China Eastern Airlines has recently announced that its 5 weekly, non-stop Rome-Shangai flights will become daily from next July – that meaning 7 flights a week.

With this new offer, the Shangai-based Chinese company (operating in collaboration with Alitalia through a code-sharing agreement) completes the existing one, consisting in 5 weekly flights between Milan Malpensa and Beijing.

“Code-sharing enables passengers to use the services of both our company and the Italian one, in order to shape smarter routes, thanks to our two Chinese stopovers”, said Katsuya Nakanishi, Sales Assistant Director for Italy at China Eastern.

But connections between Italy and the new markets are constantly growing even on other routes, as demonstrated by Qatar Airways, that has recently strengthened its presence on the  route to Malpensa. The Middle-Eastern company has announced an increase in flights on the lla Milan-Doha route, in order to provide its customers with greater choice and flexibility.

The connection will be twice a day, thus offering more opportunities from the Doha hub towards other destinations, as Qatar aims at being the springboard towards new routes to Middle East, Africa and Asia.

In facts, at the end of May Qatar Airways will present its new flights to the Erbil, Iran airport, while Baghdad (Iraq) will follow in June. A flight to Kilimangiaro (Tanzania) will be launched on July, 25, and one to Mombasa (Kenya) on August, 15,2012 – with Zanzibar to follow close.

 Copenhagen bets it all on social networks, and launches a new on-line guide. Created by  VisitDenmark, in collaboraton with Wonderful Copenhagen, the platform is called My Copenhagen and provides information and suggestions by the maximum experts of the Danish capital.

The initiative can count on several collaborators, whose contribution aims at unveiling hidden corners, unknown features and places and secret addresses of the Mermaid’s city. A virtual tour that should anticipate a real-life one, and that begins on Facebook, where to read, listen to and watch the stories of common people and famous protagonists of the Danish capital, each one with their own key to discover the city.

Moreover, VisitDenmark has also established special promotions for the launch of the My Copenhagen guide, including a discount hotel voucher and a free Copenhagen Card coupon.

The competition between Trenitalia and the newborn Ntv – Nuovi Trasporti Viaggiatori – is quite an unusual one in the Italian railway transport’s scenario. That said, the new player doesn’t seem to worry Maurizio Del Santoro (Corporate and Trade Sales Responsible at Trenitalia’s Passengers Division) a lot. “It’ll be a fair challenge” says the manager, “the right competitiveness will surely result in  general improvement of both the service and the system on the whole”.

Among Trenitalia’s winning cards, the huge quantity of connections seems to be the ace up the company’s sleeve: “On the Turin-Milan-Bologna-Rome route, we have 80 trains a day”. And as per travel agents, “we recently signed an agreement for a close-to-the-market commercial system. Plus, we’re currently working on a de-bureaucratization process in order to ease the agents’ work”.

As for rates, Trenitalia is refining its commercial program, following the example of  the dynamic pricing used by airlines. These new rates system should respond to a greater number of requests and market segments.

For what concerns the product, Trenitalia’s Frecce will keep on being the company’s flagship:  “We’re concentrating on a new Freccia Rossa with 4 travel classes at the moment” says Del Santoro.

Well, it seems that  the challenge has begun. Let’s just hope that the travellers’ interest will be the real winner.

The Scandinavian operators came to Veneto on a mission: that of promoting the place as a great  golf tourism destination.

The Veneto Region has recently decided to promote this particular sector through a partnership with Brussels Airlines and the Swedish Tourism Board – through this initiative, five Scandinavian operators are currently visiting the above mentioned Italian area.

Swede, Denmark and Norway have great skills in this kind of promotional activities, and seem to be the best partners to match the Veneto Region’s aim at launching the “golf product” on the international market – thanks also to specific activities to take place in Scandinavia in the forthcoming month of June.

This original choice comes from a survey commissioned to the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice by the Marca Treviso association, showing how the Scandinavian market is the most promising one for the Italian region. Numbers talk of about 1 million players for an area that aims at welcoming 15,000 of them, for an average stay of 7 nights and a daily 200 euros-average expense, with a yearly potential of about 20 million euros.

Umbria bets it all on web and green tourism. A hard choice? More properly, it just seems a good start for one of the key Italian tourist excellences.

The initiative comes from an agreement between the italian Tourism Minstry and the Umbria Region government that took place on March, 29, 2012. As Fabrizio Bracco – the regional Councillor for Tourism – explained, the two subjects aim at innovating the local tourism offer, in order to conquer greater visibility on the international market. While the web is a key factor in communicating on a worldwide level, sustainable tourism can shorten the distance from similar international realities.

Both the projects are set to last three years, and will be given funds for approximately 1.5 million euros each. The web will be the main medium to communicate the new tourism marketing plan, including the brand new portal, to attract the maximum number of web users.

