In response to the booming demands from the passengers in the route, Gulf Air has added up yet another flight to connect Abu Dhabi and Bahrain.

The additional service was launched on 1st April. Adding up with the three daily flights operated at present, Gulf Air, the national carrier of Bahrain will offer the fourth flight, GF545/546. The said flight will be available four times a week flying between Abu Dhabi and Bahrain on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Gulf Air Regional General Manager Sales, Mahfood Al Harthy remarked, "Our frequency increase between Abu Dhabi and Bahrain was in response to the growing passenger demand and the potential of the vast UAE market. We have slotted this fourth frequency in such a way to provide better connectivity with minimum waiting time for our customers travelling to Trivandrum, Chennai, Kochi, Bangalore, Dhaka and Far East destinations, i.e., Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Bangkok, via Bahrain. It will be welcome choice for those making their summer travel plans."

Book by 31st December and grab the opportunity to fly at a cheaper price. Emirates is offering a number of cheaper price flights to destinations around the globe. For travel between 1st January, 2008 and 12th March, 2008, the airline is offering the following discounted flights.

From Birmingham to: Dubai from £376; Bangkok at a price starting from just £525; Beijing at a price starting from just £423 and Johannesburg at a price starting from just £493.

From London Heathrow to: Dubai at a price starting from just £379; Bangkok at a price starting from just £528 and Kuala Lumpur at a price starting from just £494.

Worldwide flights have been discounted by Emirates from a number of airports in the UK. Book before 30th November and travel is valid between 16th April and 30th June, 2008.

From Heathrow, book a flight to: Auckland at a price starting from £736, Brisbane at a price starting from £713, Melbourne at a price starting from £709, Perth at a price starting from £664 and Sydney at a price starting from £717.

From Manchester, book flights to: Auckland at a price starting from £731, Brisbane at a price starting from £708, Melbourne at a price starting from £704, Perth at a price starting from £660 and Sydney at a price starting from £712.

Today, the largest inflatable rugby ball of the world joins the Eiffel Tower, one of the world's famous landmarks in Paris, France. 25 metres long and 12 metres high, the New Zealand's rugby Ball was officially unveiled this morning at le Champ de Mars during sunrise at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. 

As a kick off to New Zealand's Rugby World Cup 2011 campaign, Helen Clark, the Prime Minister officially declared the opening of the giant rugby Ball. The other officials who attended the event included Sarah Dennis, New Zealand Ambassador in France, Paris Deputy Mayor, Mr Pascal Cherki, and Michel Dumont, Mayor of the 7th Arondissement. Some of the notable international media contingent that covered the event included TF1, TV5 Monde, APT, Phoenix Satellite TV France, Reuters, France Inter and RTL radio, over eight papers and magazines, AFP, online media, and European Press Society.

Expressing his delight over the event of official opening, George Hickton, Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive remarked, "This has given us the opportunity to profile 100% Pure New Zealand, the second most well known New Zealand brand after the All Blacks, in a key international environment. We want to tell international rugby fans that a trip to RWC 2011 is a trip to rugby heaven. And to show that as well as rugby they will have a unique tourism experience no matter where they, or their team, are staying and playing throughout New Zealand."

It could take only five hours travelling by train from Carlisle to Paris after the opening of a new rail terminal in London later this year.

London terminal will be switched overnight on November 13 to Eurostar from Waterloo, beginning its services from the new St Pancras station the following morning.

High speed 1 will reduce the fastest journey time from London on the train to just two hours 15 minutes to Paris, under two hours to Brussels and one hour 20 minutes to Lille. Passengers from France and Belgium will also avail benefit of the new high speed service to travel.

France may be ranked as the top most tourist destination in the world, but this summer, the passengers arriving in Paris will have to go through an obstacle before they could enjoy their wine and food-the airport!

According to the International Air Transport Association, the services provided by Aeroports de Paris, which is running Charles de Gaulle along with other airports across the French capital, are the worst of anywhere in the world.

Talking to The Associated Press, IATA Director Anthony Concil said, "Airports range from very good -- Singapore for example-to the very bad and Paris unfortunately comes in at the bottom end of the spectrum".

Europe's leading low-cost carrier, EasyJet, has made an announcement today that it would start flights from Glasgow International Airport to Paris Charles De Gaulle.

The new service will be offered daily and will begin from 29 October. The fares will start from just £21.99 one way including all the taxes.

Nearly 2 million passengers have been carried by the airline during the last year from its Glasgow baser, and the airline is expecting that it would carry almost 100,000 passengers on its new route in a year's time after the commencement of its operations.

The newly married Sezaki couple is one of an increasing number of Japanese flocking to the French capitals and many other European destinations for whirlwind weddings.

In Japan, the wedding tourism is a booming business. Watabe is the largest agency with around £140 million turnover this year, which is quite remarkable given the fact that people love to cut their wedding costs and save for future spending, now-a-days.

Starting with flights, the agencies are providing everything including chauffeured limousines, bouquets and dresses.

The free bike scheme "VÉLIB", launched by Paris city council, has got off to a winning start. Just four hours after the initiation of the scheme, 10,000 bicycles stationed at 750 stations had been used more than 15,000 times.

Denis Baupon, a city official responsible for transport said, "It was a fantastic success that went beyond what he had hoped for".

The name of the scheme 'Vélib' is a combination of two worlds: vél for vélo or bicycle, and lib for liberté, freedom. It is the brainchild of Bertrand Delanoe, mayor of the French capital.

Along with Rome and New York, Paris is the world's number one city for tourists, with 16.3 million tourists in the previous year in which 9.7 million were from overseas. It's amazing that hotels, hostels and rental apartments in the city are occupied throughout the year.

