Travel Bug

Vanuatu tourism and travel newsletter • Issue 57 • November 2009

Bill Bauer visits airport named after his father

Noumea Surf Tour 2009 in Vanuatu

Back in August this year, the Noumea Surf Association went in search of waterfront accommodation, close to the best surf spots around the island of Efate. They found Pango Point peninsula. Working alongside travel colleagues in Noumea, Eden Tours, Paradise Cove Resort successfully won a competitive pitch for a group of some 24 keen & eager young (and not so young) surfers. The objective - to stage the first Pacific Island surf tour of its kind. Noumea verses Vanuatu youth surfers. Sponsored by Roxy-Quicksilver-Aircalin, organisers selected waterfront Paradise Cove Resort due to its boutique, rustic ‘funky’ nature, close to the surf spots of Pango Peninsula and access to Port Vila & the international airport.

The resort’s ‘Nakamal Restaurant’ catered for the teams with special buffets, ‘pasta parties’, beach BBQs, special Happy Hour Cocktails and more. These youngsters will be the surf stars of the future. An ISO international judge was flown in from Australia to direct proceedings. The Vanuatu Surf Association hosted the event each day and the competition was fierce between the two island nations. In the end, Vanuatu ‘pipped’ Noumea at the post by a small points margin. The event was covered by Vanuatu Television and it’s hoped that a repeat tour next year will attract overseas media coverage. (Source: Vanuatu Island Nius)

International media visits Port Vila

This week, inline with the many exciting activities in Port Vila from the National Arts Festival and the Fest Napuan Music Festival, the Vanuatu Tourism Office is also hosting several media travel writers and an upcoming TV crew from Germany. These media delegates consist of free lance travel writers who write features for major metro newspapers all around Australia including The Courier Mail, Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun.  Coming from New Zealand is Islandtimes Magazine to do a story on - "Eating out in Vanuatu" – which will be going out to every travel agent in NZ as well as extra copy prints given out at Travel Shows in New Zealand. (Source: Vanuatu Island Nius)

Vanuatu Tourism fan page on FaceBook

There was a good cause for Mr Danish Syed, owner of Aquamarine (a dive centre in Santo), an expert in digital marketing in the area of global tourism and the diving industry, to visit the VTO in the beginning of this month. His visit paved way to a new Vanuatu Tourism fan page on Facebook, which Danish has published after teaming up with the VTO website officer, who sent content material for the webpage. The aim is to expose Vanuatu to one of today’s largest social network on the Internet called Facebook, which was founded in 2004 and it gives people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.

Over 300 million experiences have been shared on Facebook, and this provides an excellent opportunity for Vanuatu tourism to capture a wide audience and create an impact. Since the Vanuatu Tourism page has been activated online on Wednesday 28th October, many fans have already connected which have recorded over 250 members in less than 24hours. These are people on Facebook, who have heard of Vanuatu but want to know more about the destination, plus tourists who have been to Vanuatu, enjoyed their holiday, and signed up to become fans. Visit the page here www.facebook.com/VanuatuIslands . The VTO would like to thank Danish Syed for his support to Vanuatu Tourism, and we look forward to maintaining this relationship on marketing Vanuatu islands further abroad.

Vanuatu Marlin Classic Dates 2010

The Vanuatu Marlin Classic will be held from the 23rd – 29th May 2010. With a bigger and better format, next year’s tournament is sure to be huge. There is plenty of cash and prizes up for grabs and if this years tournament was anything to go by, we are sure that there will be some great fishing to be had. If you are keen to come over and fish the tournament, you better book a boat as places are filling fast! Contact Crusoe Fishing on phone 77 45490 or 22439. Email crusoe@vanuatu.com.vu (Source: VTO Island Nius)

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