On the other hand, the “green” project points at redefining the right mix between active tourism and low environmental impact, preventing the general offer from losing quality, and rather presenting such an activity as a disticntive marketing feature. In short, it means to manage existing routes – such as trekking, biking and water ones – under a new, highly sustainable perspective.

The appointment of Guimaraes as the European Capital of Culture in 2012, and the recent admission of fado – the Portuguese musical form par excellence – among the Unesco’s heritage, are surely to attract attention on the Iberian country. Therefore, Portugal is getting ready for a year of high international visibility, with lots of spot-on, massive events to take place during the forthcoming months.

Alexandra Rebelo, Director of the Portuguese Tourism Board in Italy, has the ambition of fostering Portugal’s rich tourist offer. The country’s diverse attractions are key factors in promoting its modern image from the cultural, landscape, architectural and gastronomical point of view – in order to make it an appealing destination for the Italian market.

More of the same when it gets to the MICE sector: an Attraction Fund for great international congresses and meetings will be functioning until the end of the current year. A tool enabling the tourist areas to be highly comptetitive, in order to attract important events and to improve the tourist flows during the low and middle season.

The Historical Museum of Palatinate in Speyer, Germany, will host over 300 pieces form the Egyptian Museum of  Turin at the exhbition “Egypt – Discovered Treasures. Masterpieces from the Egyptian Museum of  Turin”, open until the end of September, 2012.

The Turinese collection, the second in the world in terms of importance after the one in Cairo, represents the strong, centuries-old connection between the Italian city and the Egyptian world.  A connection – primarily based on a key research  activity – that will be extensively promoted in this occasion. The most interesting feature of the exhibition is its double focus: on one hand, objects and finds from the Egyptian art and culture, on the other the historiographical point of view, presented through the figure of Bernardino Drovetti, a famous egyptologist, and through the events which led to the birth of the Turinese museum.

Besides the above mentioned exhibition, the Speyer Museum has also decided to realize a side-event especially dedicated to younger visitors, aiming at capturing their attention thanks to interactive media and to meetings, workshops for teachers and evening events, with the intent of fostering both the Turinese artistic heritage and the city’s tourist offer in the German area.

Problem: how to escape from the maze of NY streets, among cabs, huge shopping windows and alleys, in order to reach your office or a place where to dine? Don’t worry: from today on, moving around New York City will be easier: the brand new Nyc Maps iPhone app by Nyc & Company (in collaboration with CityMaps) is available for free download on iTunes.

Technology gets into the habits of those who live in the Big Apple, allowing them not only to visualize the digital map of the city’s five boroughs, but also to find over 90,000 among hotels, restaurants, shops, bars and venues.

“A precious tool for tourists and newyorkers, the app is also an interesting digital window for all those activities demanding the opportunity of an easier localization”, says George Fertitta, CEO at Nyc & Company. And we’re not talking about visualization only: the app allows its users to book at various restaurants thanks to Open Table, but also to buy movie or theatre tickets, as well as to find metro stations and parking lots.

According to Ciset, the International Centre for Tourist Economics Studies, 2012 could be a positive year for Italy, in terms of both tourist expenditure (+2,5%) and arrivals (+3/4%).

Reportedly, the postive trend will keep on during the rest of this year, too, after the good results of the national tourist balance in 2011, reaching 10.308 million euros, with a good increase in comparison with 2010′s 8.841 million euros.

The main contribution comes from international tourists, whose total expenditure registered a  5,6% increase (from 29.253 million euros in 2010 to 30.891 million euros in 2011).

At the same time, it seems that the Italian tourists’ expenditure on foreign markets has come to a stop, since it more or less confirmed the figures of the previous year, with 20.583 million euros.

According to the survey, the greatest increase in percentage between 2010 and 2011 came from Southern Italy and from the Italian islands (+6,2%), followed by Central Italy (+5,7%), Northwestern Italy (+4,9%) and Northeastern Italy (+4,4%).

As for the rest, Rome is the true Capital of  foreign tourists’ expenditure in our country (5.255 million euros, +4,8%), followed by Milan (2.823 million, +3,%), Venice (2.619 million,  13,4%) and Florence (1.965 million, +7%).

As per the foreign tourist’s country of origin, the analysis confirms Germany at the first place, at least for what concerns the total amount – in million euors – of the expenditure in Italy, but good performances also came from The Netherlands (+18%), United States (+12,1%), France  (+5,2%) and the United Kingdom (+3,9%).

Sheldon Adelson is the American tycoon who has decded to invest on the new European Las Vegas: actually, he’s already the owner of the Las Vegas Sands, managing csinos and resorts in Singapore and Macau. The highly ambitious project will be soon discussed with the most important authorities of Barcelona and Madrid: Adelson’s vision includes 12 hotels and 6 casinos, as well as the creation of 250.000 working positions and a general, highly positive effect on the whole Spanish economy.

In ten-years’ time, Adelson would invest about 15 billion dollars on the project: but only concessions by the Iberian government would allow him to turn the region into the European capital of gambling.