NEW AND INTERESTING

Timo Kohlenberg, president and CEO of America Unlimited—it is a Hannover, Germany-based operator that has developed a reputation for new and sometimes edgy, experiential USA product—took to the social media last week to post a photo of himself along with his newest promotional idea: a Dodge Durango SUV trimmed with the company’s name and colors. Kohlenberg, who has worked for some globally famous PR agencies and who did a stint with Cunning, an advertising stunt agency in New York, told us, “We are going to use the SUV for branding opportunities. It will be placed into main pedestrian areas and used as a promotional car during consumer shows in Germany. We might also be using it for one of our outside marketing stunts that we run from time to time.”

Air & Space Museum’s Major Redesign to be Completed by July 2016: The Smithsonian Institution‘s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.—it usually ranks as the most visited Smithsonian attraction every year and is the stop-off point for thousands of tour buses weekly—will be celebrating its 40thbirthday with the reopening of the Boeing Milestones of Flight gallery on July 1, 2016. The event will mark the completion of the first renovation of the museum’s cavernous main hall and its Milestones of Flight, which is undergoing an extensive redesign. The expanded gallery will “trace the interconnected stories of the world’s most significant aircraft and spacecraft,” museum officials have said. For more information, visit https://airandspace.si.edu/.

“Homies” Launch New San Francisco Walking Tours: Recently launched in San Francisco is San Francisco Native Tours—a new walking tour company that focuses on locally-led walks around the city. Stuart Watts and Trevor O’Donnell, the two native San Franciscans who created the business, say that they strive to be different from many other walking tour companies by only hiring native guides who have grown up in the city, being actively involved in the local community, and keeping the group sizes small and friendly. The new company offers a number of small group walking tours around the Financial District, North Beach, Chinatown, Union Square, SOMA, Haight, Castro and Mission districts of San Francisco. The list of available tours is evolving and expanding as the company grows. All the tours are themed, guided by a native of the city, and many include a culinary aspect, either food, drink, or both. For more information, visit www.sfnativetours.com.

Fall 2016 is Target for Opening of African American Museum in Washington, D.C.: The National Museum of African American History and Culture is scheduled to open by fall 2016. The final Smithsonian Institution museum on the National Mall, it is located on five acres adjacent to the National Museum of American History and is not far from the Washington Monument (literally, in the same block) and White House. The building, four-stories below ground, four stories above, and has a collection that comprises 33,000-plus objects that includes slave shackles and Louis Armstrong‘s trumpet as well as monumental pieces like a Jim Crow-era railway car and an Angola prison tower that were installed before the museum was completed. The museum is designed to tell the story of African Americans from the diaspora to present day. Opening date and celebrations are yet to be announced. For more information, visit: www. http://nmaahc.si.edu/.

Orlando’s Wet ‘n Wild to Go Dry: Regarded as the first water park in the United States, the Wet ‘n Wild Water Park on Orlando’s International Drive and just a minute or two away from Universal Studios, which owns it, will shut down at the end of 2016. In its place, Universal is opening Volcano Bay, described as “a new water theme park experience” in 2017. Wet ‘n Wild Orlandowas founded in 1977 by SeaWorld creator George Millay. The success of the attraction resulted in the construction of several otherWet ‘n Wild-branded parks across in 1998, Millay sold off his interests in his parks. The Orlando location was purchased by Universal. For more information, visit