Paris Tourism Office says that the number of the visitors will go up to 20 million by 2020. With Sydney and London, Paris was just polled as the third most beautiful city in the world, with a long and a different history, popular buildings and sites in the world. Besides the Eiffel tower, there is the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre.

12 to 20 percent of the jobs in the Parisian economy depend on tourism.

In order to business with global audiences and to showcase New Zealand, a huge Rugby Ball venue is to be build facing the Eiffel Tower over the last stages of the Rugby World Cup by the New Zealand. A frame of about 12 metre high and 25 metre long will stick on the Champs de Mars nearby Eiffel Tower for three weeks from the starting of October.

Housed in an expansive frame, 220 persons will be held by the venue. With the cost of $4.6 million to frame and conduct, three days will be utilized to build it. In comparison to the 6.7 million visitors at the Eiffel Tower the previous year, around 40,000 persons are assumed to adventure a "virtual" New Zealand.

Helen Clark, the Prime Minister says that it's an aggressive and revolutionary act by a small country, to make out a great image.

French capital Paris, the number one tourist destination around the world and a city liked by Arab national travelers, is expecting a strong number of travellers from the Middle East region for FranceÂ's Bastille Day on the 14th of July.

While taking part in the celebrations the visitors from Middle East can experience the ultimate luxury holiday at the award-winning Park Hyatt Paris—Vendome.

According to UNTWOÂ's Â"World Tourism Barometer,Â" France has held the number one tourist destination for over a decade, recording almost 80 million arrivals in 2006.

A new flight service from Brighton City Airport Shoreham to Paris is set to start next month. The new air service will be offered twice a day and it is believed that the passengers will be greatly delighted by this new service.

A nine-seater Piper Navajo aircraft will be used by SkySouth to operate its flights from the south coast airport to Paris Pontoise-Cormeilles Airport between August 1st and October 27th.

The flights will be operational from Monday to Friday. The first flight will leave Shoreham at 8 am arriving in Paris. While the second flight will take off from Shoreham at 3.30 pm touching the ground in Paris at 10.10 am and 5.40 pm.

The department of parks and recreation in Paris will present Moore Park Summer Entertainment Series—its Concerts in the Park—beginning on Wednesday, July 11th. Rick Adam, children's entertainer will be the first to perform at 10 a.m.; following which will be the performance of musicians Lady Luck Duo, at 6 p.m.

The events will take lace in the gazebo at Moore Park. However, the concert will be shifted to the Paris Fire Hall on Western Avenue, if rains interrupt the performance.

There are no admission charges for the concerts. People coming to the concert are encouraged to bring a lawn chair or blanket with them. Also, the guests are welcome to pack a picnic. This is truly a great way to attract visitors to the park and make them feel easy while enjoying the concert also.

Although their city is the worldÂ's number one tourist destination, yet Parisians sometimes appear completely dissatisfied about it.

City officials, on Monday, set out to change it via recommending the cab drivers to smile and asking waiters to try out their English. Tips like Â"try out French productsÂ" instead of searching friendly service, were also given to tourists.

The director of the Paris Tourism Office, Paul Roll acknowledged that the city has a Â"rather unfriendlyÂ" image but defended his colleagues.

Paris is working hard on to reduce the number of automobiles, noise and pollution. This is being achieved by encouraging the use of bicycles. Â"The Bicycle RevolutionÂ" is the name given to it by L'Express magazine: "La Revolution du Velo". The official name of the drive is "Velib".

The rows of iron stanchions are being planted every 300 yards or so along the curbs of the city—their use will begin after the celebration of the Bastille Day.

The workers involved are doing their best in getting the things ready before the day of starting arrives—the stations are equipped where credit cards and city-issued pieces of negotiable plastic can be used. If you would like to go for numbers, you will find 750 stations in total with 15 to 40 high-tech stanchions, and 10,000 bikes for rent in each one of them, at the start of the program. The number is going to increase by the end of year and it could reach up to 1,451 stations and 20,600 bikes.

Trains are now the preferred carriers of many passengers, who are concerned about the latest threats on airports. The choice is also propelled due to the increased security measures adopted by airports in UK. Passengers to Europe are selecting trains and avoiding air travel, as security experts predicted a tough season for air travel in the whole of UK. This prediction came in wake of attacks on Glasgow airport that has caused much security concerns.

This week, Europe's six major rail companies joined forces with Eurostar to form Railteam. This Railteam allows British travellers to travel to 100 destinations across Europe on one ticket, and is believed to be more secure, having lesser security checks, and offering undisrupted service. The rail companies forming part of Railteam are looking to attract around 25 million passengers annually by 2012, which will mean an increase of 10 million in five years.

Richard Brown, Eurostar chief executive said, "Eurostar is already seeing British travellers moving to rail from air because of their concerns about climate change and recent problems at British airports.Â" "We see Railteam as a further catalyst for change. For the first time ever we can now promote and sell Europe's high-speed rail network as an integrated whole", he added.

British Airways got an approval from the US department of transportation to operate flights from anywhere in the EU to the country. However, the flights will start flying from March next year—after the open skies pact comes into force to its full extent.

According to Business Travel News Online, the approval will be used to establishing direct business-class-only flights flying to destinations such as New York from major cities including Frankfurt, Milan and Paris. This will establish a strong missing link from European cities to US cities, and travellers can have more choice in schedule and flight services. Very recently, due to some technical problem, a flight from Liverpool airport to New York was cancelled, though Liverpool airport authorities are saying that would restore the flights shortly. In such situation, new flights from various cities of Europe would fill the much-felt drought of flights.

Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways told the BritishAmerican Business forum in New York last week that they are looking extremely seriously at the launch of new services from the US to major business centres in continental Europe.