Holiday on a plate Some of England's most renowned chefs are speaking up about the delights of the country's food and drink in a culinary campaign aimed at foreign visitors. Government tourism office VisitBritain is behind the year-long TasteEngland initiative, which aims to convince sceptical would-be guests of the attractions of taking a break in England based on a profusion of high-quality food and drink. The past decade has seen a quiet revolution in the quality and variety of English food and drink, VisitBritain says. Past perceptions have given way to a revival of traditional fare and new and improved recipes and menus. England is at last, it seems, the home of world-class restaurants, eateries and gastro-pubs. 'Research indicates that half of England's visitors rate the quality of food and drink as playing an important part of their holiday,' says marketing director Michael Bedingfield. TasteEngland highlights the best English produce across nine regions, each of which is endorsed by a celebrity chef proving just how versatile dishes such as Lancashire hotpot, Yorkshire pudding and Norfolk duck can be. Kings of the kitchen who have signed up include Gary Rhodes (South East), Albert Roux (Northumbria), Rick Stein (South West) and Brian Turner (London). Court circular The mainland's hutongs may be no match for its bulldozers, but the Marriott hotel group is restoring some sort of balance by building its sixth courtyard property in China. The moderately priced, 247-room Courtyard Nanchang will open in 2006, having sprouted from the sort of office building and residential cluster now all the rage in mainland cities. Fixing its sights on the conference crowd, the hotel, joining sister courtyard properties in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Shunde and Wuxi, will feature a host of function and meeting rooms, an executive floor and lounge, a business centre with boardroom and four private dining rooms. Nanchang, an industrial city, is the capital of Jiangxi province and serves as the main arrival and departure point for visitors to Jingdezhen, noted for its porcelain production. European union An Air China flight recently left Beijing for Paris. On board was a group of 50 Chinese tourists, heralding Europe's entry into the battle for the mainland's outbound market. Chinese nationals can now join group tours to 29 European countries without applying for special permission to travel. European tourism offices are so eager to attract the China market that some are teaming up to maximise their guests' length of stay: the tourism boards of France, Germany, Finland and Switzerland are making a co-operative effort to create special tour packages. Nor is Europe alone in licking its lips at the prospect of a new revenue stream. After the China-US aviation agreement in July, weekly flights between the two may soon increase from 54 to 249. 'Asia-Pacific countries can't afford to assume that Chinese tourists will travel close to home,' says Pacific Asia Travel Association spokesman John Koldowski. Last year, more than 18.2 million mainlanders visited Asia-Pacific destinations - almost 16 per cent more than the year before. Most of those travellers came to Hong Kong or went to Macau. And travel from mainland airports recently lost a layer of red tape when departure tax was added to the price of tickets. Previously, the departure tax - euphemistically referred to as an airport construction fee - was paid separately within airports, shredding the nerves of travellers queueing at payment booths as their departure times neared. Airlines are now responsible for collecting the fees, which are 90 yuan for international flights and 50 yuan for domestic trips. One for all Some of the world's most frequent fliers have again named oneworld the finest airline federation. Readers of Business Traveller magazine slung the best airline alliance gong around the collective oneworld neck for the second time in the three years the award has been bestowed. From the recent World Travel Awards, based on votes cast by 80,000 travel-industry representatives from more than 200 countries, oneworld emerged with the title world's leading airline alliance. And this year's Airline Strategy Awards, run by Airline Business magazine, saw four of the six honours go to oneworld carriers. But in what amounts to only a three-horse race, with Star Alliance and SkyTeam the other runners, does anybody care about a blizzard of awards rivalled in number by the entertainment world only? Or do loyalty programmes and air miles obscure the charms of rival operators? Send travel news items to stephen.mccarty@scmp.com
