“Tourism is today the third largest export industry in the world after chemicals and fuels,” Taleb Rifai said on Tuesday in a video message to the opening ceremony of an event held in Tehran to mark World Tourism Day, September 27. "Last year alone, 1.235 million travelers crossed international borders in one single year. By 2030, this 1.2 billion will become 1.8 billion,” Rifai added.

Men in Jazz, a multi award-winning jazz band from Hong Kong, was in the country recently to give a performance at the Youth Centre in the capital and as part of the final leg of their Asean tour. [...] For many of the Hong Kongers, it was their first time visiting Brunei. Some said that they would gladly return to visit the country again with their family members and friends.

Taiwan’s famous stinky tofu made its debut in Washington’s Smithsonian Museum. The occasion was the result of Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau’s New York Representative Office cooperating with the Smithsonian Museum to hold a Taiwan Night Market. The S. Dillon Ripley Center at the museum was filled with red lanterns, snacks and all the sights and sounds of a Taiwan night market—including stinky tofu.

Chew Jetty in Malaylsia’s George Town attracts tourists by the boatload. Historic homes are now commercial stalls branded with neon signs; one-time fishermen peddle T-shirts, magnets and postcards. The daily intrusion has clearly taken a toll: windows are boarded, “no photo” signs are pervasive, and tenants quickly vanish at the sight of a foreign face.

Through the use of social media, travel platforms like Tastemakers Africa, Everyday Africa, Hip Africa, Visiter L’Afrique and others are giving African travel and tourism a fresh and youthful injection by reimagining the possibilities of African travel for Africans, the African diaspora, and international tourists keen to do something other than seeing the “Big Five” on a game reserve truck or buying rugs in Morocco.

As the trend of decreasing visitors from mainland China will likely continue, the Taiwan government is taking steps to increase tourism from other areas, including Japan, Korea, and South and Southeast Asian markets.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, there’s a good bet that three days of colourful cultural overload may have gone a long way to initiating dialogue and building bridges between B.C.’s First Nation communities and the rest of the province.

Austrians do not know enough about Romania, and creating a country brand is "a challenge," Austrian Ambassador in Bucharest Gerhard Reiweger stated on Wednesday, at the Youth's Perspective on Romania's Public Diplomacy within the EU" event. [...] "The image of a country's economy is part of the global perception. If Austria is perceived only in cultural or tourism terms, it means that we have to work on our image from the economic involvement point of view. It is the same for Romania.