyde park where the sun is out it wasn't so long ago that travel was a very different experience. dramatic futuristic music plays you'd probably flick through some brochures, pop into a travel agent and write a cheque before
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heading out to a place you barely knew anything about. of course, with little more to help you along your way than a paper map and a guidebook. today, technology has changed things. but what about in say, i don't know, ten years' time? if technology can change how we travel so quickly, how different can we expect it to be when we explore the world in the near future? well, one big driverfor change will be what's known as the internet of things. it's predicted that by 2025, 42 billion devices will be capturing data on how we live and move through the world. some say the internet of things will play a big part in a fourth industrial revolution, and that the covid crisis has accelerated technological advances. the internet of things is a way of describing how more and more
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objects will connect with each other in an increasingly interconnected world. our bags will tell us where they are in the world if they get lost, for example. it's what will enable us to open more hotel rooms with our phones and once inside, use a tablet or your voice to switch the lights on, change the temperature and control the television. but that's just the start. if you're smarter about how you move people around the city, public transport becomes much smarter, then actually you need less roads and less car parks to open it up to more green spaces, so actually the internet of things and getting different systems to speak to each other has a big knock—on effect for travelling in smart cities in the future. it's also a part of what will enable other technological changes to our travels that have been accelerated during the pandemic. imagine going through an airport and checking in with facial recognition. you continue on to baggage drop—off, authenticating in the same way, head on through facial recognition
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security, and then finally going through the boarding gates, doing it all completely contactless. in fact, even your passport might not be around for too much longer as you know it. right now, we're piloting digital passports with air europa for people travelling to spain, so they will have their digital information on their mobile in addition to their biometric information on their mobile as well, so i think it's really speeding up innovation because we need to have these technologies to make people feel confident to travel. it's just one example of how biometrics and contactless technology will change the way we travel. though, of course, this data—hungry world will mean giving more and more of our information, which could come with a risk to our privacy. thankfully now, lots of the technology in this biometric space stores a representation of your information.
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so not literally a reproducible copy, but a "recipe book" to enable you to validate it. so this, for me, is actually one of the positives to come through this period, that will improve people's digital security overall, but we have some education issues to work through so people can feel comfortable with this technology and the benefits that it brings. technology, like having global maps in our smartphones, makes exploring the world much more simple, and the technology of the future will look to make things even easier. but is that necessarily such a good thing? are we losing the spirit of adventure? whether you are in the us or injapan, these online maps have exactly the same interfaces, and i think this can give you the impression that the world is everywhere the same, it's the same pastel blandscape that you're navigating using your mobile.
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but also, the virtual places that we inhabit really are like places. if you have flown from london to new york but you spend the whole time on facebook, it's as though you haven't left your virtual environment, you're kind of cocooned in the technology. but the technology of the near future will also open up new ways to see the world. during the pandemic, some destinations took the chance to show off their location in immersive virtual reality and some people think this will accelerate the take—up of this as well as things like augmented reality. technology might soon make the process of travel far easier, but what's really exciting is it might give us completely new opportunities for exploration that simply didn't exist before. a travel experience that reveals the history of our destinations right before our eyes. for example, imagine being able to visit ancient roman baths
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and seeing the history of the unique place unfold in front of you using your mobile phone. we've been working in collaboration with the bbc, r&d team up in salford, and the roman baths. we've been able to really get to grips with history and bring it to life. looking back through the roman era where there was the fall of the roof, so through the app we can actually see the roof fall down and cave down in front of you which is really exciting, where you get to see people actually react in front of you, it was lovely. some of this technology is already available in some form, but the question is, what will really take off to become the new normal of travel? well, tech has come to the rescue of many destinations and events over the past year or so as they've moved what they do online, but until we can visit them in real life, here's our latest
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global guide to the world of online travel. hopes are high that live gigs could return after successful trials in barcelona last month, and now in liverpool, a non—socially distanced festival has just been trialled. the event is being held as part of the government's events research programme with hopes of finding a way to open up venues again. fingers crossed for good results. it will be next year that we can hopefully return to the world—famous worthy farm, but until then, glastonbury is going online again. this year the event will see a range of artists performing in support of the festival. tickets are on sale with a number of timed streams available to accommodate
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audiences around the world. another sign that virtual travel could be around long after covid is the latest offering from amazon. they've recently started trialling amazon explore in the us. its aim is to offer real—time experiences with an expert local host from cities and sites around the world. and finally, one thing that virtual travel allows is time to enjoy the space all to yourself. the van gogh museum in amsterdam, which holds the world's largest collection of his paintings and drawings has provided a virtual tour, filmed in full 4k for stunning detail of the dutch master's work. 0k, hopefully there's
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something there to keep yourfires burning. right, still to come on the travel show: we meet the marine biologist working to protect the vital seagrass around the balearic islands. and mike's taking to two wheels in kenya. a man with a gun just crossed in front. now it's time to head to spain and the waters around formentera to meet a man whose passion is the protection of some of the most oldest living organisms in the world. they play an important but little—known role in sustaining our planet's natural environment. the posidonia is maybe the most efficient carbon sink in the planet.
