Hafeziyeh

Iran’s Persian Gulf Tourism Project is to be implemented in Shiraz.
The largest tourism project in the Middle East will be inaugurated in Iran in 2010 on a projected budget of more than $500 million.
“The Persian Gulf project is going to be the largest and the most advanced tourist complex of its kind in the Middle East,“ Hosseini, chief executive of the project announced, PressTv reported.
Located in Iran’s southern city of Shiraz, the complex will consist of a 7-star international hotel, 2,500 shops, a parking lot capable of accommodating 5,500 cars, a 15,000-square-meter hypermarket, 6 cinemas and numerous other facilities.
The project’s board of directors claim that construction safety standards will be strictly followed and believe that the complex will be a significant tourist attraction in the region.
One of the must see places in Shiraz is ’Hafeziyeh’ which is the tomb of intellectual noted Iranian poet Hafez.

Mount Kumgang

North Korean border city of Gaeseong has become a major source of tourism income for the cash-strapped communist nation, with hundreds of South Koreans riding across the heavily fortified border each day to visit the ancient capital city.
Yoon Man-joon, CEO of Hyundai Asan, says his company’s new daily tourism program to Gaeseong has attracted almost 10,000 South Koreans since its launch last month. “All ten of our buses that run daily across the border are usually packed with diverse and youthful South Koreans, and it is also almost booked up until the end of January,“ he said, reported Asianpacificpost.com.
Hyundai Asan is the South Korean operator of various inter-Korean economic projects, including the Mount Kumgang tourism project since 1997 and the construction of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex.
The new tourism program features a one-day overland tour to Gaeseong, which was the capital of Korea’s Goryeo Dynasty during the years 918-1392 AD. Gaeseong is also the site of a large inter-Korean industrial complex, where about 20,000 North Koreans are working at South Korea-owned factories.
Hyundai Asan has also attracted 1.75 million South Koreans to its tourism program to visit the scenic Mount Kumgang since its launch of November 1998. “If the Kumgang program is said to be all about seeing and hiking the mountain without touching the local tastes, the Gaeseong program is giving South Koreans a rare glance at the local people,“ Hyundai Asan’s spokesman said.
Exploring the ancient capital city in North Korea has proved alluring for South Koreans, but they have largely been unimpressed with the idea of climbing Mount Kumgang because the package offered to them denies them the opportunity to make local contacts. But even on the Gaeseong tour, South Korean tourists say the North Koreans they encounter are usually shy about making personal contacts with South Koreans.
“We were waving to them, only to be ignored, although children are usually smiling back at us,“ said Choi Yoo-Shik, a journalist who took the day tour to Gaeseong. “I even felt like the North Koreans were trying to fake indifference toward us. Still, I’ve occasionally found some North Korean people secretly peeking out of back alleys towards us when we pass by their villages.
“Each South Korean pays 180,000 won, or $190, for the daylong trip to Gaeseong, about half of which is paid to North Korea in cash.

Khaneh Tabatabaei-ha or “Tabatabaeis’ House“ is a famous historic house in the Iranian city of Kashan, Isfahan province.
The house was built in the 1840s for the affluent Tabatabaei family.
It consists of a four beautiful courtyards, delightful wall paintings with elegant stained glass windows, and all the other classic signatures of traditional Persian residential architecture such as biruni and andaruni.
It was designed by Ustad Ali Maryam. He is the same person who later on built the Boroujerdi-ha House) for the Tabatabaei’s newly married daughter.

