Tourism

Bashar al-Assad's regime released a promotional video Friday with panoramic views of government-held parts of Aleppo, accompanied by an acoustic version of the theme music to the popular HBO television series.

Showcased in the video are aerial shots of wide green boulevards and swimming pools. It's a far cry from the rebel-held eastern part of the city, where 250,000 people live with daily airstrikes, according to the UN, and where whole blocks of neighborhoods have been destroyed.

Mark Francis, complex General Manager, and Sherrilyn Charles, complex Director of Sales and Marketing, at Sheraton Samoa Aggie Grey’s Hotel & Bungalows, and Sheraton Samoa Aggie Grey’s Resort; are in the country now to connect with key trade partners.

Francis says the New Zealand market remains number one for Samoa and the figure continues to rise steadily at about 5% a year. He says it can be difficult to separate the leisure market from VFR traffic but adds that both can represent good business for the hotels.

Greg Cornwall works for Pacific Islands Resort Consultants Ltd based in Nadi Fiji and he is in Samoa for the second Pacific Agribusiness Forum where discussions have focused on making tourism in Samoa a sustainable method of development by encouraging a link between the two sectors.

Cornwall says one of the ways of increasing the link is encouraging restaurants and hotels to buy local produce.

“The good thing about local produce is that the price is dropped, there’s no freight, no middle man and nothing extra behind your purchases,” said Cornwall.

The video has had nearly 65m views on Facebook.

Basel Tourism teamed up with marketing agency Fadeout to present a "reverse" Pokemon Go.

Now people are the ones being hunted in a twist on the global gaming craze.

Targeting young people, Basel Tourism told the BBC the video was showing off the city's attractions, such as "the beautiful Old Town, the river Rhine and its bridges".

According to RNZI, he said this year there will be a focus on niche markets, such as dive tourism and health tourism in small island nations.

Mr Vuidreketi said there was a long-term aim to hold similar events in the islands themselves, but was happy that tourists from New Zealand and Australia had remained loyal to the islands despite the recent disasters.

The vice president of the southern province, Martine Lagneau, says the island had 114,000 visitors in 2015, the highest on record and an increase of 7,000 visitors since 2014.

RN ZI reports most visitors came from nearby Australia and New Zealand, which recorded increases of 15.8 percent and 25.8 percent respectively.

SPTE organisers, the South Pacific Tourism Organization’s (SPTO) Chief Executive Ratu Ilisoni Vuidreketi said the popular tourist destination was chosen due to the request and feedback from private sector members in the Pacific region.

It’s the third year for the event to be held and coincides with other major events such as the Australian Tourism Exchange that will take place a week prior.

The South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) conducted six in-country consultations through workshops and stakeholder discussions at a national level to seek valuable feedback from the private and public sector to develop the PCTDS. 

The workshops focused on examining and evaluating key elements that were proposed during the Pacific Cruise Development workshop that was held in Melbourne in June this year. Stakeholders also discussed the best options to adopt in the strategy, keeping in mind the various action steps proposed to put each element into effect.

The South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) will participate in a regional tourism seminar in collaboration with partners from the Pacific Islands Trade & Invest (Sydney) and Australian-based national tourism offices of Tahiti, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Niue, Solomon Islands, Samoa and Cook Islands.