The increase in the number of flights to Ireland could boost tourism to eight million overseas visitors this year, it was claimed today.
Tourism Ireland is optimistic that the 40% increase in air access capacity from continental Europe will help the island achieve its growth target of 5% for 2005.
There will be 31,000 more seats available than last summer, largely as a result of new services provided by Ryanair, Easyjet and Aer Lingus, the tourism agency said.
The majority of the increases will be on flights to Dublin, but Belfast, Cork and Shannon will see the biggest proportional rise in the number of available seats.
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PHUKET, May 6 (TNA) – The Chamber of Commerce in Thailand's southern resort province of Phuket today announced a raft of plans to revive the island’s struggling tourism industry, including international sporting and beauty contests.
Describing the island’s post-tsunami tourism situation as ‘appalling’, the chamber’s chairman, Mr. Iem Thawornwongwong, said that the chamber was helping local bids to restore visitor numbers.
Included in the chamber’s plans are support for international sporting competitions, and activities relating to the international Miss Universe contest later this month.
Other events include Miss Teen Thailand in October.
Mr. Iem expressed confidence that the events would help publicize
China's capital Beijing witnessed the first tourism peak Tuesday in the golden week following the May Day holiday, as soaring numbers of tourists visited sites throughout the city, according to the Beijing Leading Group for Holiday Tourism.
The tourism department said the city's 20 major tourism sites received 594,500 visitors Tuesday, up 29.24 percent from the same period last year.
The Forbidden City and Longqing Gorge, two famous sight spots in the city, received 84,900 tourists and 15,000 tourists respectively, both above the maximum handling capacity for the spots. The figures were
The number of tourists visiting Nepal has fallen by over a third since King Gyanendra seized power in February.
Officials said the decline was due mainly to what they called negative media coverage after the royal coup.
Foreign governments advised against travel to Nepal. A bloody Maoist uprising has also discouraged tourists.
The latest drop in numbers is a blow to the impoverished Himalayan nation, where tourism is a major source of foreign exchange earnings.
State of emergency
The Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) said just over 50,000 tourists visited the country between February and April - well below the 86,000
Air Asia’s fully booked KL-Genting Highlands tour is expected to further uphold the joint travel and trade deal between the Philippines and Malaysia as bona fide members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Tiotuico said the Air Asia management called on him to help them stir up interest about Malaysian destinations among Filipinos. In return, Malaysians will be encouraged to explore the Philippines with Clarkfield as jump-off point.
"Actually, you’ll see it as a boost to their inbound program since we’re trying to promote travel to Malaysia among Filipinos. But it’s really a give-and-take or two-way strategy wherein we
More than a million tourists visited war-scarred Cambodia last year, most of them drawn by the ancient wonders of Angkor Wat.
But this week's hostage drama, including the murder of a Canadian toddler, at an international school in Siem Reap, gateway to the famed 800-year-old temples, casts a shadow over the country's tourist boom, one of its few economic success stories.
Masked gunmen held 29 infants hostage for eight hours before police and troops stormed the school, which catered to the offspring of the scores of expatriates working in the hotel industry in the sleepy town.
One of the gunmen shot the