Sparta:
Following the remaining paths of the
warriors
Sparta has for many
centuries fascinated and inspired a great
number of creative minds as well as history
fans. It is a gem of a tourist spot which
offers a surprising alternative to a
mainstream holiday destination in Greece. A
vacation there often means lying on the
beach, enjoying the clean warm sea and not
moving an inch as one feels this is all they
need. Greece is fortunate enough to offer a
fascinating number of small resorts which
are teeming with tourists for many months
each year.
For those, who are looking
for an alternative holiday sampling more of
the country’s spirit, culture and history
and do not mind a less relaxing trip, Sparta
is the place to visit. The former glory was
recalled recently by the blockbuster movie
300, so once again the notion remains fresh
in many minds. Sparta, or Sparti, as it is
called by Hellenes, lies 3 hours away by
car from Athens on the Peloponnese
peninsula The area is strikingly rich in
heritage and particularly the Middle Ages
have left their indelible mark in the
history of the area. There is an astonishing
number of castles, churches as well as
monasteries and charming medieval towns to
be explored here.
The original site of Sparta
has for centuries been just a small village
with little importance. However, its famous
past is apparent, and tourists longing to
visit it, will enjoy the Archaeological
Museum, the Tomb of Leonidas, the most
famous king of antiquity, and naturally
explore the ruins of the ancient frugal
city. These feature the Rotunda, the Theatre
and the Temple of Athena Chalkioikos. The
entire Peloponnese offers striking vistas
and Sparta is only one of its many
highlights. The magnificent Taygetos
Mountain, ideal for hiking, serves as a
treat, as do hundreds of impressive
historical sites.
Moscow City Sells Out
The City of Moscow has
embarked on a huge project of divesting
itself of non-essential business interests.
Already the city has earned $6.7bln from
such sales, which is about an eighth of the
city’s annual budget. The biggest sale so
far has been the city’s stake in the Bank of
Moscow to VTB for $3.5B. It also sold its
75% stake in Vnukovo airport to the federal
Government for almost $1B. This is just the
beginning. Moscow City still has large
stakes in 39 companies, and the controlling
interest in another 36.
All are up for grabs.
Soon sweet makers United
Confectioners will be on the block, and
that’s expected to bring $365M along with
another $53M from the city’s stake in the
Svoboda cosmetic firm, one of the oldest
enterprises in the city. The historic
Metropol and Slavyanskaya hotels may also
face the auction gavel as well as its share
in the Leningrad hotel. Although Moscow
appears to have already sold its largest
assets, there’s still much to be offered,
including the option of privatizating
Mosvodokanal which can potentially bring to
its Treasury an amount comparable to that
from the sale
of Bank of Moscow.
Moscow is beginning to lease
historic buildings in need of renovation,
with an auction planned at the end of April.
According to the City Property Department,
these structures are in need of expensive
repairs, therefore they will be auctioned
off at low amounts, so that lessees will be
able to operate them economically and with
profit.
Armenia deals for Israelis
who boycott Turkey
Armenian Prime Minister
Tigran Sargsyan invites Israeli tourists to
visit this Caucasus nation which borders
Iran and Turkey, and opts to attract Israeli
tourists, who are now more reluctant to go
to neighboring Turkey. In a special
interview, Sargsyan said Armenia is working
to fix the infrastructure to welcome more
tourists as early as the spring of 2012. "We
plan to accommodate up to 3 million tourists
in the coming years, many of them from
Israel," Sargsyan said. Armenia currently
hosts about 750,000 tourists annually.
Preparations include upgrading the hotel
infrastructure and training travel agents.
"Armenia is proud of its history and
Christian heritage," Sargsyan added. "We
have great potential for religious tourism,
and we wish to learn more from Israel in
this area."
Armenia offers many
attractions to Israeli tourists. The lush
sceneries of the Caucasus are dotted with
sparse villages and lakes. One of the first
nations to accept Christianity, Armenia has
numerous ancient Christian sites from the
early middle ages, part of its rich cultural
heritage. Also one can visit the renown
Armenian Brandy distillery, or the small but
unique Jewish community in Yerevan.
Sargsyan promised to find
ways to improve accessibility to Israeli
tourists. Israelis can easily obtain a
tourist's visa at the Yerevan airport.
However, Armenian tourists seeking to visit
Israel are encountering more obstacles,
since there is no Israeli embassy in the
country, and are required to apply for a
visa in neighboring Georgia.
Travelers to Nairobi: Beware
of the Escaped lions
The owner of a popular
tourist attraction in Nairobi has urged
local authorities to step up their efforts
to capture several lions which have escaped
from a nearby national park. Michael
Carr-Hartley, who runs Giraffe Manor in the
affluent Langata district of the Kenyan
capital, said that two of his young giraffes
and several domestic animals had been killed
since December, and warned that the lions
may pose a threat to humans. “They are
fully-grown females and have been coming and
going from the park for some time,” said
Carr-Hartley. “They’ve killed two of our
giraffes, a couple of dogs and have had a go
at other animals. It is only a matter of
time before a person gets attacked by one of
them.”