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i remember perfectly my first contact with the posidonia and it was in october of 1992 in this place, and i came here with a sailboat and the first thing i saw is this amazing posidonia seagrass, and i really fell in love, and since then i am completely dedicated to the study, filming and spreading the value of this plant. the water that we see is like this because of the contribution of a plant, a superior plant, posidonia oceanica is not a seaweed, it's not in algae, it is a real plant with roots, leaves, flowers, and this plant that arrived to this place 80,000 years ago conquered completely the underwater bottom
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around the shore. the posidonia is giving a lot of things to us. it's purifying the water, at the same time it's contributing to the beaches. most of the sand that we have on the beaches comes from the skeletons of millions of organic things that lives inside the posidonia jungle. formentera is a small island in the middle of the mediterranean. if we have stable beaches, it's thanks to the underwater reefs that the posidonia is building along centuries. in this 30 years i'm witnessing how the posidonia is more and more in danger. we are spilling millions of tons of sewage waters without enough preparation from our towns and our cities, so we are intoxicating
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the underwater world. another problem here in formentera is this is a main boat destination. thousands of anchors every day goes in the water, and the anchors dragging on the bottom. this is happening underwater and we don't see. i decided to do a detail of cartography, like a scan, of the bottom and to place this cartography on an app that you can download for free, the name is posidonia maps, so you know, if you are over posidonia and i think it's an easy way to see if you can drop the anchor. this inspired the balearic government to copy the idea, and they are doing the whole cartography of the entire balearic islands. the aim of the save posidonia project is notjust a matter of ecology, people from all
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around the world come to formentera island, to see this kind of sandy, white sandy beaches and just think one day, the posidonia dies, we will lose our main economy which is tourism. in autumn, the old leaves wash up on the shore and beaches and this is used for the houses, for isolation, because it's so clean that no insect, no parasite will go inside. the juice of the posidonia is a naturalfertiliser, it's something you can see in the balearic islands since a long time ago. i think that education is really the way to change the future, and it is educating the youth and this is why in the summertime we have hundreds of kids,
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and they learn how to dive, they learn to do underwater photography, they are learning the things we are doing wrong and how to do in a good way. i don't like to be using an apocalyptic message. the option to change, it's in our hands. if we don't change, maybe in ten years, most of the posidonia here and many species, will be gone, but if we start changing, we have the possibility to recover the nature in the mediterranean and in many other places in this planet. london has seen a massive boom in cycling. social distancing and largely empty streets has meant many of us have seen it as the best way to get around. hey, i'm not complaining, i've been a fan of wheels for years. even in paris they've managed to create hundreds of kilometres of new bike lanes.
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but up until now, this revolution has largely bypassed africa's great cities. mike is navigating nairobi's crazy streets to find out why. if you have been to kenya, chances are you were on safari or out on the beaches. the capital nairobi isn't well known as a glamorous city break destination. it's busy and it's congested, not exactly the peaceful sanctuary you'll see other places in kenya, especially now, we're all worried about social distancing as well. but what the city lacks in serenity it makes up for in charisma. check out these minibuses, called matatus. cheap, popular, beautifully decorated and serve pretty much everywhere you'd need to go. in normal times a really fun way to explore the city. ah, if it was two years ago i would so be on board one and given that the light railway only serves a limited number of destinations, you might imagine that cycling would be the next best
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way to get around. but the bike sharing trend that's been massive all over the world in big cities like paris and rio, it hasn't really caught on africa's biggest cities. in the entirety of kenya there's only been one that has been opened — i guess i should say, was opened. nairobi's sole scheme is here, on a university campus. it began a couple of years ago as an experiment to see if bike sharing could work in africa. that's a shame. but it's all been locked away since the pandemic began. so, it seems like it's been a while since these bikes have seen the light of day. yeah, it's now almost a year now �*cause after covid everything was at a dead stop. so why do you think africans have been a bit slow to adopt bicycle as a mode of transportation? there are a number of reasons why the adoption of cycling has been a bit low. but in rural areas bicycles,
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you know, bicycles are commonly used, because bicycles are seen as a poor man's tool for transport, so i'd say 75% or 80% of the people in rural areas know how to cycle. but now when it comes to urban areas, it's a whole new ballgame, because even in nairobi, we don't have, you know, cycling lanes, so there's a huge problem in terms of your security and your safety, so you don't want to be knocked down by a car. all right. a little dusty. lately, enthusiasts like wekesa have helped drive through some of the small infrastructure improvements for cyclists. there's now a newish stretch of bike lane in the central business district, for instance. but there's one big consideration holding everyone back. nairobi is a city in which cars are king. cyprin, who's a committed cyclist, has spent the last few years fighting to make the streets safer for those on to wheels. ah, there's so many reasons why there's not that many people using bicycles in kenya
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and i think number one reason is definitely not having sufficient infrastructure. most roads don't have bike lanes and even when we're growing up, we are taught to aspire to own a car. you know, that's your measure of success. your measure of success is not a bicycle, that's not african way of thinking about success. we just need to change the culture and start telling our kids, bicycles are actually something good to own, and riding a bicycle does not mean you're poor or you're incapable of affording a car. cyprin leads a monthly protest ride through the city, an attempt to reclaim the roads. she's offered to lead me on a little guided tour to demonstrate some of the dangers. coming up next, we're going to go for a little ride, right? so what should i expect? well, number one is, you can expect all types of drivers. some people, you don't deserve to be on the roads, so expect everything.
