For many of us September means the end of summer holidays to Ibiza or family trips to Utah and back to the grindstone of work and school.  Although the summer months for most are over, the celebrations certainly are not.  For the 30^th year running, the world’s tourism community will celebrate World Tourism Day on September 27^th.

Since 1980, the United Nations World Tourism Organization has celebrated World Tourism Day.  The purpose of this event is to raise awareness on the role of tourism within the international community and to demonstrate how it affects social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide.

This year the festivities will commemorate in the vibrant country of Ghana with the theme, ‘Tourism - Celebrating Diversity.’ The overarching tone will be to emphasize the importance of the world’s cultural wealth and the role of sustainable tourism.

Coinciding with World Tourism Day, South Africa takes the entire month of September to celebrate and honor the travel and tourism industry. This year, in anticipation of much travel traffic for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Cape Town is getting prepared.  Through its ‘Live It! Love It! Louder!’ campaign, Capetonians are getting ready to welcome the world in 2010.  Check out the Tourism Month’s Celebrate Diversity news in this article highlighting Cape Town.

.travel in turn is celebrating this month by unveiling its Fall Trade Show schedule as well as a special surprise after the Labor Day Weekend. **Hint: a NEW home page look featuring a NEW .travel video.

What you are doing to celebrate the World of Tourism this month?

Operating in beautiful Cape Town for over twelve years, Icon Villas specializes in private and luxurious vacation rentals in and around South Africa’s number one tourist city. Started and headed up by Therese Botha, Icon Villas entertains guests with tailor-made itineraries as private or as fun-filled as a guest prefers. Recently selected as Conde Nast Traveler’s only accredited Villa specialist in South Africa, Icon Villas provides a way for travelers to enjoy Cape Town’s relaxing ambiance and bring its nickname of “Tavern of the Sea” to life.

To keep Icon Villas at the forefront of digital innovation and in tune with the new generation of the Internet, Icon Villas decided to launch a new website with IconVillas.travel. With the new domain name and site, along came heightened online exposure and more interactivity such as Google Maps integration and guest reviews per property.

When asked about Icon Villas’ decision to launch its web site with .travel Francois Botha, marketing director of IconVillas.travel commented, “We believe that grouping companies within a functional domain category such as .travel is definitely the way of the future. With IconVillas.travel, we expect to see close to 100,000 site visits within the year. It is with this new website that we are paving the way for international roll-out.”

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