He called for the Kenyan
Wildlife Services to take action, but
admitted that their resources are
“stretched.” He also added that he thinks
“someone has tried to capture [the lions]
before, because they seem familiar with the
standard traps. A much bigger pen needs to
be constructed in order to catch them.” A
Kenyan newspaper reported last month that
traps had been used unsuccessfully, while
angry residents in the area say they have
been terrorized by the lions for months.
Another report, disputed by authorities,
claimed that a man had been attacked.
Giraffe Manor is located two
kilometers from the Nairobi National Park,
to the south-west of the city center. It
lies in landscaped gardens and allows
visitors to pet its rare Rothschild giraffes
and other animals. There is also
accommodation on-site.
Gaffe:
France tourism promoted with South African
beach photo
French tourism bosses have
spent more than £500,000 on an ad campaign
to promote Northern France and its
Mediterranean coast - only to realize that
some of the pictures used are of a South
African beach. The three-week-long promotion
featured newspaper advertisements and saw 23
posters spread around the London Underground
in a bid to lure British holidaymakers over
to France during the Olympics. But in an
embarrassing mix-up, the advertising agency
used an image of a beach in Cape Town,
thousands of miles from France, for two of
the posters. One shows a family racing along
the sand with a sport-related 'humorous'
slogan, ‘Sprint finish on the Northern
France Coast', with rocks along the shore.
But the beach used in the
poster was that of Llandudno, a suburb of
Cape Town.
Eagle-eyed London fashion
photographer Bradford Bird, (as Bird he
should be eagle-eyed) who grew up there,
recognized the familiar outcrop of rocks. It
appears the beach also forms the backdrop to
another poster, from a different angle, with
the slogan: 'Discus on the Mediterranean
Coast'. Tourism officials have replaced the
‘Northern France’ image on their website
www.gotofrancenow.com after being made aware
of the gaffe. The British advertising agency
in charge of the campaign has taken
responsibility for the incident, saying that
images were selected from a bank of 3,000
stock photographs of French beaches.
This is not the first time a
tourist board has fallen foul of the same
mistake. In March 2009, a Spanish tourist
board used a picture of a paradise beach in
Perth, Western Australia, to promote the
Costa Brava. The organization had also only
recently withdrawn an ad campaign that used
pictures of the Bahamas to promote Girona,
the Spanish province where the Costa Brava
is located. They were dismissed as 'isolated
incidents'.
The historical Big Ben to be
renamed
Queen Elizabeth II
British lawmakers want to
rename one of London's most renown trademark
- known to tourists around the world as "Big
Ben" -- after Queen Elizabeth II, for her
Diamond Jubilee. The Queen marks 60 years on
the throne in 2012, and politicians believe
that naming St. Stephen's Tower, the clock
tower at the Houses of Parliament, in her
honor would be a fitting tribute to her
years of service.
"Not many kings and queens
have served for such a long time,"
Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who is
leading the renaming campaign, said. "Only
two have celebrated their Diamond Jubilee --
Queen Elizabeth II, and Queen Victoria. "The
other tower at the Palace of Westminster is
named in honor of Queen Victoria; the clock
tower has lots of nicknames -- Big Ben, St
Stephen's Tower, or just the Clock Tower --
but no official name.
Bahrain
stands up for a quick recovery in tourism
Bahrain is hoping that the
return of the Formula One race will be a
catalyst that will help revive the country's
tourism sector. It has held a number of
successful events so far this year,
including an international air show and
concerts featuring Julio Iglesias and Andrea
Bocelli, which allowed them to showcase the
security and stability in the kingdom. The
return of the Aida Blu cruise liner is also
a positive signal that Bahrain's cruise
sector is getting back on track..
Up to 70 cruise ships docked
in Bahrain every season before the unrest,
but only 29 visits took place between
November 2010 and February last year. The
economic impact of the cancelation was
severe because every vessel berthed in
Bahrain brings in estimated earnings of
$274,165 per call, according to Sea-trade
Middle East. More importantly, the F1 Grand
Prix, which is Bahrain's most famous tourist
attraction, is scheduled to be held this
April 20 to 22. The event was canceled last
year, causing millions of dollars of losses
to airlines, hotels and other
tourism-related businesses.
The 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix,
along with Bahrain International Circuit (BIC)
events throughout the year, will create more
than 3,000 jobs, BIC CEO Sheikh Salman bin
Isa Al Khalifa said recently. "We are, this
time around, hoping to generate around $500M
of direct and indirect benefits for the
Bahrain economy." He reiterated that
Bahrain's F1 race alone is expected to
significantly strengthen the tourism
industry, with hotels already reporting full
occupancy and Bahrain-based Gulf Air
providing more than 50% of incoming flights.
