European tourists could click on a brand-new portal

The European Travel Commission (ETC) has plans in the offing to open a new Internet portal in an effort to boost tourist advertisement of the Old World in the international market as a packaged destination. This will allow Europe to put up a decent fight to other competitive regions –like Asia and the Caribbean- that have long used this promotional strategy, ETC chairman German Porras said.

Speaking before the 2002 European Tourism Forum taking place in Brussels, Mr. Porras asserted time has come to launch out new initiatives to advertise European nations as a combined destination. In his opinion, this all-European Web site –backed up by the European Commission- will turn out to be “the continent’s most effective promotional tool as a tourist destination.”

Mr. Porras went on to say that despite Europe takes up 58 percent of tourism worldwide, a minimum amount of these travelers hail from markets other than European nations themselves. This certainly “paints a blurred image for the region, so we must act now.”