MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Media boost for Falklands tourism.

Falkland Islands tourism has had a double boost of positive publicity on the BBC Holiday programme watched by millions of viewers and in the London Times Travel Supplement read by hundreds of thousands.

The BBC programme led with attractive scenes of the Falklands in beautiful sunshine and the presenter Craig Doyle standing on the famous mileage sign showing how many thousands of miles many towns and cities are from Stanley.

Stressing how patriotically British Islanders are, the pictures showed union flags on Stanley houses, and the 1982 war memorial. Against a background of nineteenth century wrecks, an interview with Museum curator John Smith explained how the Falkland Islands Company used damaged vessels as warehouses for up to a hundred years.

The bedroom of the luxury Malvina Hotel was shown, and an interview with Tourism Director John Fowler highlighted how the Falklands now benefits from modern communications.

Wonderful wildlife and food

Flying on the internal airline, with the local broadcasting station listing the names of passengers, Craig Doyle visited Port Howard Tourist Lodge and sampled Hattie Lee's fabled cooking.

Praising what he called the wonderful wildlife, he mingled with the penguins and showed close-up shots of the elephant seal colony on Sea Lion Island. There were also pictures of a farming couple and their sheep.

The programme was photographed throughout in brilliant sunny weather and blue skies, in happy contrast to the winter war of 1982.

The programme gave details and costs of holidays travelling by RAF aircraft from Britain or commercial airlines via Chile. The programme is also featured on the BBC holiday website.

"Friendly Falkland's invasion"

The London Times Travel Supplement featured the Falklands on its front page under the headline "A friendly Falklands invasion". Travel writer Gavin Bell described how pleasantly surprised he was when he landed from a cruise ship on Carcass Island to be greeted by friendly farmer, Rob McGill.

"On Rob's farm", he writes, "all is quiet among the hills and grasslands that are a haven for wildlife. Which is why it has become an unlikely tourist destination, on the itinerary of a growing fleet of cruise ships on South American runs, or en route to South Georgia and Antarctica. They are disgorging 40,000 tourists a year on shore excursions at Stanley".

Instead of bleak landscapes, horrible weath