Gaekwad Baroda Golf Club

For visitors from foreign lands, the India experience has long been defined by the smells of the bazaars, the sweep of centuries in the ramparts of old forts and the rather disorienting vibrancy of its new cities. For a select few of those tourists, the Indian holiday has got a new face: the golf tour.
Ask Elizabeth Torres, a 45-year old Mexican, who trooped to India last year for a golf holiday. Torres and her husband stayed at a golf resort in a Delhi suburb, putted on its manicured greens, got luxurious massages at a parlor and then drove off to Agra to pose before the Taj--all part of the package. “This tour is a must-pick for golf lovers,’’ she says. This year, she is back for golf trips to Baroda and Mumbai. “It’s exciting to explore a new place this way.“
Visitors like Torres are now a common sight on India’s emerald-green fairways, wrote Indianexpress.com.
And they are driving up revenues of travel companies. “When I got into golf tourism six years ago, most foreigners were unaware of golf courses in India. Now, we are successfully operating golf tours for foreigners, both individuals and groups, the most recent being a group of 11 Australians who played at the Bangalore Golf Course and Eagleton Golf Village,“ says Vinay Marwah, managing director of Uday Tours and Travel Private Limited.
What makes golfing in India exciting is the dramatic background against which the gentle game is played. Greens set up against the Himalayas--the highest golf course in the world is at Gulmarg--or the Thar Desert, sometimes surrounded by tea estates or intricately carved Mughal structures, gives the foreign tourist the unmistakable flavor of India. Baroda’s 12-hole Gaekwad Baroda Golf Course, for example, often hosts foreign golfers. “We have Japanese and Europeans visitors who take up temporary membership with us. We stock a dozen golf sets and first-timers can rent them for a nominal fee of Rs 200. A resort-cum-hotel is on the cards and we are planning to provide luxury accommodation for travelers,’’ says Mahender Singh Chauhan, director of the Gaekwad Baroda golf club.
With the Gaekwad Palace in the background, this course combines history with the game. Golfers, on this course, not only have an opportunity to see packs of langoors between their swings but if lucky, they might even spot a dancing peacock on the tenth tee and a nervous fox on the fifth. Says Claude de Fenoyl, a 74-year-old Frenchman and a regular visitor to the Gaekwad greens, “My first love was tennis and I keenly pursued it in France. But the Gaekwad Baroda Club simply seduced me. I did not know that there are such exotic golf courses in this country. It was hard to resist the game.’’
India, of course, has a history to fall back on. Unlike popular golf tourism destinations like Singapore and China, India has a tradition that dates to the mid-1800s.
The Royal Calcutta Golf Club was established in 1829 and is the oldest golf club in India, and the first outside the Britain Isles.

Migratory swans in the Iranian city of Fereidoonkenar, Mazandaran province.

Malaysia has emerged as the second most price competitive country in the world in the travel and tourism (T&T) industry out of a total of 124 countries surveyed, says the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF).
The WEF, often noted for its annual top-level meeting and discussions on current affairs and trends in Davos, Switzerland, also gave top marks to Malaysia’s participation at travel and tourism fairs and ranked the country at sixth position, which reflected the government’s strong commitment to promote the industry, said Bernama.com
The WEF’s recently-released Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2007 (TTCR) also applauded the government’s high priority to T&T as well as Malaysia’s good road, railroad, airport and port infrastructure, and its domestic travel network.
It hailed Malaysia’s good ground transport infrastructure and excellent price competitiveness in very low ticket taxes and airport charges, low comparative fuel prices and a favorable tax regime.
Malaysia was also perceived as quite safe for tourists (24th overall) and in terms of the reliability of police services, the country was ranked 19th, on par with the United Kingdom but ahead of other developed countries like Spain (22nd), New Zealand (23rd), Portugal (25th), Ireland (29th), Belgium (32nd) and Italy (40th).
The report listed Indonesia as the most price competitive country in terms of the T&T industry while the third most price competitive country after Malaysia was Bahrain and Thailand was fourth.

Vietnam welcomed 300,000 foreign tourists from international cruise ships in 2007, compared to 224,000 visitors in 2006.
The year 2008 opened with the five-star Costa Allegra ship anchoring at the Sai Gon port with 1,350 tourists and cruise members on board. The cruise also arrived in Tien Sa port to visit Hoi An ancient town and other sightseeing places in central Da Nang city, VNA reported.
According to Deputy Director of the Da Nang Tourism Department Nguyen Dang Truong, the city expects to receive over 10,000 tourists on board 17 cruise liners in the years first quarter and a total of 28,000 tourists by sea for the whole year.

The campaign to put up a tourism brand for Romania saw a 2 million euro budget approved by the government. Other 9 million euro will be spent on promoting Romania in Spain and Italy, also using state funds. At least four attempts to create such a brand took place in the past few years, proving each time to be completely worthless.
Tourism Ministry state secretary, Lucia Morariu claims that Romania has 75 million euro allocated for promoting tourism projects, within the Regional Operational Program, but the state has to pay for the projects first, then the discount from EU funds can be made.
According to Morariu, the new branding initiative has nothing to do with the previous attempts. “In case the brand we create is successful, this will also influence the country brand“ she said, English.hotnews.ro reported.
The campaigns will focus on Italy and Spain because this is where Romania faces most image problems.
The latest branding attempt was the famous “Fabulospirit“ affair, paid for by the Foreign Ministry. The slogan itself was paid for 100,000 euro and the campaign should have cost 5 million euro. The project was ceased after the resignation of the foreign minister at the time, Mihai Razvan Ungureanu.
“The Eternal and Fascinating Romania“ project cost 6 million euro, while the “Romania--Always Surprising“ was another $1.7 million. Another project in 2007, Romania--Simply Surprising, was cancelled because it didn’t communicate the essence of Romania for any potential visitor.