Vienna International is again putting the spotlight on Europe’s great cuisines. The hotel group’s illustrated cookbook “The Culinary World of Vienna International Hotels & Resorts” presents specialities from 36 hotel cuisines. Under the patronage of CEO Rudolf Tucek, book author Monika Mühl has created a 384-page culinary work featuring tried-and-tested recipes specially formulated for the hobby chef.

South Africa will host the first ever UNWTO Summit on Tourism, Sport and Mega-events at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg from 24 to 26 February 2010. This event will bring together the world’s leading experts, and create a platform for best practice and knowledge sharing towards mega-events excellence.

by Reinhard Hohler, Chiang Mai (23.02.2010)

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will use its crisis management centre to monitor impacts from Friday’s court ruling on whether former premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s 76 billion baht in frozen assets should be seized.

TAT Governor Surapol Svetasreni said the agency would work with private tourism organisations to monitor the situation and issue information for foreign tourists for the entire day through the TAT’s overseas offices and its web-site.

The Park Hotels, located in Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, New Delhi, and Visakhapatnam, are a collection of premium boutique hotels in India managed by Apeejay Surrendra Hotels. The hotels have achieved global standards of product quality and service excellence over 35 years of industry experience. A destination of choice for corporate and leisure travellers from India and abroad, these hotels, due to their downtown location, give easy access to key commercial & entertainment districts.

Strong demand from US and international associations, hotel groups and agencies to bring their top buyers to IMEX America when it launches in October 2011 has led organisers, the IMEX Group, to announce an increase in expected hosted buyer numbers. The announcement comes just four months after the show was launched.

Today (22 February 2010) Chairman, Ray Bloom, announced that 2000 qualified buyers will now be hosted to the new Las Vegas trade show for the meetings, incentive travel and events industry – an increase of just over 30 percent on the figure announced at launch.

With the New Year well underway, the city of Seoul is in full gear celebrating its official roles as the designated World Design Capital 2010 and as the sponsor city for the inaugural year of the national tourism campaign Visit Korea 2010-2012.

The year is shaping up to be a busy one for the Seoul Tourism Organization as well. The official tourism marketing representative for Seoul, STO is celebrating the second anniversary of its February 2008 launch.