Most of the business travelers who move frequently to various places develop a liking for out of the ordinary signs. The worldwide popularity of the English language is, however, yet to execute the proper usage of the language on a global level. Recently the New York Times caught the attention of many by pointing out Shanghai’s earnest endeavor to wipe off the embarrassing usage of wrong English all over the city.

Now the city has got a team of adept English speakers and 600 volunteers to fix public signs which goes beyond 10,000 in number. These public signs will be rewritten in proper English and try to establish a better image of the city in front of the skillful English speaking travelers.

The campaign is supposedly inspired by Beijing’s mammoth effort to correct the entire set of signs all over the city on the occasion of the Summer Olympics in 2008. It eventually replaced more than 400,000 signs on the street and more than 1300 menus in the city restaurants. Racist Park is now known as Minorities Park and Dongda Anus Hospital is now called Dongda Proctology Hospital.

The function of using signs is not to be funny but to be functional. However, signage is a source of fun for many people. If Shanghai successfully wipes all the weird signs off the city, the humorists will find it difficult to find another source of inspiration, it seems.

A new trend is emerging where companies are offering their employees cash in return for choosing to travel by economy class. No such a good news for airline companies who are already facing tough times, but many companies are beginning to see this kind of incentives for their employees little trouble i.e. compensating with money for a little or a lot of adjustment. Most of the time the cash awarded is equal to the difference between an economy ticket and business class ticket. Many people complain that this is an overblown story and no companies are offering except a few. But the same article has been published in the TIME magazine where an energizer employee has confirmed its company’s habit of giving cash in return for travelling economy class. Even if they weren’t till the article in TIME I am sure they will start now after a popular magazine like TIME’s publishing of something like this. This is not only bad news for airline companies, but it will also lead to higher taxes for the employee.

Employees get paid up to $2,000 for a little trouble they undergo which can go up to $3,000 for long distance trips.

Google has dipped its toes in yet another unfamiliar territory and this time it is the online ticket booking sector.  The search giant has purchased the ITA software for processing flight info that will benefit the end traveler to get better priced tickets and availability of tickets. This deal will take Google in the online ticket booking and purchase sector and only time will tell what new additions Google will make to give us a much better online ticket shopping experience.

The ITA software is also used by the online ticket sellers such as Orbitz and Kayak, which will lead to them feeling the heat of the competition increasing.  The deal will have to be first approved by the regulatory bodies. Google is looking at the vast untapped market that is still undeveloped and needs a lot of patching to be done. Most of Google’s takeovers have ended up creating something new and everyone will be waiting with excitement to see what Google comes up with.