This paper examines tourist perceptions of the potential for the elimination of travel agencies in the presence of the Internet. The opinions of 413 tourists on making transactions through both Internet‐based (hereafter, online) and traditional distribution channels were analysed. Experimental results illustrated that tourists still used professional services and advice offered by travel agencies. Tourists also agreed that more information could be found through the Internet. Following the findings, the paper suggests that both online and traditional distributional channels can coexist in the future.

A bacterium was isolated from the blood and empyema of a cirrhotic patient. The cells were facultatively anaerobic, nonsporulating, gram-negative, seagull shaped or spiral rods. The bacterium grows on sheep blood agar as nonhemolytic, gray colonies 1 mm in diameter after 24 h of incubation at 37°C in ambient air. Growth also occurs on MacConkey agar and at 25 and 42°C but not at 4, 44, and 50°C. The bacterium can grow in 1 or 2% but not 3, 4, or 5% NaCl. No enhancement of growth is observed with 5% CO 2 . The organism is aflagellated and nonmotile at both 25 and 37°C. It is oxidase, catalase, urease, and arginine dihydrolase positive, and it reduces nitrate. It does not ferment, oxidize, or assimilate any sugar tested. 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed that there are 91 base differences (6.2%), 112 base differences (7.7%), and 116 base differences (8.2%) between the bacterium and Microvirgula aerodenitrificans, Vogesella indigofera, and Chromobacterium species, respectively. The G؉C content (mean and standard deviation) is 68.0% ؎ 2.43%, and the genomic size is about 3 Mb. Based on phylogenetic affiliation, the bacterium belongs to the Neisseriaceae family of the ␤-subclass of Proteobacteria. For these reasons, a new genus and species, Laribacter hongkongensis gen. nov., sp. nov., is proposed, for which HKU1 is the type strain. Further studies should be performed to ascertain the potential of this bacterium to become an emerging pathogen.Since the discovery of PCR and DNA sequencing, comparison of the gene sequences of bacterial species has shown that the 16S rRNA gene is highly conserved within a species and among species of the same genus and hence can be used as the new gold standard for the identification of bacteria to the species level. Using this new standard, phylogenetic trees based on base differences between species can be constructed, and bacteria can be classified and reclassified into new genera (7,8). Furthermore, noncultivable organisms and organisms with ambiguous biochemical profiles can be classified and identified (10, 11). Recently, this technique was used for the identification of a strain of Mycobacterium neoaurum with ambiguous biochemical and whole-cell fatty acid profiles isolated from a patient with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (18), a strain of Escherichia coli with an ambiguous biochemical profile isolated from a bone marrow transplant recipient (16), a strain of Enterobacter cloacae with an ambiguous biochemical profile isolated from a renal transplant recipient (14), a strain of tube coagulase-negative Staphylococcus aureus isolated from a patient with refractory anemia with excessive blasts in transformation (19), a strain of Arcobacter cryaerophilus isolated from a traffic accident victim (13), and a noncultivable strain of Pseudomonas veronii from a patient with a pseudotumor (3).In this study, we report the isolation of a bacterial strain from the blood and empyema of a cirrhotic patient. The strain, named HKU1, exhibited phenotypic characteristics that do not fit into the patter...

Streptococcus iniae, a fish pathogen causing infections in aquaculture farms worldwide, has only been reported to cause human infections in North America. In this article, we report the first two cases of invasive S. iniae infections in two Chinese patients outside North America. While the first patient presented with bacteremic cellulitis, which is the most common presentation in previous cases, the second patient represents the first recognized case of S. iniae osteomyelitis. Both S. iniae strains isolated from the two patients were either misidentified or unidentified by three commercial systems and were only identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Since no currently available commercial system for bacterial identification includes S. iniae in its database, 16S rRNA gene sequencing is the most practical and reliable method to identify the bacterium at the moment. In contrast to the distinct genetic profile described previously in clinical isolates from Canada, the present two isolates and a clinical isolate from a Canadian patient were found to be genetically unrelated, as demonstrated by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Morphologically, colonies of both isolates were also larger, more beta-hemolytic and mucoid, which differ from the usual morphotype described for S. iniae. Owing to their habit of cooking and eating fresh fish, the Asian population is strongly associated with S. iniae infections. As a result of the difficulty in making microbiological diagnosis in patients with cellulitis and the problem of identification in most clinical microbiology laboratories, the prevalence of S. iniae infections, especially in the Asian population, may have been under-estimated.