A roundup of this week's travel news in brief
Call to scrap travel tax
The Irish Tourist Industry Confederation has called on the Government to scrap the €10 departure tax to help boost tourism. It follows the release of figures that showed a 15 per cent drop in overseas visits in June compared with last year. The confederation’s chief executive, Eamonn McKeon, said the Government could also help reverse the trend by not going ahead with a reduction in overseas marketing proposed in the McCarthy report and by improving credit facilities available for businesses.
McKeon said the Government’s failure to act would “indefinitely delay recovery”.
Aer Lingus route boost
Civil servants in Northern Ireland will use Aer Lingus to fly between Belfast and London for the next two years. The airline said it had been awarded sole-carrier status on the route after a tender process with the Northern Ireland Civil Service. The contract is worth almost €600,000 a year to the airline, which launched its Belfast- Heathrow service last year.
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The age at which Russian prime minister VladimirPutin invited photographers to snap him in a variety of bare-chested poses on holiday in Siberia, attracting a new generation of admirers