Stories discussed in this podcast are from the Travelography Twitter Blog for the week of 12 January 2009. This podcast is also available at Blubrry.com and Travelgeography.info.

• Disney hopes to build 1st park on Chinese mainland

   

  The Walt Disney Company and the Shanghai municipal government have signed a project proposal to build the first Disney park on the Chinese mainland. Under the proposal, the entertainment giant will take a 43 percent stake in Shanghai Disneyland.

• Security Net Wraps Capital for Inaugural

   

  Though intelligence agencies have detected no credible threat to any inaugural event or to Mr. Obama, law enforcement agencies, operating from a network of centers, will command ground, air and waterborne forces numbering in excess of 20,000 police officers, National Guard troops and plainclothes agents from more than 50 agencies, according to security planners.

• Bathroom Break: Will Inauguration Have Enough?

   

  "This is the largest temporary restroom event in the history of the United States," ... Don's Johns is providing many of the 5,000 port-a-potties for the inauguration, but other suppliers are at work as well,

• Industry submits travel and tourism stimulus plan to Obama

   

  ASTA's stimulus proposals include the restoration of a 2001 program of direct low-interest-rate loans to small businesses through the Small Business Administration and the creation of an investment tax credit program for small business investments in information-related technologies, which will be crucial for travel agencies to compete effectively in the years ahead.

• Net usage spikes after U.S. Airways plane crash

   

  The crash now ranks as the seventh biggest Internet news event since Akamai started tracking spikes in traffic in 2005. The plane crash, which miraculously resulted in no fatalities or serious injuries, ranks just ahead of the post-Election Day 2008 coverage.

• Legoland swears in mini-Barack Obama in mock inauguration

   

  A 4-inch-tall Barack Obama rendered in Lego bricks will be sworn in as plastic president before more than 1,000 miniature-molded dignitaries at Legoland California’s inaugural pre-enactment

• Cruise industry: 2009 shaping up as another record year

   

  Helping to prop up the industry is the rapid growth of cruising among Europeans, Latin Americans and Asians. ... The industry's biggest players also have been rolling out significant discounts to keep ships full this winter and for the coming spring and summer.