Travel

Monitoring Desk TORONTO: Has the “Trump slump” hit Canadian travelers? New data suggests fewer Canadians are traveling to the U.S. these days. According to new research from Global Data, the number of outbound travelers departing from Canada to the U.S. is set for a continuous decline from 23.3 million visitors in 2013 to 14.9 million…

Monitoring Desk ISLAMABAD: They are young, Western, and full of praise for Pakistan: Travel influencers have moved in on the “land of the pure,” but critics warn their rose-tinted filters are irresponsible and sell an inaccurate picture of the conservative, militancy-scarred country. As security improves, cricketer-turned-prime-minister Imran Khan is keen to promote the nation’s tourism…

Monitoring Desk COLOMBO: Tourists are scrambling to flee Sri Lanka and cancelling holidays after a string of deadly suicide blasts that have sparked concerns the lucrative tourism industry could be sent into a tailspin. The attacks on hotels and churches came as Sri Lanka was emerging as a leading tourist hot-spot, named the world’s top…

Monitoring Desk ISTANBUL: Local hoteliers and tourism associations have welcomed the Turkish government’s decision to extend the Ramadan holiday in early June to nine days, saying this could prove a boon to the industry and generate an additional 3 billion Turkish Lira income for the sector. The Ramadan holiday was initially scheduled for June 3…

Monitoring Desk LONDON: Tunisia wooed more tourists in the first quarter of this year, which saw a 17.4 percent increase in arrivals compared to the same period in 2018, according to Tunisian Ministry of Tourism data quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat. The tourism sector saw an influx of up to 787.8 million dinars ($262.6 million) of…

Monitoring Desk BRUSSELS: While the EU-China Tourism Year 2018 (ECTY 2018) has officially come to an end, the success of the initiative continues to be felt, with growing numbers of Chinese tourists putting European destinations at the top of their tourism agendas throughout 2018 and beyond. Agreed in 2016 by the Chinese Prime Minister and…

Monitoring Desk BEIJING: China has an ambiguous stance in regards to institutionalized faith. On the one hand, the People’s Republic recognizes five religions — Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism — and protects freedom of religious belief under its constitution, but on the other, the Council on Foreign Relations reports that “China is home to…

F.P. Report ASTORE: Minister for Tourism Gilgit Baltistan Fida Khan said Thursday the government was taking concrete steps to promote tourism. While talking to media persons, the GB minister said Gilgit Baltistan region was endowed with tremendous natural beauty and the tourism department was utilizing all its available resources to explore tourism spots and attract…

Monitoring Desk RIYADH: The Saudi Commission of Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) has announced plans to fund 33 new tourism projects across the Kingdom, as part of a lending initiative to aid the sector in underdeveloped Saudi regions. Abdul Majid bin Abdul Mohsen Al-Nasser, the SCTH’s director general of tourism investment, said that the initiative,…

Monitoring Desk LONDON: A year-long study will assess the impact of more than one million tourists a year on the Antrim coast. It was commissioned by the National Trust, which manages two main sites that attracted 1.5m visitors in 2019. With the projected growth in tourism, the trust says numbers visiting the Giant’s Causeway and…