It sounds like the slacker's version of a religious pilgrimage -- substituting a long, arduous trek to a holy site with an effortless stay-at-home digital version. But the Catholic Church welcomed the idea when Costa Rica's Minister of Health last year banned the country's famous, annual 228-year-old pilgrimage along with all other major public gatherings at the height of the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus.
The Saudi Arabian government has outlined plans to curb 'anarchy' in the media by amending its print and copyright laws.
Serbia and Greece are set to enter into an agreement that will see the nations promote one another to residents as possible travel destinations.
Polish authorities are investing €30m in a pan-European promotional drive to bolster the country's tourism industry. The campaign will run for almost three years, leading up to the European Football Championships, which the country is hosting with neighbours Ukraine in June 2012.
Following the collapse of Reader's Digest UK last month, around 100 potential buyers for the publisher have approached the administrators, which confirmed that around 25 of these have a "clear and credible interest" in purchasing. The administrators also confirmed that the April edition of the Reader's Digest will be published later this month, and that ad bookings are still being taken through to July.
Trinity Mirror reports that revenue was down 12% to £763.3m in 2009 and operating profit fell 30% to £101.2m. However, the figures were generally well-received thanks to the fact that the publisher achieved adjusted pre-tax profits of £72.7m, considerably more than the £62.6m widely expected.
Ofcom hinted yesterday that commercial TV companies, including ITV, should be freed of some of their most burdensome advertising restrictions.
At the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting Conference, Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, said:
We are looking to see if there are justifiable reasons to keep advertising restrictions. If there is not a public interest reason for keeping them, we will get rid of them.
Commercial channels are currently subject to rules which stipulate the total amount of advertising which can be broadcast in a 24-hour period, and per hour in peak time.
ITV yesterday announced a pre-tax profit of £25m for the year to the end of December 2009, marking a stark turnaround in fortunes (it made a £2.7bn loss in 2008). Interim chief exec John Cresswell credited ITV's cost-cutting drive and moves to improve the balance sheet, along with an upturn in the ad market, while chairman Archie Norman warned that there was a danger the imminent Budget could derail the nascent ad recovery.
Ad spend in Japan dropped 11.5% year-on-year to $64.9bn in 2009, according to figures from Dentsu. The results are attributed to the global recession and comes despite the positive effects of tax breaks for eco-friendly consumers and elections. It also represents the second consecutive fall after expenditure was down 4.7% in 2008.
Jordan's Tourism Ministry has confirmed that it is in discussions with the private sector to establish a Tourism Development Corporation. According to the Minister of Tourism Maha Khatib, the venture would develop services and improve the infrastructure in specific tourist areas, such as the Citadel, Salt, Umm Qais and desert castles in the Eastern Badia.
