National Geographic Traveler has an article about how the Indonesian island of Flores may become a hot travel destination based on the discovery of our fossilized friends Homo floresiensis, the one-meter-tall humans.
Flores has generated headlines before, but not the kind that attract tourists: famines in the 1960s and natural disasters in the '70s and '90s. Economic crisis hit in the late '90s, followed by political problems in East Timor and Bali. By 2000 tourism had plummeted from 35,000 visitors a year to just 10,000.
This year, however, the Flores Tourist Authority reports that travel to the island has already rebounded by 21 percent, probably due to fossil-related media coverage.
