Berlin - Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach first comes to mind when people envision Brazil or perhaps the sprawling favelas around the big cities.

The world's fifth largest country, regularly criticized for doing too little to stop deforestation, has hardly stood out as a leader in ecotourism.

But that's about to change, said Marcelo Pedroso, director of the Brazilian tourism board Embratur. Speaking at this month's ITB international travel trade show in Berlin, Pedroso said, "We want to promote ecotourism more."

Berlin - More than 3 million people visited Israel last year, an increase of 32 per cent over 2007, according to Israeli Tourism Minister Ruhama Avraham-Balila. The number exceeded that of 2000.

Speaking at this month's ITB international travel trade show in Berlin, Avraham-Balila told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the global economic crisis would likely impact tourism in 2009, however. Though the number of tourists visiting Israel had been expected to rise to 5 million by 2012, she said, that mark would probably not be reached until
2015.

Berlin - The African nations of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are working on plans to a introduce a joint tourist visa system.

The "Unity Visa" is due to come into operation in 2010, according to Kenya's Tourism Minister, Najib Balala, speaking at the ITB tourist trade fair in Berlin.

Balala says interest has grown among the three countries, who belong to the intergovernmental organization, the East African Community, in creating a cross-border tourist market.

Taipei - Taiwan will launch the "One Dollar First Night" campaign to lure transfer air passengers to spend at least one night in Taipei, an official said Monday.

The Tourism Bureau said it will launch the promotion campaign in May because each year 2 million foreigners pass through Taiwan airports without visiting the island.

Bangkok - Bangkok's status as an aviation hub for South-east Asia has suffered significantly from the closure of its two airports by protestors last year, with air capacity down 30 per cent, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has revealed.

Havana - Cuba is investing in additional hotels in the hope of increased tourist numbers.

"We're adding to our hotel capacity, by about 3,000 rooms," Deputy Tourism Minister Maria Elena Lopez Reyes told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

In 2008, the number of foreign visitors rose to 2.25 million from 2.152 million. Although there was an overall drop in European visitors, the decline was offset by more visitors from Canada, Latin America and Russia.