Beyond the Grand Prix, the BIC, which hosts
the country's F1 race, has more than 200
events scheduled for this year.
Concerted Effort by an
American and a Cypriot Venture Coming to the
Rescue of Greek Tourism
In the presence of upward
from 75 travel agents based in the
metropolitan New York and New Jersey areas,
Central Holidays Travel Group, a dynamic
consortium of tourist travel packagers
headquartered in Moonachie, NJ, took the
podium Wednesday, March 21 at the Greek
National Tourist Organization’s offices at
305 East 47th Street, NYC, for a
pep talk session to the group about boosting
their projected sales for travel throughout
the Hellenic mainland and the hundreds of
islands in the Aegean, Cretan and Ionian
Seas.
The way Central Holidays-
this year celebrating its fortieth
anniversary-figures on accomplishing this
not-so-difficult task in one phase was by
showing an informational, advertorial if you
wish video of lengthy pictorial description
that illustrate the virtues of Hellas and
its many faces. For Greece is a country of
multifaceted culture, which begins far back
as 4,000 years B.C. as far back as Homer and
transitioning to the Golden era of
city-states, then moving on to its
unification under King Phillip, Alexander
the Great’s father and subsequently
Alexander’s era of conquests in the East. It
is followed by the era when Greece, after
being subjugated to Rome, managed to take
the upper hand and in fact turning the
tables on the Roman Empire, becoming the
Byzantine Empire where Greek culture and
brand of Christianity dominated through
language and culture..
This glorious era was
followed by four hundred years of slavery
under the Ottomans, but like the Phoenix,
the bird that rise from its ashes, rose
again as a free nation, raising the curtain
on the Neo-Hellenic era. We now live in the
Modern era representing the southeastern
flank of the European Union, all of which
eras have their own flavor, their own
splendor if you wish from the standpoint of
tourism. Which allows each individual
tourist to pick and choose what period in
the long history of Greece wants to dwell
in. And that is one feature Greece can gift
its visitors, no other country can match.
This apparently figures as the motive of the
Tour packagers and the Cruise line to
undertake this task during this difficult
period of ‘lean cows’ in the
south-easternmost end of the Eurozone and
offer its know-how in boosting the
numbers-and income- of that nation through
the industry which always proved as a real
windfall for Greece.
From the multitude of
packages that the two companies are making
available as a choice to travelers, we
acknowledge the earnest way in which Central
Holidays is positioning itself as a major
packaged tour and cruise player in tourism
for Greece. As everyone was advised, the
Cypriot-owned Louis Cruises with hundreds of
cruising schedules in the Aegean and Ionian
seas is cooperating very closely with
Central Holidays, designing packages which
combine some days at sea on one of Louis
Cruises ships with the rest devoted to
island hopping.
Of the thirteen Cruise
packages, a sampler is the 14-day The
Best of Greece, the 9-day Cycladic
Adventure, and the 15-day Classic
Odyssey. In the category of Greece &
Beyond, compelling choices are the
15-day Italy & Greece Odyssey, and the 7-day
Cyprus-Splendid Limassol. In the
Escorted package category the 10-day
Best of Turkey may be a splendid choice. As
far as the Honeymoons & Island hopping
category, romantic tours and cruises abound,
such as the 13day Honeymoon Greece II, the
10-day Island Hopping i-Gems of Greece and
several brand new packages such as the 8-day
Island Hopping-Athens & Spectacular
Santorini and the 11-day Island
Hopping-Mediterranean Charms.
There are Independent
packages as well as 3 or 4-day Greece & the
Isles by Choice, the 5-day Eternal Athens
and the Classical Tours Plus Greece
Sightseeing. Most visits to Turkey are
conducted by cruise ships which either sail
all the way to Istanbul for a look at Aghia
(Saint) Sophia and other sights, or to
Kusadasi, transferring to Ephesus and the
surrounding area with a visit to the home of
the Virgin Mary.
Chrysanthos Petsilas, the
Director of the National Greek Tourist
Organization closed the session of the video
presentation and informative discussions,
after which there was a drawing for one trip
to Greece among those in attendance.
Following the drawing of the lucky number,
seven more numbers were called out as
winners of Wines from Greece, olive oil and
baskets filled with a variety of products
from the Greek Republic.
Attending the event along
with the many officials of Central Holidays
and Louis Cruise-including Vice President
for Sales James Zatani, Vice President for
Greece and Eastern Mediterranean Nicholas
Koutsis, as well aas Megan Allen, regional
sales manager for Louis Cruises were the
Greek Press & Communications Office Director
Nikos Papaconstantinou, and Market
Communications’ Meredith Pillon, who for
years have had a close relationship with the
National Greek Tourist Organization