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but what i would advise is when you are riding in nairobi, is you have to be confident. you have to take your stand. 0k, all right. motorcycles, cars, people with carts. wait for me, wait for me! hold on! laughs. this problem isn't limited to nairobi. cycling in north america, europe and parts of asia has boomed during the pandemic, but that's not the case in the entirety of africa. experts at the world economic forum look at cities from lagos and accra in the west, to addis ababa and dar es salaam in the east, and raised concerns that cycling infrastructure is largely absent. this is a little crazy. laughs. the streets are dominated by cars, and as a result,
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the air quality�*s suffering. there's a man with a tv in our lane. and here in nairobi, cycling is hard work. all i see is a bunch of people in our bike lane. but also, yeah, the lanejust, uh, the lane just ends. oi, oi, oi, oi, oi, oi, oi! a man with a gun just crossed in front. i think i experienced the full spectrum, the yin—yang. this is really nice with here with the bike lane but also it was a little bit crazy over there with the buses and everything like that. i think the now national government has started noticing that there are cyclists in this city and they are coming up with laws that will protect cyclists and pedestrians, because traditionally cyclists have never been considered, we are the most vulnerable road users. we don't have a space on the road, but now as you can see, nairobi is slowly changing and it's amazing, and other cities in kenya
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are starting to notice the same, and, you know, they're playing their part in ensuring non—motorised transport is part of the infrastructure in cities. mike there in nairobi. that's all for this week. coming up next week: carmen's looking back at some of our best moments injapan, including the time she trained likea ninja. and rajan went to visit what has to be one of the strangest classrooms in the world. join us for that if you can, and in the meantime, don't forget you can keep up with all our adventures on the bbc iplayer. but until next time, from me, ade adepitan, and all the travel show team here in hyde park, it's goodbye.
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hello. as yesterday, today is shaping up to be a day of sunny spells and showers. the devil is going to be in the detail, though, for the next few days. those showers circulating this large area of low pressure, with still fairly tightly packed isobars today. but as the week goes on, the low pressure remains with us, just slowly meandering southwards, but the winds become lighter, so the showers will become slow—moving. lengthier spells of rain even as we pick up another area of low pressure within our main one. so that means most of us will have some wetter weather as we go through this week, in the form of showers. but you can see those rainfall totals are going to be totting up.
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for the day ahead, as i say, it's a day of sunny spells and showers. best of the sunshine will be through this morning but as yesterday those showers will be pretty intense as we go into the afternoon, with thunderstorms around. and we've got more persistent rain. across the north—west of scotland, still further showers to come. they're not easing away everywhere, and it will be a coolish night but largely frost free. a few showers will come into southern and western parts of england, possibly wales as well, towards dawn. any bits of mist and low cloud first thing will meander out of the way. plenty of sunshine to come, as you can see, through the morning hours but won't be long before that strong may sunshine gets to work, bubbling up the cloud, showers develop more widely. still a fairly brisk wind, as i say, in southern and western areas. 0ur rain slow to clear but gradually clearing for the north—west of scotland, but a real rash of showers following behind, with hail, thunder, squally winds. in between, 16 and 17, feeling quite pleasant, but clearly, in those downpours, there could be quite a lot of localised standing water. and they continue well through the evening and overnight. once again, temperatures falling back into single figures, but largely frost free. and then we're really
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chasing those showers. the devil really will be in the detail this week, with showers. it might be that we've still got that more persistent rain hanging around in the north—west of scotland, possibly more meandering into western areas. possibly even with a low pressure pushing into the far south of england. but what we do know is there will be heavy downpours around becoming more slow—moving by wednesday. still 15s and 16s between the showers but some lengthy spells of rain when they do come along, with hail and thunder. and as i say, it's a pretty showery picture for much of the rest of the week. as ever, there is more on the website.
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welcome to bbc news — i'm david eades. our top stories: twenty people have been killed in israeli air strikes on gaza say local health authorities — after rockets were fired from the territory towards jerusalem. injerusalem — israeli security forces fired stun grenades and rubber bullets during clashes with palestinians in which hundreds were injured. us regulators have authorised the pfizer vaccine for use in children as young as 12 years old. and china's population census shows slowest growth since the introduction of the one child policy in the 1970s.
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