If you are a lover of history and art, then I’m sure you would want to snap up the chance to buy an historic piece of Paris. On December 14th several pieces will be for sale at auction including stairs from the Eiffel Tower and street lights from the Champs Elysees. These pieces will form part of the Paris Mon Amour (Paris my love) sale to celebrate 120 years of the Eiffel Tower and ‘pay homage to Paris’, according to auctioneer Christophe Lucien. Forty steps of the Eiffel Tower staircase are expected to reach between 60,000 and 80,000 euros, while an oak public phone box is estimated at 1,000 euros. There’s also the opportunity to buy old rubbish bins, street benches, 18th century tourist maps of Paris and ancient books. Basically there’s something for everyone and I would love to have some of this stuff in my house or garden!
Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
The perfect chance to own a piece of history!
October 14th, 2009Whisky bars of Edinburgh
December 1st, 2008Today is the first day of the ‘Whisky Bars of Edinburgh‘ project. For those of you who have not heard of this project, ten of the best whisky bars in Edinburgh have teamed up to promote their whiskies and the experiences they offer their customers. From today there will be themed experiences which visitors can sample throughout 2009 and around the city. Chris Conway of ScotlandWhisky, the country’s whisky tourism initiative said “Edinburgh is rightly famous for its bars and ‘Whisky Bars of Edinburgh’ brings together ten fantastic examples of where visitors can enjoy a dram in a traditional setting”. Every bar offers their own unique whisky experience and every employee has passed the Scottish whisky training school. A few of the bars taking part include Albannach on the Royal Mile, Whiski on Edinburgh High Street and Stockbridge Tap on Raeburn Place. The ‘Whisky Bars of Edinburgh’ project will also be an important part of Homecoming Scotland 2009 to celebrate the 250th birthday of Robert Burns. Now that’s what I call an offer I can’t refuse!
Tunarama Festival
November 19th, 2008If you’re looking for something unusual to do next January, how about a tuna festival in Port Lincoln, Australia? Between January 24th and 26th, the Tunarama Festival will be celebrating the tuna fish with stalls, sideshows and rides. The main event of the festival is the John West Tuna Toss where members of the public are invited to see how far they can throw a tuna which weighs between 8 and 10 kilos. Participants come from all over the world to have the chance to win AU$7,000 (£3,000) for the longest throw. The current record holder is Sean Carlin, ex-Olympic hammer thrower, who managed a throw of 37.23 metres in 1998. The event is planned around Australia Day every year, so there’s double the reason to celebrate!
27 new World Heritage sites
July 9th, 2008Yesterday it was announced by UNESCO that 27 new sites have been added to the World Heritage list. The news was released after the 32nd session of the World Heritage Committee in Quebec City, Canada. A few of the new sites are the Fujian Tulou in China, the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates in Germany and the Kuk Early Agricultural Site in Papua New Guinea. These sites bring the total of World Heritage sites to 878 sites in 145 countries. Although some of the sites are not accessible to tourists, I think it is a very important list as it will ensure that these treasures will be saved for future generations. However, the list doesn’t cover every country in the world, but I’m sure that those countries not included have important landmarks that need protecting.
Europe’s largest national park to open
April 29th, 2008On June 7th this year, the newest and largest national park in Europe will be opening. The Vatnajokull national park in Iceland measures 13,000 square kilometres and is 13% of the landmass of the country. The new park includes the most powerful waterfall in Europe, as well as volcanoes, glaciers, canyons, calderas, rivers and lakes. Olof Yrr Atladottir, director general of the Icelandic Tourist Board, sees “a myriad of possibilities for all sorts of activities opening up such as action tours, eco-recreation, study visits and learning experiences as well as the chance to experience the nurturing silence of Iceland’s highlands”. It is hoped that the opening of the park will lead to an increase in visitor numbers to Iceland by 30,000 or 42,000 people a year. From what I can see on the website, the park looks amazing and should be well worth a trip to Iceland! Plus, you can never have too many national parks!!
Virtual St. Patrick’s Day parade
March 9th, 2008On Sunday 16th March, Tourism Ireland will be hosting the worlds first virtual St. Patrick’s Day parade on the internet in the virtual world of ‘Second Life’. There will be 20 Irish and Celtic themed virtual floats and it will be the centrepiece of the three-day Discover Ireland Festival in ‘Second Life’. ‘Second Life’ has over 12 million users and is one of the biggest virtual worlds. Sixty percent of the users are from the 4 largest of Ireland’s tourist markets: the UK, USA, Germany and France. Tourism Ireland hope that those users of ‘Second Life’ who visit the virtual “Dublin” will then want to visit the real one too. This year Tourism Ireland are planning on spending almost a quarter of their €10 million (£6.7 million) marketing budget online, which I think is a good idea as many other big brands such as Coca Cola and IBM are doing the same. Also if the users of ‘Second Life’ see what the amazing festivities are like in the virtual “Dublin”, next year they may want to visit the real parade like me!
New VisitScotland.com website
March 3rd, 2008Yesterday VisitScotland.com launched their new website which, according to their press release, was “the most significant change to the UK’s most popular tourism destination website in six years”. In 2007, VisitScotland.com had 11 million visitors which they hope to increase to 12.9 million in 2009. Having previously visited the VisitScotland.com website before it was updated, I can say that the new site is much better than the old one! I like the fact that the site is split into 2 separate areas; Scotland’s Ultimate Visitor’s Guide and the Online Travel Shop. This change makes the site appear easier to navigate and clearly separates those who want to plan their trip and those who want to find accommodation. They also cater for many different languages with their choice from a drop-down list. Basically the site is just a whole lot better than it used to be!
Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink
November 20th, 2007Last Wednesday, it was WTM World Responsible Tourism Day and to mark the event the WTM (World Travel Market) released a report entitled ‘No Water, No Future’. In it the WTM addresses the issue of sharing water in towns and villages between the tourism industry and hotels, and the local needs of farmers and the communities. This is increasingly becoming a problem in areas with large resorts, who have the resources to pay more for their water than the local communities. Therefore it is not the resorts who have a shortage of water, it is the villagers. It is especially true in areas such as the Maldives, where water has to be treated and as a result is incredibly expensive. This is an important issue in the world today, where climate change will most likely make the situation even worse. So as tourists or workers in the tourism industry, we all need to do our bit to save water and not to waste it.
