In the months January to August of 2013, airberlin was able to increase fleet capacity utilization to 85.36 percent, i.e. by 2.2 percentage points in yearly comparison, and welcomed a total of more than 21.386 million passengers on board. The available seat kilometers totaled 38.597 billion and the revenue passenger kilometers amounted to 32.948 billion.

The General Debate of the 20th Session of the UNWTO General Assembly has put a spotlight on the link between tourism and air transport policies. Countries attending called for closer coordination between both policies highlighting that too often these interlinked sectors are dissociated .

Thousands of dollars’ worth of travel prizes will be given away to travellers by sponsors of the Explore Mekong Giveaway and the programme will also give away tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of sponsorship opportunities to social enterprises across the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS).
The Explore Mekong Giveaway is a public-private partnership between the Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office (MTCO) and FreePlayo.com. A memorandum of understanding was signed today.

Mexico was selected to be the official host country for World Tourism Day (WTD) 2014 and Burkina Faso for WTD 2015. The respective themes will be “Tourism and Community Development” for 2014, and “One billion tourists, one billion opportunities” for 2015.

by Reinhard Hohler, Chiang Mai
According to the latest news of Bagkok Post, Myanmar has allowed foreigners holding its visas to freely choose to travel to the country via any of its six entry channels.The channels cover the three land border crossings in Chiang Rai’s Mae Sai district, Tak’s Mae Sot district and Ranong’s Muang district and three air entry ports through Myanmar’s airports in Yangon, Mandalay and Nay Pyi Taw.

Taleb Rifai was reelected for a second term as UNWTO Secretary-General (2014-2017).
The announcement was made today at the 20th Session of the General Assembly in Livingstone, Victoria Falls.
The confirmation follows the decision by the 95th session of the UNWTO Executive Council (Belgrade; Serbia, 28 May) to recommend Mr. Rifai as a nominee for the Secretary-General post for the period 2014-2017. In accordance with UNWTO statutes, his candidature was presented by Jordan, of which Mr Rifai is a national.